Pennsylvania Cavalcade [Reprint 2016 ed.] 9781512805307

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PENNSYLVANIA CAVALCADE

PENNSYLVANIA CAVALCADE Compiled by the Pennsylvania Writers' Project Work Projects Administration

A M E R I C A N G U I D E SERIES Illustrated

Co-sponsored by the PENNSYLVANIA FEDERATION O F HISTORICAL SOCIETIES

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS PHILADELPHIA 1942

Copyright 1942 UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA PRESS

Manufactured

in the United States of

America

•

LONDON HUMPHREY MILFORD OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

PENNSYLVANIA D E P A R T M E N T OF P U B L I C INSTRUCTION State-wide Sponsor of the Pennsylvania Writers' Project

FEDERAL WORKS AGENCY

J . M. Carmody,

Administrator

WORK PROJECTS ADMINISTRATION

Howard O. Hunter,

Commissioner

Florence Kerr, Assistant O. K. Yeager, Acting State

Commissioner Administrator

FOREWORD P E N N S Y L V A N I A is rich in history. Unfortunately, this has not resulted in the publication of many narratives designed for general reading. Our military history has been written very completely and fine contributions have been made by many individuals and organizations to other phases. Much of this, however, has been literally "over the head" of the average man. Today the popular interest in history is broadening. T h e public's appetite for well-written sketches concerned with interesting episodes and personalities has been whetted by the historical novel and the motion picture. There is a need for good history written with a view to satisfying the interest of the ordinary citizen reading for enjoyment as well as information. These works do not need to make weighty additions to existing knowledge concerning our State. They should seek to entertain and pleasantly instruct the reader in some of the more interesting or picturesque phases of our history. This is a need Pennsylvania Cavalcade is attempting to fill. T h e facts are essentially correct, though minor errors are to be expected in view of the breadth of material covered. It is full of new bits of information and sidelights on a variety of subjects. Its range demonstrates the varied resources of our State's history. Let us hope this book will encourage other similar ventures in exploring them. S. K . S T E V E N S , Secretary Pennsylvania Federation of Historical Societies

PREFACE Pennsylvania Cavalcade, one of a series of volumes dealing with the Commonwealth as a whole, is designed to tell the story of Pennsylvania in episodic highlights, giving the reader a sweeping picture of the State's growth and evolution from a primitive Delaware Valley settlement to the highly industrialized Commonwealth of today. T h e book is composed of a series of essays or sketches which emphasize those particular trends, aspects, or phases of endeavor which have left an indelible imprint upon the Commonwealth and, in lesser degree, upon the Nation itself. Pennsylvania Cavalcade, however, does not aspire to chronological completeness in the historic record, nor does it have pretensions as a definitive work. It is simply an exploration of history's mountain tops; the intervening valleys of exhaustive detail have been left to the chronicler. It has also been felt that a wide gap existed between history textbooks and the formal documented works produced by specialists in their respective fields. It is hoped that Pennsylvania Cavalcade will help in its small way toward bridging this gap. Material for this volume was compiled and written by past and present members of the Pennsylvania Writers' Project staff under the general direction of Grant M. Sassaman. T h e line drawings were done by the Pennsylvania Art Project, whose artists worked under the supervision of Michael Gallagher. Space limitations preclude listing the names of all of those who have contributed in the preparation of Pennsylvania Cavalcade and in the rechecking of its contents. Librarians throughout the State were helpful, while members of the various historical societies have given advice and assistance. Credit is especially due T h e Historical Society of Pennsylvania for copies of old photographs and prints herein rendered as line drawings, and to the Public Archives of Canada for some hitherto unpublished facts concerning raft-ships. vii

vili

PREFACE

While individual credit cannot be given to all persons and institutions deserving it, the Pennsylvania Writers' Project wishes to extend its thanks to the following consultants for their suggestions and for the reading of final manuscripts: William H. Allison Leland D. Baldwin Herbert H. Beck M. V. Brewington Daniel J. Dougherty W. F. Dunaway Paul H. Giddens Franklin F. Holbrook Bruce A. Hunt Walter Jack Amandus Johnson Joseph E. Johnson Gilbert S. Jones

John Scotzin Donald H. Kent Frank B. Sessa Philip S. Klein C . Hale Sipe O. P. Knauss Ernest G. Smith Frances S. Langfitt S. K. Stevens M. Atherton Leach W . F. Stevens Thomas A. Lemon O. R. Howard E. E. Lewis Samuel W . Marshall Thomson Frank W . Melvin C. W . Unger John F. Mentzer Florence A. Watts Francis R. Packard H. V. White G. E. Payne T . Kenneth Wood J. E. Reed J. E. Roberts J. K N O X M I L L I G A N , State Supervisor Pennsylvania Writers' Project Harrisburg, Pennsylvania January j, 1942

CONTENTS F O R E W O R D B Y S. K. STEVENS PREFACE B Y J .

V

KNOX MILLIGAN

vii

HISTORIC PLACES TINICUM:

PENNSYLVANIA'S

FIRST

WHITE

SETTLEMENT

SPANISH H I L L — T I O G A POINT PENNSBURY MANOR STENTON:

PENNSYLVANIA'S

3

I 7 2Q

"MONTICELLO"

F O R T NECESSITY T H E F O R T P I T T BLOCKHOUSE F O R T MIFFLIN ON T H E D E L A W A R E V A L L E Y FORGE PRESQUE ISLE PENINSULA WHEATLAND

39

52 68 96 I I I II9 130

HISTORIC HIGHLIGHTS T H E B A T T L E OF BUSHY RUN PHILADELPHIA'S Y E L L O W F E V E R EPIDEMIC

141 154

T H E W H I S K E Y INSURRECTION T H E HOT W A T E R R E B E L L I O N

168 182

T H E CHRISTIANA RIOT OIL COMES IN AT TITUS V I L L E T H E T H I R D DAY AT G E T T Y S B U R G

188 201 21 I

T H E FISHING C R E E K CONFEDERACY T H E JOHNSTOWN FLOODS T H E HOMESTEAD STRIKE

222 232 238

EXPERIMENTAL SETTLEMENTS T H E E P H R A T A CLOISTER

249

PARIS IN T H E WILDERNESS

259

ix

CONTENTS

χ G A L L I T Z I N ' S EXPERIMENT

271

T H E HARMONY SOCIETY C O L O N Y OF T H E S Y L V A N IA SOCIETY O L E BULL'S C O L O N Y GOD'S GREEN ACRES

279 29O 3OO 3II

TRANSPORTATION AMERICA'S FIRST P A V E D R O A D THE SCHUYLKILL CANAL K E E L B O A T D A Y S A T PITTSBURGH

319 327 338

TESTING T H E "STOURBRIDGE STEAM ON T H E RIVERS

349 356

LION"

RAFTING ON T H E SUSQUEHANNA THE ALLEGHENY PORTAGE RAILROAD T H E ERIE EXTENSION C A N A L

365 385 394

THE SUPERHIGHWAY

408

BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX

422 447

The jacket was designed by Henry S. Simes, assisted by Herbert both of the Pennsylvania Art Project Staff

Palmer,

HISTORIC PLACES

TINICUM: PENNSYLVANIA'S FIRST WHITE SETTLEMENT the curlew calls across the Delaware River marshes a few miles below Philadelphia, white men made their first permanent settlement in what is now Pennsylvania. T h e honor goes to the Swedes, and in lesser degree to the Finns, who pioneered here in 1643 on T i n i c u m Island, actually the mainland but insular by virtue of two forking creeks that form a crude triangle of waterbound shore. T h e term "island" is further accentuated by the presence off shore of a long, narrow sand bar, its reeds and marsh grass fighting a losing battle against the tide. T o the sightseer versed in the traditions of Pennsylvania's "templed hills" it comes as a shock to realize in what fragile soil the earliest settlers planted their colony, choosing a water-soaked basin almost within stone's throw of high, dry land. T h e reason is simple enough: the Swedes and Finns, and particularly the Dutch w h o preceded them to the valley of the Delaware, were skilled at the art of dike-making. It was natural, then, that the Swedes chose to drain and dike the bordering marshland rather than clear the forest beyond. T h e y even salvaged Little T i n i c u m Island out in the river and made it produce hay and potatoes. WHERE

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The Tinicum settlement, though it became the nerve-center of Swedish enterprise in the New World, had a late start. Its founding came as a result of New Sweden's northward expansion up the Delaware, and New Sweden itself did not come into existence until 1638, long after the Dutch and English had made their presence felt along the river's lower reaches. The Swedes, however, were the first to settle permanently in what is now Pennsylvania; they preceded William Penn's colonists by some sixty years. New Sweden was the colonizing venture of the New Sweden Company, organized to compete with the powerful Dutch West India Company that had founded New Netherland. Sweden long had wanted to gain a foothold in America, particularly because of the rich fur trade, but warfare on the European continent, lack of experienced leaders for an American expedition, and straitened financial circumstances prevented that country from fulfilling its dream of empire across the Atlantic. When an opportunity eventually presented itself for Swedes to join hands with the Dutch in planting a colony on the Delaware, it was quickly seized by Axel Gustafsson Oxenstjerna, regent for Queen Christina. Although Sweden's flag was to fly over the new colony, two of its most energetic promoters were Dutchmen: Samuel Blommaert and Peter Minuit. The former had long been associated with the Dutch West India Company as a director, and the latter had served as Director General of New Netherland from 1626 to 1631. Both of them had disagreed with the policies of the company and were eager to try their fortunes in a new venture. Minuit, who had returned to Holland in 1632, told Blommaert that the Dutch had settled on the eastern shore of the Delaware, but that little or no colonization had as yet begun on the western. He urged Blommaert to sound out his Swedish friends about the possibilities of promoting a new company and sending a joint expedition to the Delaware Valley; he offered to lead it. Blommaert forwarded Minuit's plan to Oxenstjerna, having for some time been trying to interest the Swedish regent in a New World trading venture. As a result of this contact, the New Sweden Company was organized in 1637 and sufficient funds were raised to finance an expedition under Minuit. T w o small ships, the Kalmar

TINICUM

5

Nyckel (Key of Kalmar), and Fogel Grip (Griffin), were fitted out; and they set sail for America under Captain Krober and Lieutenant Barben with a small group of Dutch and Swedes, twenty-six in all, including Minuit. T h e vessels entered Delaware Bay about the middle of March 1638 and anchored off a beautiful, thickly wooded arm of land which the adventurers, going ashore to stretch their legs, named Paradise Point. T h e spot where they landed was probably in the vicinity of what is now Lewes, Delaware. Later they made their way up the river to where a good-sized stream on the west side emptied its waters into the Delaware. The Dutch previously had named this stream Minquas Kill, but the Swedes now renamed it Christina Creek in honor of their Queen. They followed the waterway for about two miles, and then went ashore, where, after a preliminary treaty with the Indians, they proceeded to build Fort Christina near the present site of Wilmington, Delaware. After starting the colony of New Sweden, Minuit set sail for Europe by way of the West Indies, where he lost his life. His successor, Peter Hollander Ridder, another Dutchman, arrived on the Delaware in 1640 with a fresh contingent of soldiers, a clergyman, some livestock, Indian trade goods, and provisions. During the next few years New Sweden's population was augmented by small bands of Dutch and Finnish immigrants as well as Swedes. By 1642 the colony boasted a number of houses and a windmill in a setting of tobacco patches and vegetable gardens. It was at this time that Johan Printz, a Swede, succeeded Ridder as governor. Printz, with a band of countrymen and Finns aboard the Fama (Fame) and Svan (Swan), sailed up Christina Creek on February 15, 1643. T h e crossing had been stormy, with ships and passengers showing the effects of an extremely unpleasant experience. T h e Fame's mainmast was gone, much of the Svan's rigging hung in tatters, and a motley collection of men, women, and children stared gauntly from the battered rails. Most of the voyagers had not come of their own free will. In the canvass for emigrants it was found that few were willing to leave Sweden, whereupon the Council of State ordered that poachers, timber-thieves, deserting soldiers, and debtors be rounded up and

6

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CAVALCADE

put on board ship. Volunteer freemen were prevailed upon to take their families. A m o n g these freemen were Sven Skute, second in command; Michel Nelsson, a blacksmith assigned to seek minerals in New Sweden; Christer Boije, Johan Papegoja, and the Reverend Johan Campanius. Lieutenant Colonel Johan Printz, late of the West G o t h a Cavalry of the Queen's Horsemen and a veteran of the T h i r t y Years' W a r , was a bold-eyed, massive-jawed man w h o stood well over six feet and weighed more than four hundred pounds. As a cavalryman he must have ridden his mount like Hrolf the Ganger, the Norse founder of Normandy, with feet dragging on the ground. Printz had been deprived of his lieutenant-colonelcy for leaving the battlefield without permission after his surrender of Chemnitz. T h e son of a clergyman, he had spent years in Swedish schools and G e r m a n universities, preparing for a learned vocation, only to turn finally to the profession of arms, an honored profession in that military age. He rose by degrees under many masters in various countries and had served in the Swedish armies about fifteen years at the time of his discharge. Because of his past service, and his prospective usefulness in N e w Sweden, however, he was rehabilitated as a military officer. Acting upon instructions, Printz immediately undertook to assert Swedish authority over the English settlement at Varkens Kill (Salem Creek) by erecting Fort Elfsborg on the river's eastern shore, twelve miles south of Fort Christina. It was an earthwork constructed on the English plan, with three bastions and an elaborate gate facing the river. O n its walls were eight twelve-pound iron and brass cannon and one mortar, the largest ordnances in the colony. Printz placed the fort under the command of Captain Skute. As the English settlement in the spring of 1643 was harassed by sickness and about to break up, there were some quite willing to swear allegiance to the Swedish Crown. T h e s e remained as Swedish citizens and continued to cultivate their maize and tobacco. But Printz was bent on making his "capital" farther u p the river. H e stayed on at Fort Christina only long enough to get the works at Elfsborg under way, then went u p river to where the Delaware turned almost directly eastward. Here, on a tract which the Indians

ΤI NIC υ M

7

called Matinicunk ("at the water's edge"), he erected a fort and established his seat of government. T h e site, on the north bank of the river six miles below the mouth of the Schuylkill, was low and marshy, with a long, narrow sand bar fronting it in mid-river. T h e place became known as Tinicum Island, and still retains that name, because of the Delaware River in front and Darby and Bow creeks completely separating it from the mainland on all other sides. A narrow inlet separated it on the north from a similarly situated mainland tract known today as Hog Island. It thus had water protection from possible enemies and at the same time was not too distant from other Swedish settlements. On the other side of the river, a few miles upstream, stood Fort Nassau, first stronghold established by the Dutch along the Delaware. Printz built Fort New Gothenburg (Nya Göteborg) of round hemlock logs and mounted four small copper cannons to command the river. But as a defense against Indians from inland its position was not favorable. T o strengthen it on the land side he built a fortified storehouse of logs. His residence, Printzhof or Printz Hall, was also of hemlock logs, prized by pioneers because of their symmetry and the smoothness and tightness of their bark. Printz's two-story house had logs laid one upon another and mortised at the corners. T h e interior fittings were of sawed lumber, the fireplaces and chimneys of imported brick, and the windows were glazed. T h e Swedish style of logwork in buildings was to spread throughout America, displacing that of the French, who stood the logs on end as in a stockade. Printz added a "pleasurehouse" or pergola and planted a fine orchard. He also built at Tinicum the first church in Pennsylvania. T h e settlement that grew up around the governor's residence was named Optlandt, or Upland. Some of the dwellings had no chimneys, only an opening, or louver, in the middle of the roof to let the smoke escape. Under this was built the oval or oblong fireplace, walled with stone, like the "long fires" of Viking days. T h e chairs were made from trees, mostly puncheons fitted with legs. At first there were no beds, so the settlers slept on the floor; and when their supply of tallow candles ran low, they resorted to thin pine splits about a yard long. These were fastened at an angle to holders

8

PENNSYLVANIA

CAVALCADE

in the walls, with the flame end down, and as they burned up rapidly, were constantly replaced. T h e colonists later learned to use the more luminous and lasting pine knots. T h e garments worn by the settlers were of woolen cloth, linen, and frieze shipped from the homeland. In keeping with the social custom of Sweden, Norway, and Finland, the Swedes of Tinicum built a public bathhouse of round logs with a large central fireplace. T h e bathers undressed and clambered upon balconies, built around the walls, to perspire in the heat from the huge fireplace. Water was poured upon hot stones to raise steam, while the bathers switched themselves with bunches of birch twigs. As the bathhouse was built near the river, the bathers finished with a cold plunge, and in winter they rolled and waded in the snow. Printz's instructions from Queen Christina enjoined him to deal fairly with the natives bordering the Swedish settlements, and to see that they were instructed in the principles of Christianity. He soon held a conference with the Indian chiefs and warriors, signed a treaty with them, and proceeded to take the fur trade away from the English and Dutch by offering the Indians better values in barter. He also bought much maize from them, having found it impossible to raise enough corn for his people. Only once did the Indians give him trouble, and that was when some raiders killed two soldiers and three civilians. Printz quickly summoned the chiefs, who disavowed the raid, made apologies, and guaranteed there would be no further cause for complaint. Probably the most active of the traders was Jonas Nilsson, a giant ex-soldier who maintained a post in what is now the Kingsessing area of Philadelphia. Nilsson and others did a thriving business in furs with the Minquas or Susquehanna River Indians, who used an ancient trail connecting the Schuylkill with the Pequea villages beyond "the Gap," still called by that name, ten miles west of present-day Coatesville. In 1644 more than two thousand beaver skins alone were sent home to Sweden. Printz had some livestock at Tinicum—cattle, goats, and hogs. T h e swine, first brought over to New Sweden by Peter Ridder, had been allowed to run wild. Increasing rapidly and ranging through the forests and wild meadows, these domestic animals, which were in great demand, had to be hunted and brought back alive for

Τ IN IC υ M

9

impounding. In 1634 the Governor of Virginia sent a present of six goats to Wouter Van Twiller, the Dutch Governor of New Netherland, who so incompetently preceded Peter Stuyvesant. They were brought by David Pieterszoon DeVries, the Dutch merchantadventurer, then leading a life as colorful as that of the celebrated Captain John Smith, who had died a few years previously. Samuel Godyn, a director in the Dutch West India Company, had engaged DeVries' interest in a patroonship on the Delaware River owned in partnership by Godyn, Kiliaen Van Rensselaer, Samuel Blommaert, and Johan de Laet. An expedition sent out by them in 1631 founded on the west side of Delaware Bay, near the present town of Lewes, a small settlement called Swanendael, the first in what is now Delaware. But this was soon destroyed by Indians. In 1632 DeVries, patroon-commander of two vessels, sailed to America by way of the West Indies, entering Delaware Bay in December. He went ashore, inspected the ruins of Swanendael, and learned from the Indians the story of its destruction. DeVries remained in the bay until March 1633, warily trading with the Indians; then he sailed to Virginia for corn, and, on his return along the coast to Manhattan, delivered the above-mentioned goats to Governor Van Twiller. His attempt in 1644 to establish Dutch settlements on Staten Island and at Tappan (Vriesendael) was frustrated by the outbreak of Kieft's war. Pioneering has always been hard. Printz, whose first crops of corn and tobacco gave a poor yield, complained in letters to Sweden that the work of nine men produced hardly enough food to keep one man alive. Twenty persons, including the Reverend Reorus Torkillus, died of undernourishment and hardship the first year. Moreover, Printz's monopoly of the fur trade lasted only a few months, or until the stocks of Swedish goods became exhausted, and then the English and Dutch again monopolized the trade. In March 1644, one year after its first voyage, the Fama returned from Sweden with additional colonists. It brought also a considerable cargo: saws, grindstones, millstones, tools, 250 copper kettles, and 6,000 bricks; 200 barrels of flour, 20 barrels of salt, 10 hogsheads of French wine, 1 hogshead of brandy; clothing, shoes, cloth for flags, and 10 gilded flagpole knobs. Printz now renewed with vigor his struggle for the fur trade. A

10

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CAVALCADE

new Dutch commissary, Andreas Hudde, was appointed in 1645 to Fort Nassau across the Delaware. Traders reached out aggressively for the beaver territory on the west, or what is now the Pennsylvania side of the river, which the Indians previously had sold to H u d d e and then resold to the Swedes. W h e n H u d d e built a trading post on ground that Governor Printz considered a part of New Sweden, the latter tore down the Dutch West India Company's flag. H u d d e then sent Printz a mild letter of protest by his representative, Boyer, whose visit caused Printz to go into a wild rage. His mountainous frame quivered and his face turned purple as he dashed the missive to the floor. " T h e r e , take care of that!" he exclaimed to an attendant, turning his back upon the D u t c h emissary. W h e n Boyer insisted upon an answer, Printz snatched a gun from the wall, but his men seized the Dutch delegate in time and conducted him out of the door. In spite of these commercial disputes, the Swedish governor and the Dutch commissary at Fort Nassau did not fail altogether to maintain the amenities. Printz and his wife entertained H u d d e at a dinner party at Printzhof, but even then the two men argued heatedly over their respective rights on the Delaware. Fire leveled every building at New Gothenburg in 1645 except the big barn. It broke out between ten and eleven o'clock on the night of November 25, when a gunner named Sven Wass fell asleep, leaving a lighted candle that set the fort afire. W h e n flames reached the magazine, the explosion sent firebrands hurtling into the air, igniting other buildings. T h e conflagration spread so rapidly that some of the one hundred and eighty men, women, and children in the settlement had to flee in their night clothes. A bitterly cold winter immediately set in, freezing the river and creeks, and lasting far into the month of March. " N o b o d y was able to get near us [on the island] . . . so that, if some rye and corn had not been unthreshed, I myself and all the people with me . . . would have starved to death," wrote Printz in 1647. " B u t God maintained us with that small quantity of provision until we got the grain from the field and were again relieved. By this sad accident, the loss of the Company, testified by the annexed roll, is 4,000 rix-dollars" (about $5,000). H e tried and sentenced the neglectful gunner and sent him home in irons, but referred the execution of

TINICUM the verdict "to the pleasure of her Royal Majesty and the Right Honorable Company." Printz built a new church in New Gothenburg, and the people decorated it in their Swedish fashion as far as their resources and means would allow. This church was used as a place of worship until 1700. On the site occupied by the old storehouse he rebuilt a new one for provisions and cargoes. He reported that the two head of cattle there before him and the three he himself brought had increased to ten. Besides these he had purchased fourteen oxen and one cow, intending soon to buy more in Virginia. In the same letter to Sweden, Printz asked for a skilled carpenter, a good engineer, house carpenter, mason, brickmaker, potter, cooper, skilful gun and locksmiths and blacksmiths, a chamois-dresser (for their buckskins), a tanner, tailor, shoemaker, ropemaker (apparently to make bast-ropes), a wheelwright, an "executioner," and "a good number of unmarried women for our unmarried freemen and others, besides a good many families for cultivating the land, able officers and soldiers, as well as cannon and ammunition, for the defense of the forts and the country." T h e common soldiers as well as the officers had asked to be released from duty, and as the Reverend Campanius wished to be dismissed, there was need for two clergymen in the places already settled. T h e freemen wanted "to know something about their privileges," he reported, and likewise the criminals desired to know "how long they must serve for their crimes." Printz requested the services of a learned and able man to attend to the judicial business, "sometimes very intricate cases occurring, in which it is difficult, and never ought to be, that one and the same person appear in the court as plaintiff as well as judge." Such a person could act as secretary, especially in the Latin language, "for many times I have had letters in Latin from all parts, and they should be answered in Latin." Printz Hall was rebuilt in 1646, larger and more beautiful than before. In 1647 Peter Stuyvesant, as stern a disciplinarian and as gruff a soldier as Printz, became Governor of New Netherland. He was to rule the Dutch colonies with an iron hand. Commissary Hudde complained to him about the outrageous conduct of Printz, who

12

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had stopped several Dutchmen from trading on the west side of the Delaware. Hudde then began to build a fort on the Schuylkill. Hendrick Huygen, Printz's trade commissioner, appeared with seven or eight Swedes and protested vainly against this incursion. A few days later Printz sent Lieutenant Mâns K l i n g with twentyfour soldiers to chop down all the trees about the fort. W h e n Stuyvesant heard of this, he stamped his wooden leg and sent representatives to talk to Printz, but nothing came of it, and the bickering and protesting continued. A less peaceful phase threatened when Governor Stuyvesant in the spring of 1651 anchored his armed ship in the Delaware three or four miles below Fort Christina. Printz countered by fitting out his sloop-rigged yacht with cannon and thirty men. Stuyvesant thereupon weighed anchor and sailed back to New Amsterdam, convinced that Printz could not be bluffed. In June he sent back eleven ships well manned, four of them armed. T h e n he marched overland with one hundred and twenty soldiers and joined his fleet at Fort Nassau. Governor Printz, finding himself outnumbered, played a waiting game, knowing that Stuyvesant could not maintain his armada in the Delaware permanently. It was clear that, regardless of treaties which both the Swedes and Dutch had made with the Indians, the lower Delaware River region belonged to those who could take and hold it. Stuyvesant therefore built Fort Casimir at Sandhook, later named New Castle by the English, five miles below Fort Christina. T h i s fort, which covered an area one hundred feet by two hundred, was armed with twelve guns and garrisoned with the soldiers from Fort Nassau, which had been abandoned. Stuyvesant also stationed two warships in the river opposite the fort. Although they now controlled the river, the Dutch permitted the Swedes to trade, and the two cooperated in keeping out the English, w h o had to pay duty on all goods passing Fort Casimir. T h e years 1652 and 1653 brought peace to N e w Sweden, b u t not prosperity. Excessive rainfall damaged the crops. T h e fur trade was almost ruined by lack of trade goods, and the Indians tended to favor the Dutch. Discontent, growing among the colonists, resulted in their submitting a signed petition for redress of grievances, complaining that "at no hour or time" were they secure as to life and

TINICUM

•3

property; that the governor traded for his own private benefit and barred individuals from trading with the Indians. They further charged Printz with being brutal and avaricious, and demanded the release of "Anders the Finn," who had been imprisoned in default of payment of a fine. T h e enraged Printz called the petition a mutiny, and singled out Anders Jonsson as the ringleader. He charged Anders with treason and had him convicted and hanged. There seems to be no record of a trial, indicating that Printz may have served as "prosecutor, judge, chief witness, and at least the better part of the jury." Thenceforth the governor encountered no further resistance. But, feeling that the soldiers were no longer loyal to him, and weary of his position of waning power in the New World after ten years, he sailed with his family from New Amsterdam in October 1653, never to return. Printz left the Tinicum colony in charge of his son-in-law, Johan Papegoja, who, on the recommendation of Queen Christina, had become his second in command. T h e following year there arrived in New Sweden John Claudius Rising, sent over to act as commissioner and assistant to Printz, but who became instead the new governor. Rising entered the Delaware in his ship Örn (Eagle) and dropped anchor before Fort Casimir. T h e Dutch commandant, Captain Bicker, sent Adriaen van Tienhoven and staff to call on the Swedish captain, who received them politely and succeeded in learning from them that the Fort Casimir garrison was woefully weak. T h e next morning Rising fired a salute, which was not answered by the Dutch. Surmising that the reason was lack of gunpowder, Rising sent Captain Skute and four files of musketeers ashore with what amounted to a demand for immediate surrender. Bicker tried to temporize, but when Rising fired two shots from his heaviest guns, and Swedish grenadiers forced entrance to the stronghold, Bicker capitulated. T h e fort was renamed Fort Trefaldighet (Trinity) by the Swedes. T h e new governor was not to enjoy his triumph very long. In September 1655 a formidable Dutch fleet appeared on the Delaware. Fort Trefaldighet fell quickly, followed by Fort Christina, and presently the Dutch raiders were pillaging and burning all the way north to Tinicum. T h e disintegration of New Sweden had begun. Rising, who had made his headquarters at Fort Christina rather

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than at Tinicum, did not stay long in his ravaged colony, but returned to Sweden, accompanied by some homesick colonists. T h e site of Fort Casimir, now under water, is marked by a monument erected by the Colonial Dames at Second and Chestnut streets, New Castle, Delaware. Although Fort Christina and the town about it had been burned to the ground, Tinicum did not suffer too heavily. Fort New Gothenburg was reduced to ruins, some houses had been burned and much livestock destroyed or carried away; but the Swedes and Finns soon applied themselves to the task of rehabilitation, and their subsequent existence under Dutch domination was not too onerous. T h e conquerors divided the valley into a number of court jurisdictions under which the colonists enjoyed a form of local selfgovernment. The Dutch even restored to Madame Papegoja the property which their armed forces had seized. Tinicum had been more a private development of Printz's than a formal possession of the New Sweden Company, as Queen Christina had deeded the land to Printz. T h e assertive Armegot Papegoja (or Printz as she preferred to be known) remained at Tinicum when her father departed. There is record of her offer to pay taxes with one fat ox, fat hogs, bread, and corn. There is also mention that in 1663, one year before the Dutch gave way to the ubiquitous English, she made conveyance of Tinicum Island to a man named L a Grange, and that litigation over this transaction lasted until after the government of Pennsylvania passed into the hands of William Penn. Of the Swedes on the Delaware, William Penn later said: "They have fine children and almost every house is full. It is rare to find one without 3 or 4 boys and as many girls. Some have 7 or 8 sons. I have yet to see young men more sober and laborious." T h e Dutch and Swedes of the Delaware frequently intermarried after the English made them both British subjects, and both intermarried with the English. T h e Swedes of the Delaware retained for a long time the language and the customs of their homelands. Their names continued highly variable because of the old Scandinavian custom of using patronymics and metronymics. For instance, Harald Jonsson might have a son known as Jon Haraldsson, or a daughter known as Mar-

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tina Haraldsdotter (Harald's Daughter). Or Sigrid Olafsdotter might have a son called Olaf Sigridsson. Surnames were otherwise unknown in Sweden before the fourteenth century. Sometimes these patronymics and metronymics were followed by a place name, for the farm or other home of the parent, as Harald Olafsson Quarnberg (Millstone-quarry). Many Swedish names in the Delaware Valley became Anglicized in the seventeenth century or were changed after intermarriage with the English. T h e Swedes founded several churches in and about Philadelphia. They had settlements at Finland, Upland (Chester), and Tequirassy and Province Island (both within the present Philadelphia), as well as at Tinicum. Gloria Dei (Old Swedes' Church) still stands on Delaware Avenue near Christian Street, Philadelphia. A church was built at Tinicum as early as 1645. It is said that when Madame Papegoja sold Tinicum Island, she disposed of the rebuilt chapel to a Hollander, but the Swedes bought the bell back for two days' reaping. T h e first burial here was that of Catherine, daughter of Andrew Hanson, on October 20, 1646, in a graveyard close to the river. In recent times, human bones have been seen protruding from the undermined and receding bank. Tinicum Island today has a land area of approximately 2,700 acres, five times more than the "Matinicunk" on which ponderous Johan Printz established his primitive capital three centuries ago. Still bordered by marshland along the creeks, its geological boundaries are coextensive with the corporate limits of Tinicum Township, a subdivision of Delaware County, which adjoins Philadelphia on the southwest. At about the center of the "island" stands the populous community of Lester, with its piano factory and the enormous Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company plant. Along the Delaware River, for possibly a mile, extends the borough of Essington, with its modest homes sheltering fifteen hundred inhabitants, and its boatyards. Here also, at the lower end of the island, are the clubhouses, basins, and beautiful grounds of the Corinthian Yacht Club and other boating organizations. Adjacent to the Corinthian Yacht Club is the recently created Governor Printz Park, its sevenacre area extending for some three hundred and fifty feet along the river. T h e tract, site of Printzdorf and Fort Gothenburg, was do-

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nated to the State in 1937 by the Swedish Colonial Society and is administered by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission. T h o u g h the land area of T i n i c u m Island has increased with the years, Little T i n i c u m Island has in large part reverted to the river, nearly a mile wide here. It is said this flat, brown sliver of earth in mid-Delaware served as a pasture for cattle and produced hay long after the Revolutionary War, though greatly shrunken in size because the British, fearing the Continentals would plant blockading cannon at its lower tip, had cut the dikes and let the river in. T o d a y the little island is desolate marsh, with little of its original area above high tide. W h e n the Delaware is low it seems to rise dripping from the water, its mucky fringes outlining vaguely the Little T i n i c u m of three centuries ago.

SPANISH HILL : TIOGA POINT WHERE the Susquehanna River reënters Pennsylvania several miles northeast of its junction with the Chemung, which comes down from the northwest, it cleaves through the northern Alleghenies a great pass with steep, heavily wooded walls. Here, in the forks of the rivers and a short distance west of US 220, ancient glacial action has left a vast flat-topped mound of drift and silt, its ten-acre summit shaped like an Indian arrowhead. T h i s eminence is called Spanish Hill, though no Spanish expedition known to history ever passed that way. It is said the Indians were calling it that when white men first visited the region, but were unable to account for the name. Standing near the west wall of the pass, the hill, oval in shape and a mile in circumference, reaches north just over the New York line, where the old Fort Stanwix line enters Pennsylvania, and south toward the confluence of the Susquehanna and Chemung rivers. T h e rivers form T i o g a Point, site of present-day Athens and strategic site of the ancient Indian community of T e a o g a (At the Gate, or Meeting of Waters). A farm now occupies the hill area, and the plow of the white man has gone many times over its surface, often turn17

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ing up relics of ancient cultures. T h e summit plateau lies two hundred feet above the river plain, and the walls of the pass, several miles away on each side, rise some hundreds of feet higher. T h e pass, serving as "a natural spillway for a vast New York watershed," in the words of Ellsworth C. Cowles, archeologist for the Tioga Point Museum, formerly served also as a portal through which for centuries surged the northward and southward tide of migrant tribes. Through here the aboriginal hordes of warriors and hunters followed their main trails from the Niagara region to Chesapeake Bay, and from the Mohawk Valley to the Ohio River. Here they assembled for treaties, to exchange prisoners, or to trade in furs, wampum, pottery, weapons, and sundry articles such as have been discovered in old graves and other depositories on the hill. For a while the wandering nations paused before spreading out fanwise toward the Chesapeake country or toward the Finger Lakes district in New York. Here, again to use Cowles's words, was a "Khyber Pass between the northern Iroquois and the southern Algonquins," to say nothing of more ancient tribes. T h e artifacts found on the hill reveal old cultures reaching back probably to the days of the Mound Builders. Remnants of stockades and other defenses reported by early observers indicate that the summit was the first site of strongholds built by Indian tribes using their customary stockades. A crucifix also has been found, the kind used by Jesuit missionaries, with the feet of Christ not crossed. Bracelets and other objects of copper found at Teaoga may have come from the French in Canada, or the Spaniards in Florida, though some appear to be of Indian workmanship. Lake Superior copper was hammered out by Indians and rolled into ornaments. A few steel scalping knives unearthed could be of English, Swedish, or Dutch origin. This is a region of rich soil, especially in the bottomlands of rivers and creeks, where Indians once built villages and tilled patches of corn before the white men came. Isolated from the surrounding mountain ranges, Spanish Hill has the shape of a truncated cone, or what a housewife might call, according to Louise Welles Murray in Old Tioga Point and Early Athens, "a scalloped cake-tin turned upside down." T h e regularity of its form and its isolation have caused some observers to allege an

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artificial origin, but this, explains Dr. Murray, would be a feat f a r beyond the powers of even the Pyramid builders. It stands at the head of the plain where two valleys converge, about five miles above the point where the two rivers meet. T h e extensive palisades and breastworks once erected around its top were in themselves a marvelous feat f o r the days before the spade, pick, or shovel were known. These old fortifications are locally called Spanish R a m p a r t s , but only because the great sugar-loaf eminence itself is called Spanish Hill. Grass and bushes cover the one remaining piece of perpendicular breastwork and fill the ditch that was dug below it. Many of the treasures from this accumulation of ossuaries, kitchenmiddens or refuse heaps, glacial drift, and structural ruins f o r m an impressive display in the T i o g a Point Museum at Athens. T h i s institution stands on the site of old Fort Sullivan, of Revolutionary fame, f o u r miles south of the hill, and its collection represents the gatherings of nearly a hundred years from near-by aboriginal camps, villages, and burial grounds. Yet, with all their number and variety, these exhibits represent only the surface-scratching of a rich field for archeological investigation, which is being carried forward by the museum, with occasional outside aid. M o r e than fifty aboriginal sites have been located on the C h e m u n g R i v e r between Athens and Corning, New York, some thirty to forty miles away to the northwest of the site, and their surface characteristics, whether Iroquoian or Algonquian, have been studied by the museum archeologist. A dozen more have been found u p the Susquehanna as f a r as Owego, N e w York, and still others down the Susquehanna as f a r as Ulster. As an Indian town, T i o g a is of greater antiquity than any records of American history in this section, and it remained an I n d i a n town well into the Revolution. It was the " f o r e t o w n , " the capital or metropolis, of the Andaste nation when white men began to visit the area. Scientific investigation of the locality began in 1882 with the opening of an Andaste burial site on the M . P. M u r r a y property, in Athens, and continued until 1896. Later, in 1916, a larger burial ground almost opposite, on the west bank of the Chemung, was excavated by Dr. Warren K . Moorehead, archeologist, and Alanson B . Skinner, for the Heye Foundation, New York City. T h e Andaste, as the Jesuits called the northern Susquehannock

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Indians, disappeared long before the advent of white settlers here, although they were known to the Swedes, and a few Susquehannocks remained in what is now Lancaster County until the Paxton Massacre of 1763. Captain John Smith, w h o explored Chesapeake Bay in 1608, is said to be the first white man to lay eyes upon these amazing Indians, w h o m he called Sasquesahanoughs, or sometimes Susquehannocks. T h e naïve faith in the "natural man," prevalent in the eighteenth century, has been attributed to the philosophical writings of Jean Jacques Rousseau. T h e romantic obsession "that a creature uncorrupted by kings, parliaments, clothes, printing and ceramics" would be noble and admirable, a "noble savage," hovered above the storm of the French Revolution and captivated the wits of savants. T h o u g h Rousseau did much to promulgate this conception, recent research, especially by Dr. Elsie Murray, Director of the T i o g a Point Museum, suggests the possibility that Rousseau and others got the idea from Captain John Smith's True Relations. Smith's depiction of the Susquehannock shows these Indians as the original "noble savage." H e writes of them: Such great and well-proportioned men are seldom seen; for they seemed like Giants to the English, yea and to their neighbors, yet they seemed of an honest and simple disposition. . . . T h e i r speech is the strangest in all these countries, for their language it may well become their proportions, sounding from them as a voyce from a vault.

T h e i r word for ninety, taoughtassapooesksku, and that for a thousand, necuttwevnquaough, exemplify the terrors of agglutination. T h e traveled Elizabethans gazed with wonder at their garb and adornment in "the skinnes of Beares and Woolves, from which the ears, nose, and teeth and paws still dangled." One had the head of a wolf dangling on a chain for a jewel, another a string of white beads weighing six or seven pounds, and a third a green-and-yellow snake hanging from a pierced ear. As to their astounding tobaccopipes, they were three quarters of a yard long or more, "prettily carved with a Birde or a Deere, or some such device at the great ende, sufficient to beat out one's braines." Dr. Murray finds that further consideration of the General Historie of Virginia engenders the conviction that pertinent facts and fancies must have been d u g from such a source book by

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. . . the golden-agers, the back-to-naturists, and fanatics of equality—the Rousseaus, Swifts, Defoes, and Montesquieus of many generations. Even the youthful Milton could have found treasure-trove for his revels of Comus in Smith's fanciful sketch of Pocahontas' mascarado with her maidens, taking as a prototype for his Lady of the Masque "the Indian princess, Powhatan's dearest daughter . . . whom the darkest night could not affright, nor coming through the irksome wood."

Captain Smith is not given credit by Dr. Murray for as much veracity as has been granted him by some historians. John Fiske in his Discovery of America cites corroborations of all the principal events that Smith relates, but Dr. Murray declares that Smith embellished his narrative by drawing upon the classics, medieval legends, and the romantic mannerisms of the seventeenth century. She mentions, however, some supporting evidence of the giant stature and noble bearing of the sixty Susquehannock Indians who came to greet him; the reports of Swedish and Jesuit missionaries, for instance. Skeletal remains and artifacts found in the vicinity of Spanish Hill prove their large stature, six feet or more, and their ingenuity as craftsmen. There are clay pipes, modeled with animal and human heads, and pottery of rare design. T h e Susquehannock dominated the whole valley of the river named for them, even holding mastery over the formidable Iroquois, said to have been remotely related to them, until smallpox so reduced their numbers that the Iroquois set upon them and drove them south to Maryland and Virginia, where ultimately they were exterminated. After this, in the early eighteenth century, the victorious Iroquois used the Susquehanna Valley as a colonizing territory for conquered tribes. These were kept under a vice-regent of their confederation, which consisted of the Mohawk, Oneida, Onondaga, Cayuga, Seneca, and later the Tuscarora. T h e twenty-five tribes said to have occupied the Point at different periods, including the Mohican, Munsey, Nanticoke, and Tutelo, have complicated local archeological research by leaving layer upon layer of conflicting evidence. T h e adventures of the first white visitor to Spanish Hill, Etienne, or Stephen, Brulé, serving as a scout and interpreter to the great French explorer Samuel de Champlain, make a brilliant chapter in Louise Murray's Old Tioga Point and Early Athens. Born in Cham-

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pigny, France, about 1592, Brulé came to New France with Champlain in 1608. Y o u n g Brulé's personality was such that the Indians willingly made friends with him, and this so won the approval of Champlain that he planned to make an interpreter of him. He persuaded an A l g o n q u i n chief to let the "young lad" live for a time with his tribe to learn its language and customs. It did not take the sixteen-year-old Brulé long to familiarize himself with their tribal life and country. Champlain, in his early narratives, writes that the experiment was so successful he had Brulé return, with several other young Frenchmen, for a second sojourn among the A l g o n q u i n . Eventually he placed the boy on a salary as his trusted interpreter. O n a map made by Champlain after returning from a western exploration trip in 1618, he located a palisaded site at a point now identified as Spanish H i l l and, grouped thereabouts, several villages of "Carantouannais" (Carantouan Indians). He had sent Brulé three years earlier to the Carantouan, or Andaste, to raise a force of five hundred warriors as allies for the Huron war upon the Onondaga. Brulé's mission to the Carantouan was hailed w i t h cheering and celebration, which became so prolonged that it delayed the departure of warriors to assist Champlain in his attack on an Iroquois stronghold, with the result that the French explorer was repulsed. He was willing to attack again, however, if Brulé would bring up his five hundred Carantouans to assist. Brulé waited three days in the Andaste villages, imploring the warriors to finish their revelry and to take to the warpath. But the Andastes continued their celebrations, too cheered over the "prospect of punishing the Iroquois" to make haste to battle; and when Brulé finally did persuade them to march, he found upon reaching the Onondaga country that Champlain had given u p all hope of assistance and had retreated. Brulé did not see Champlain, w h o had been wounded on this expedition, until 1618 at Quebec. Realizing the hopelessness of attacking the strong fort with Champlain and his Hurons gone, Brulé returned southward. H e passed the following winter among his Andaste friends and afterward explored the Susquehanna River to the Chesapeake, being the first white man to determine its course. According to a French priest of the Order of Recollet, young Brulé also made an exploration westward to the shores of Lake Superior, bringing back a nugget of

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copper from mines he found there. On his return journey he fell among the Iroquois and suffered almost fatal torture at their hands. Afterward he ingratiated himself with them to such an extent that they made it easy for him to get back to the Huron country. Finally, according to his biographers, after many thrilling adventures, he was killed and eaten by the Hurons, who probably believed that by eating him they would acquire those qualities they had admired in him. C. W. Butterfield, in his History of Brule's Discoveries and Explorations, writes that "few, if any, of the early events properly belonging to American history are of more importance after discovery of the New World than the explorations and discoveries of Etienne Brulé." Unfortunately he himself wrote nothing, and his oral accounts, taken from his own lips by Champlain, Sagard, and L e Carón, are "not calculated to awaken at once the thought that they border on the marvelous." He was last at Spanish Hill in 1615-16, a fact now recorded on a summit marker. Three Hollanders also came here, according to historical jottings from several sources, before 1620. Their names have not been recorded, although official Dutch papers have made reference to a "Kleynties" as one of them. It has been presumed they were trader scouts from Fort Nassau (near Albany) or another Hudson River settlement. They came with a party of Iroquois, were attacked and routed by the then powerful Susquehannock, who captured the whites and gave them good treatment, thinking they were Frenchmen. They were taken first to Ogehage (north of Towanda), then down the Delaware, according to Captain Cornells Hendricksen. who ransomed them at the mouth of the Schuylkill River. For more than a century and a half after these visits, the Spanish Hill region was without white settlers. In 1778 John Secord arrived with some cattle, built a cabin, and began to till the soil. T h a t same year a band of Tories and Iroquois arrived at Tioga Point to prepare for their descent, in July, upon the Wyoming Valley. They returned to the Point after the Wyoming Massacre but left soon afterward, taking Secord with them. T h e Wyoming Valley raids became so numerous and frequent that Colonel Thomas Hartley with four hundred Continentals was sent to Tioga in September 1778. They burned both Te-a-oga on

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the Point and the community on the west bank of the C h e m u n g River known as Queen Esther's T o w n , along with the "palace" of this Iroquois-Huron chieftainess of French and Indian blood w h o had colonized the fertile flats along the river above and below T i o g a Point. It was thought now that Indian raids would cease, but depredations continued in spite of illness and shortage of food among the Indians. A n d , as many of the Iroquois villages in N e w York State became a constant source of supplies for the British and Tories in the Revolutionary War, General Washington ordered General Sullivan to undertake his historic expedition of 1779. Coming up the Susquehanna with 3,500 men, Sullivan arrived at T i o g a Point on August 11. A t the narrowest point of the peninsula on which Athens now is situated, just below the site of the present T i o g a Point Museum, he constructed blockhouses and stockades, between the C h e m u n g and the Susquehanna, calling them Fort Sullivan. T h e reasons for a fort at this point were many, the principal one being that it commanded any approach of Indians and Tories from Fort Niagara down the Chemung. W h i l e Sullivan was preparing to advance upon the Iroquois, General Clinton marched with 1,800 men across country from Albany to Otsego Lake, floated down the Susquehanna and joined forces with him on August 22. T h e n , five days later, the combined forces began their march, leaving Colonel Israel Shrieve with a garrison at Fort Sullivan as a military station to furnish supplies to the general and receive his sick and wounded. T h e garrison also was maintained to repulse any reinforcements to the T o r i e s and Indians from Niagara. Having crushed and dispersed the Iroquois, devastated their towns and strongholds, cut down their orchards and burned their fields to destroy the source of supplies for the British Army, Sullivan returned to T i o g a Point. He demolished the fort on October 4 and led his army down the Susquehanna to Wyoming, thence back to Easton, starting point of his expedition. T h e importance of T i o g a Point as an historic shrine, because of the significance of the Sullivan expedition, has been emphasized in many ways by patriotic and other groups in the region. Markers and guide-posts have been erected at many places, and hundreds of documents and other historical data have been assembled in the

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Tioga Point Museum. Historic homes, graveyards, and places of picturesque interest throughout the village of Athens have been preserved. White adventurers and pioneers began to ascend the river to T i o g a Point in 1783. T h e first settler after the Revolution of whom there is authentic information was Benjamin Patterson, who "squatted" on the east side of the Susquehanna. He was followed by others named Miller and Moore, who settled in the same locality. Andreas Budd built a cabin on the Point about 1783, and Jacob Snell came from Stroudsburg the next year to settle west of the T i o g a (Chemung). T h e r e on July 5, 1784, was born the first white native of what is now Athens T o w n s h i p — A b r a h a m Snell. Matthias Hollenback of Wilkes-Barre opened a trading-house here about the same time. A grant for a township, to be called Athens, was issued in May 1786, by the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut. T h e tract was surveyed in May and June and a village plot laid out by Colonels John Jenkins, John Franklin, and Elisha Satterlee. Pennsylvania, on May 17, 1785, had granted the same site to Josiah Lockhart of Lancaster under Lottery Warrant Number 1, the land being included within the Indian Purchase of 1784. O u t of the conflict of titles rose many years of trouble and turmoil, lasting until the present Pennsylvania boundary line was confirmed on the north. T h e first settlements of a permanent type in and around Athens were made by New England people under the Connecticut title. Colonel Satterlee and his brother-in-law, Major Elisha Mathewson, came up from the Wyoming Valley in 1787, made improvements and settled here. T h e same year Colonel Franklin built a house, intending to settle, but he was charged with high treason against the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and was imprisoned in Philadelphia. It was charged that the Connecticut settlers in the Wyoming Valley had taken steps to create a new state in northern Pennsylvania with Franklin, their recognized leader, as governor. He settled permanently in Athens after his release in 178g, and with Satterlee and Mathewson became the most prominent of the early settlers. A l l were Revolutionary veterans who had served under General Sullivan, and all were in the Wyoming Valley during the Yankee-Pennamite wars.

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T h e Indians gave to the river joining the Susquehanna the name Chemung (She-mung, meaning Big Horn) because of the mammoth, or mastodon, tusks and large teeth found along its banks, left there in the glacial period of the Cenozoic age. Judge Caleb Baker, who settled at Southport in 1788, tells of being in a canoe with two other men and finding a tusk measuring nine feet. He left it with a blacksmith to have a supporting band put around it to prevent splitting, but the smith sold it to a peddler who later could not be located. One G. YV. Kinney tells of finding a tusk in the 1840's at the mouth of Horn Brook. It was nine feet long and ranged from six to twelve inches in base diameter, the smaller end being four inches thick. Unfortunately it was destroyed in a fire at Lafayette College. In 1872 two double teeth and a piece of jawbone were picked up on the river bank about three miles above Chemung Village; one tooth weighed nine pounds, and its grinding surface was nine inches long and twenty-eight inches in circumference. These were said by naturalists to be from the mammoth rather than from the mastodon. T h e accidental discovery by workmen in 1883 of an Indian burial site in the garden of the Murray property, three or four miles below Spanish Hill, gave rise to many difficult questions in regard to the racial and cultural history indicated by the many relics that have accumulated in and about Spanish Hill. Similar artifacts, identified as Andaste, have been found of late near the hill, but many older, cruder ones are also characteristic of the area. T h e cultures of different periods that have been found show traces of ancient Algonquian; Andaste (Iroquoian); late Algonquian, with Delaware predominating but possibly including Shawnee; and later Iroquoian, including many tribes that had become subject to them, such as Sioux, Catawba, and Tutelo. There was at least transient residence here in historic times of small groups of southern tribes conquered by the Iroquois. Occupation even earlier than the ancient Algonquian is indicated, but predominating evidences in the locality are of early and late Algonquian and Andaste. As to Algonquian culture, considerable data are available. Algonquian sites are easily identified by the long pestle, the steatite (soapstone) dish, the grooved ax-head, formed by chipping notched arrowheads,

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ceremonial and "problematical" artifacts of early days, and by special types of later, crudely decorated pottery. Large skeletons and unwieldy implements found on the Murray property suggest close kinship, or identity, with Captain J o h n Smith's Susquehannocks. At any rate, Smith's Indians were unquestionably of the same origin as those who later became known as the Andaste. This was the most powerful nation ever to resist the onslaughts of the Iroquois, to whom, nevertheless, it was related. T h e Andaste villages extended from Spanish Hill southward to beyond Wyalusing, where the last great battle between these two rivals was fought. T h e finds in pottery were coil-made and molded of clay tempered with burnt stone and pounded shell. T h e pots range in size from a child's toy to the large burial urn of a chief. T h e celts were made of varied materials, chipped and polished. T h e flint arrowheads of the Iroquois were typically triangular. T o the Andaste supposedly belong the large tomahawks of chipped stone. T h e skeletal remains found in the Murray garden included those of twenty-five men, one child, and three women. T h e graves were grouped with some regularity around one in the center, indicating a chief surrounded by members of his tribe. One pot, eight inches high and twenty inches in circumference, was artistically decorated with perfect faces set in an allover decoration of lines, dots, and fingernail imprints. In many cases the right hand was raised, holding a pot containing food, arrowheads, or seeds. It is conjectured that many apple trees on the site might have sprung from apple seeds thus buried. Some of the graves were bark-lined. One skeleton was buried at full length with the head on a bundle of twigs. Most of the implements in evidence were those for cultivating and grinding maize, indicating that this group had passed from the nomadic hunter stages to the agricultural, and that the broad, fertile river flats attracted them. Dr. Skinner later approved the conclusion that here was an Andaste cemetery yielding the first evidence of the culture indicated in Captain John Smith's description in 1608. According to Dr. Murray, the most interesting evidence of Indian occupation of Spanish Hill was Cowles's discovery in 1933, on a terrace just below the southern slope, of a rectangular palisaded village, with an effigy hearth just outside. This hearth apparently had been formed of stones into the effigy of a mastodon, at the head

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of which was a shallow bowl. T h e stones in this hearth were less charred than others presumed to have been used for cooking, and this fact has convinced archeologists that it was used only for ceremonial purposes. T h e discovery of the hearth and more recent findings in the postholes of the stockaded village below the hill have revived wide interest in the area, where a movement to preserve the landmark was instituted several years ago by the Tioga Point Museum under the leadership of its late director, Jessie Welles Murray. A savings account was established and local schools raised contributions toward the enterprise. It is hoped ultimately to purchase the hill in order to create a State park and restore the Indian village. Despite the phenomenal effigy hearth, skeletal remains, weapons, utensils, and other artifacts that have been uncovered, the huge mound of reddish, gravelly earth still withholds the answer to many tantalizing questions. Why was it called Spanish Hill? Is there a cave village deeper under the surface than man has yet penetrated? Were the depressions at the northern end of the hill dug by human hands, or were they huge traps of quicksand, as many residents still believe? Spanish Hill, where Stephen Brulé, the first white man to set foot on Pennsylvania soil, came in 1615, is still an enigma of antiquity, whether asleep under winter snows or smiling its challenge in summer from behind wild crab-apple trees, deep scarlet sumac, or tall wild grasses that sway in the wind.

PENNSBURY MANOR THE re-created manor of Pennsbury, country seat of Pennsylvania's Founder, overlooks the Delaware River near Morrisville and Tullytown, about twenty miles northeast of Philadelphia. T h e river itself is much the same as it was in William Penn's time, and the wildness of its once-forested shore persists, though in lesser degree and changed aspect, at this point along the bending stream where scrub and marsh blend with gravel pits and truck farms. Centuries have walked by here noiselessly. T h e newness of the buildings is readily overlooked if one remembers that much of what Penn stood for is still new; but even in its newness the manor has dignity and simplicity, qualities that characterized the great Quaker w h o all too briefly made this his home. However attractive its appearance and setting, both of which reflect Penn's choice, Pennsbury makes its greatest appeal only when the mantle of Penn's character cloaks it, a character that will tempt exploration when history has rendered stormier figures savorless. In an age when "religious bigotry was threatening to destroy the world," Penn radiated tolerance and brotherhood. T o the Province of Pennsylvania, which had been granted (1681) to him by Charles 29

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I I in payment of a debt owed to his father, came so many oppressed peoples from Europe that in three years the lusty Colony had grown more than New York had in fifty. Not until forty years after its founding, and after Penn's death, did a white man kill an Indian in Pennsylvania, and another generation was to pass before the red men took up the tomahawk against white encroachment. This phenomenon, and others like it, sprang directly from the system of colonial organization, the "holy experiment" inaugurated by Penn. He never assumed ownership of one acre of his proprietary domain without compensation to the native occupants, and his doctrines forced him into a life of struggle that almost ended in a debtor's cell, where he was for a time confined. With all his amazing energy and gifts Penn fought against greed and envy—characteristics often revealed by those who owed him most—wringing victory from defeat, reverting tirelessly to his aims, never conceding a principle that was contrary to his code. His life in England and the New World were strangely complementary; in the one he fought against intolerance, and in the other he himself had the authority granted to but few men, to put his views to the practical test of colonization. His nearest approach to happiness and peace must have been in his new province; perhaps at Pennsbury alone for brief moments did the alarums die. " A country life and estate I like best for my children," he said. "Of cities and towns of concourse beware." T h e original Pennsbury tract of more than eight thousand heavily timbered acres fronted the Delaware for several miles. It was purchased for Penn, before he ever laid eyes on Pennsylvania, by his cousin William Markham. T h e Founder was delighted with the site because it was only twenty-six miles distant by water from Philadelphia, as well as convenient to the Friends' Yearly Meeting at Burlington, New Jersey, established since 1678. Within a year of his arrival he ordered that construction of suitable buildings be started, and he took every opportunity to visit the site, during its early stages of development, and push forward the work. Penn undoubtedly intended to have the manor completed under his personal supervision, but in 1684 he was compelled to hurry back to England, where he had to be content with the sending of

PENNSBURY

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31

d e t a i l e d i n s t r u c t i o n s . I n o n e of the m a n y letters a b o u t t h e c o n s t r u c t i o n of P e n n s b u r y , he w r o t e : I would like to have a Kitchen, two larders, a wash house & room to iron in, a brew house & in it an oven for bakeing & a Stable for twelve horses. . . . What you can do with bricks, do, what you can't, doe that with good timbers & case them with clapbords about five foot, which will serve other things & we can brick it afterwards. H e was p a r t i c u l a r l y a n x i o u s a b o u t h a v i n g a g o o d l a n d i n g b u i l t at the river's e d g e , w i t h stairs l e a d i n g u p the b a n k t o a g r a v e l

walk

b e f o r e the h o u s e . B r i c k a n d tiles w e r e b r o u g h t to P e n n s b u r y , w h i l e f r o m E n g l a n d P e n n sent i r o n w o r k a n d f r u i t trees, the l a t t e r f r o m L o r d l a n d ' s estate. D e s p i t e the m a n y

Sunder-

t r o u b l e s he w a s e x p e r i e n c i n g

E n g l a n d , he k e p t u p a c o n t i n u o u s s t r e a m of c o r r e s p o n d e n c e

in

with

J a m e s H a r r i s o n , his s t e w a r d at P e n n s b u r y , o f f e r i n g s u g g e s t i o n s a n d a d v i c e o n the i m p r o v e m e n t of the g r o u n d s a n d c u l t i v a t i o n of the fields.

T w e n t y y o u n g p o p l a r s , he t o l d H a r r i s o n , s h o u l d be p l a n t e d

" i n a w a l k b e l o w the Steps to the w a t e r . " P e n n ' s first visit to his p r o v i n c e , f r o m O c t o b e r 27, 1682, to A u g u s t 16, 1684, h a d b e e n m e t h o d i c a l l y p r e p a r e d f o r by m u c h l e t t e r w r i t i n g b e f o r e his d e p a r t u r e f r o m E n g l a n d . T h i s visit, aside f r o m the c o n s t r u c t i o n of P e n n s b u r y , was c h i e f l y b u r d e n e d w i t h the b o u n d a r y dispute

with

Lord

Baltimore,

which

eventually

forced

Penn

r e t u r n to E n g l a n d to lay his case b e f o r e the L o r d s of T r a d e

to and

Plantations. H i s o u t s t a n d i n g a c h i e v e m e n t s d u r i n g this visit w e r e the f o r m a t i o n of

a representative

democratic

assembly,

establishment

of

firm,

f r i e n d l y r e l a t i o n s w i t h the I n d i a n s , a n d the c o n s u m m a t i o n of s e v e n large land purchases from them through amicable meetings and the p a y m e n t of £ 1 , 2 0 0 . D u r i n g this time, P e n n also p u b l i s h e d a g e n e r a l d e s c r i p t i o n of the P r o v i n c e w h i c h a r o u s e d w i d e interest t h r o u g h o u t E u r o p e , a n d m a d e a h o r s e b a c k j o u r n e y t h r o u g h the i n t e r i o r , o f t e n s t a y i n g o v e r n i g h t in w i g w a m s a n d l i n g e r i n g in I n d i a n v i l l a g e s t o treat t h e sick. D e s p i t e a l l this, h e f o u n d t i m e f o r v o l u m i n o u s c o r r e s p o n d e n c e , inc l u d i n g a s t r o n g l e t t e r i n f a v o r of f r e e d o m of c o n s c i e n c e t o t h e E a r l

32

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of Arran, Lord Deputy of Ireland, where the persecution of Quakers was continuing vigorously. Meanwhile Philadelphia and other areas in the Colony were developing along carefully laid plans, and Penn undoubtedly spent the second winter attending frequent Council sessions. When, in the summer of 1684, he set sail for England on the brig Endeavor, he could already write to the Friends' Meeting: "And thou, Philadelphia . . . named before thou wert born, what love, what care, what service, and what travail has there been to bring thee forth, and preserve thee from such as would abuse and defile thee." Fifteen years were to elapse before his return. The restored Pennsbury is an English house influenced by Colonial circumstances; it reflects the condition of Penn's life. For much as he loved Pennsylvania, his interest and duty could not be bound by such affection. His enemies in England, in their anxiety to slander and deprive him of influence in both places, charged that he had deserted his colony. But his long absence from America occurred in contradiction to his own desires. The pursuit of his aim in England and America demanded his presence at the scene of power, from which his opponents never troubled to move. England under the Stuarts was disturbed by intense religious, economic, and political conflicts, and those who saw in Penn's utilization of the court a prostitution of his principles never measured their own practices by the same rule. Penn had hardly landed in England when his communications with James Harrison were resumed. These letters have supplied information which the Pennsylvania Historical Commission and its experts used in reconstructing Pennsbury. T o Harrison, who died at Pennsbury in 1687, and to John Sotcher, his successor, Penn sent supplies of butter, cheese, beer, and other provisions, as the manor lands were cleared very gradually, and never were selfsufficient during his lifetime. In England he launched a pamphleteering campaign couched in a clear aphoristic style, with advice to prospective colonizers: "Count on labor before a crop, and cost before gain." T o the Provincial Assembly he offered advice both directly and through his deputy, Markham. "Be not so governmentish," he admonished. While the gardeners, carpenters, and other workmen—some of them

PENNSBURY

MANOR

33

hired by Penn in England and sent across the Atlantic—prepared the ground and constructed buildings at Pennsbury, the vicissitudes of royalty in the mother country kept Penn's fortunes in a precarious state. Charles II died of apoplexy in February 1685, and his brother James II, a close friend of Penn, reigned until succeeded by William and Mary near the end of 1688. In 1690 Penn was arrested and charged with carrying on a treasonable correspondence with James. He was tried by the Privy Council and acquitted, but the proprietorship of the Colony was taken away from him in 1692. A t this time the royalists were attacking him for "endeavoring to erect a new model of government" and for failing to contribute to the Colonial armed forces, whose protection he enjoyed. T h a t Penn's new model of government largely did away with the need of armed protection seems to have made little impression on them. T w o years later Penn's rights were restored to him by William and Mary, with the understanding, however, that some military safeguards should be instituted and that his actions in the Province would be watched. O n December 3, 1699, Penn again set foot in the New World with his second wife, Hannah Callowhill, his daughter Letitia, and his secretary, James Logan. T h e colt Tamerlane, out of Godolphin Barb, pedigreed champion of England, weathered the long voyage and was installed at Pennsbury, to which Penn immediately turned his attention. T h e tract was resurveyed and found to contain 6,543 acres, not including the 1,888 acres given to servants. Lodging accommodations were limited by the unfinished condition of the buildings, and repairs of leaking "leads" and general improvements went on while Penn resided there. In July 1700, he was down with the gout but by August had recovered sufficiently to take long horseback rides through the woods, having acquired a compass to aid him. From his residence at Pennsbury and at the "slate-roof house" at Second Street and Norris Alley, Philadelphia, Penn attacked the problems of state. Pennsbury was always crowded with a motley throng of workmen, Indians with and without a mission, Quakers, and others more or less important, a condition which explains the size of the restored bake-and-brewhouse. Penn maintained there his famous six-oared barge, the Delaware River being his link between the manor and the population centers of Chester and Philadelphia.

34

PENNSYLVANIA

CAVALCADE

Penn's second visit was stormier than the first. Many of his principles were not in operation in the other colonies and were constantly endangered both by developments there and the incessant bickering and self-seeking of the growing class of large landowners. Robert Quarry, J u d g e of the Admiralty in Penn's province, whose attacks on Pennsylvania's Founder were the main cause for his return to America, reported that Pennsylvania was not only failing to exact oaths in court and to provide military defenses, but it was actually harboring pirates. T h o u g h the "pirates" were chiefly merchants who did their selling and buying in non-English markets, and though royal restrictions on trade were already becoming onerous, Penn proposed, and the Assembly passed, laws against this traffic. He acted so directly that Quarry was completely mollified and, some years after the Founder's second departure, became Penn's tenant at Pennsbury. T h e Courts of Inquiry, which Penn convened to redefine land titles, quit-rents due him, and forfeitures, were protested vigorously in a petition to the Assembly, signed by leading figures; and these courts never functioned, though original grants had frequently been overrun by hundreds of acres. In the autumn of 1700 Penn attended a conclave of governors in New York, but action was postponed on the agenda he had drawn, which included items tending towards Colonial federation. T h e English government regarded these efforts with pronounced coolness, and movement was started to have proprietary colonies brought under direct control of the Crown. T h o u g h his health had for some time been uncertain, Penn traveled as far as the Susquehanna to strengthen his ties with the Indians, in view of the increasing tension between the English and French. T h e late summer of 1701 was an active period at Pennsbury, where extensive improvements were being made. T h e favorable results of Penn's trip into the interior led the other Colonial governors and English authorities to seek his views on treating with the Indians, and he engaged in extensive correspondence on this subject. T h e Council met in Philadelphia two or three times a week, and Penn attended most of the sessions. T h e r e was also the task of running a large mansion, but in this he had the assistance of Letitia and his wife, who had given birth in the preceding win-

PENNSBURY

MANOR

35

ter to a son, J o h n , later known as "the A m e r i c a n . " His numerous letters at this time to the Dukes of Devonshire and Somerset, Lords J e f f r y a n d Pawlett, and the Earl of Dorset were remarkable f o r their logic and persuasion. These, to friends w h o watched and reported to him the course of events in the House of Lords, were written to prevent expropriation of Pennsylvania by the Crown. Early in September it became clear that Penn would have to return to E n g l a n d personally to plead against the restoration of his colony to royal rule. H a n n a h and Letitia were delighted, but the Indians received the news with some apprehension. T h e y came in large numbers to express their misgivings, and Penn, taking steps to comfort them, introduced the Council members, reiterated his principles to allay their fears, and loaded them with gifts. A t this conference their "eating and drinking was . . . in much stillness" and at its close they did a little dance around a small fire. A century later "the memory of that day was . . . fresh in their descendants' hearts." Penn called the Assembly into session, apologized f o r having summoned them before their time, and urged the immediate enactment of such laws as required his special sanction. H e expressed his regret at being so unseasonably recalled to England, and frankly e x p l a i n e d the reason f o r leaving at such short notice. T h e sessions began on a note of goodwill and cooperation, but before long the possibility that Penn would lose his proprietary rights inspired in some members of Assembly a tendency to make excessive demands, even to humiliate him while he stood before them. His "calmness . . . was surprising" and his speech " m i l d " ; and the Assembly, "perhaps ashamed," returned to "something like better sense." On October 28, five days before Penn's departure, he gave the Province a new constitution—which remained in force until the Revolution—vesting legislative power in the governor and Assembly, the latter to be composed of members elected annually f r o m the various counties. O n the 30th, at N e w Castle, he made his will, charging his children never to go to law, and to accept the judgment of Friends. H e gave one thousand acres of land to L o g a n , his secretary, and three hundred to his steward, Sotcher; and he freed his N e g r o slaves. His last instruction to L o g a n from shipboard was to gather all his household goods at Pennsbury, and his first let-

36

PENNSYLVANIA

CAVALCADE

ter on landing at Portsmouth instructed Logan to have "Phineas Pemberton's wife and daughter see to the bedding and linen once a month. Mind that the leads be mended." T h e leaking of the lead watertank on the roof is held responsible by some authorities for the disintegration of Pennsbury before the Revolution. But other less natural factors also intervened. William Penn, Jr., son by the Founder's first marriage, arrived at Pennsbury soon after the elder Penn's final departure, but he was more attracted by life in Philadelphia. There he contracted debts which forced him to sell the 7,482-acre manor of Williamstadt—Penn's gift—and to leave the Colony shortly afterward. Stewards succeeding Sotcher were greedy and corrupt. "There are few," Logan wrote Penn, "that think it any sin to haul what they can from thee." Colonel Quarry, his old enemy, rented the manor for a seven-year period beginning in 1707. He was to pay forty pounds a year, though "several were of the opinion," wrote Logan, "he would have enough bargain of it if he had it without paying rent at all." When Thomas Penn visited Pennsbury in 1736 he found that neglect had done its worst. T h e windows were gaping holes in the walls, the roof had fallen in, and the woodwork was rotting. No one had occupied the premises for twenty years. By the time the eighteenth century was coming to a close and the new Republic establishing itself, Penn's home had become an inglorious ruin, and possession of the original tract had passed through many hands, its acreage steadily diminishing in size. Some years ago a movement was set afoot to re-create Pennsbury as a fitting monument to Pennsylvania's Founder. Through the untiring efforts of public-spirited individuals, the site of the buildings and nearly ten surrounding acres were deeded by the Warner Company to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1932, and administration of the property was vested in the Pennsylvania Historical Commission. Archeological investigation conducted under Commission supervision led to the unearthing of large quantities of hardware, tile, brick, glass, and other durable materials. In 1936, R. Brognard Okie was employed to prepare plans for a possible re-creation of Pennsbury, a task not too formidable in view of the aid already rendered by careful historical research and the uncovering of much archeo-

PENNSBURY

MANOR

37

logical evidence. Dr. Warren P. Laird, former Dean of the School of Fine Arts of the University of Pennsylvania, provided valuable advice in the interpreting of available data. In the spring of 1938 ground was broken for the construction of new Pennsbury Manor as part of the program of the General State Authority of Pennsylvania, and by the summer of 1939 this phase of the work was complete. Reconstruction of the manor provided some clue to Penn's tastes. Pennsbury was by no means a simple Quaker abode; it would be considered pretentious even by the standards of today. T h e formal gardens, "unequalled for extent and beauty," were the pride of zealous artisans brought to America for the beautifying of Pennsbury. There were lawns, shrubbery, flower beds, poplar-lined walks and drives, and imported fruit trees. T h e house itself, of fine brick and two stories high, was sixty feet by forty, with the longer dimension facing the river. It was large and hospitable and well-ordered, though it is said that Hannah Penn could never grow quite accustomed to finding Indians squatting familiarly beside the fireplaces. Enough of the original tiles were found in excavating the site to line two of the restored fireplaces on the ground floor. T h e furniture and smaller pieces as well as the table service were beautiful and luxurious, and there is mention of a carpet. "Excess destroys hospitality and wrongs the poor," wrote Penn, but the plain good food that reached his table (he poked fun at the fad for French cooking which had already begun) knew the company of excellent wine and beer. He was capable of enthusiasm even on the subject of shad found in the Delaware. In dress and other habits Penn did not pattern himself after the early followers of Fox, but with his usual discrimination accepted the part of Fox's doctrines which he saw would serve for the betterment of that day's society, leaving the other doctrines to those whose natures seemed to require them. In the present restoration the bake-and-brewhouse, largest of the outlying buildings, is eloquent in support of the above thesis. Its isolation from the manor house was perhaps essential because of the scale of the demands made upon it, but it speaks also of Penn's conception of a well-equipped home. T h e manor house dominates the scene. Half of its fourteen rooms

38

PENNSYLVANIA

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face the river; the ceilings are high and the large space chambered attractively. T h o u g h rebuilding must often entail variation, especially in cases of this kind, many who see Pennsbury have agreed with the statement that it is a "reëmbodiment of a house with a soul, such as old houses are said to hold." Something must be said also of the fidelity, in reconstruction, to available records and ruins. T h e old foundations were excavated, leaving no doubt as to site or size. D u r a b l e fragments of the original buildings were f o u n d and fittingly incorporated. More than $200,000 of Federal and State funds was expended on the project from 1932 to 1 9 4 1 , mainly through the Public Works Administration and the Work Projects Administration. Additional land was acquired in 1940, increasing to forty the acreage of this historic shrine. T h e surrounding gardens, according to plans, will attain perhaps a greater fidelity to the original even than the buildings. Furnishing the manor is a task receiving careful attention on the part of experts employed by the Pennsylvania Historical Commission. Original antiques of the period are being acquired so that furnishings will be composed chiefly of authentic pieces. Landscaping and furnishing are on the road to completion, and Pennsbury M a n o r will soon exist in the same splendid simplicity as in the day of the Quaker Founder. It has been referred to aptly as the " W i l liamsburg" of Pennsylvania.

STENTON : PENNSYLVANIA'S "MONTICELLO" STENTON MANSION, a two-century-old window into the life and career of James Logan, W i l l i a m Penn's Provincial Secretary, unfortunately today is hemmed in by row houses in the immediate vicinity of Wayne Junction, Philadelphia. T h e two-and-a-half story building, with its antiquated hip roof and conventional chimney, was erected in 1728-30 and partially restored by the Colonial Dames of America at the turn of the century. Originally it was surrounded by an eighty-acre tract that was later increased by additional acreage. T h e growing city has since leveled its forests, obscured its horizon, and reduced its ground to a six-acre park. Logan's removal to Stenton in 1730 marks the transition from a diplomatic and political career to that phase of his life in which he wanted to turn largely to scholarly and scientific pursuits. As Provincial Secretary and member of Council he had discharged his duties with impeccability and distinction, leaving his indelible imprint upon Pennsylvania's early history and justifying the faith W i l l i a m Penn always had in him. Penn's sons, though they did not often follow in their father's footsteps, continued to show L o g a n 39

4o

PENNSYLVANIA

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the same trust, and pleaded with him to defer his retirement. T h a t he was not concerned with mercenary considerations or lacking in devotion to the Penn interests is shown by a letter he wrote to Hannah Penn following the stroke which invalided her husband, assuring her that until a successor was found, he would "be content to undergo some greater fatigue than I would be easily tempted to, on the score of money." He remained in public life long after taking u p residence at Stenton, though an accident to his thighbone made it painful for him to move about freely. A t the age of twenty-six, Logan was catapulted into a position of difficulty and importance. T h e r e was nothing about this young intellectual schoolmaster to suggest qualities requisite for such a task. He was born in Lurgan, Ireland, October 20, 1674. In his early teens he mastered Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, in addition to modern languages, and became a brilliant student of mathematics. For a time he assisted his father, Patrick Logan, a Bristol schoolteacher, and before that for a brief period he had been a linen draper in a Dublin shop. In 1699 he met William Penn and accompanied him to America, where for half a century he personified proprietary rule. His troubles in the Province began almost immediately following his patron's return to England in the autumn of 1701. Constant pressure from Penn for more and more money to free him from the financial stringency of which his enemies were taking advantage, coupled with the futility of his efforts to collect quit-rents and cope with the rising discontent in the Colony, dissipated any illusions he may have had about Penn's "holy experiment." He began to treat it purely as a business venture. Whatever hopes he and Penn entertained of building a society fundamentally different from the one they had left behind foundered in the tide of land-hungry multitudes bent on directing their own destinies. T h e Provincial Secretary was quick to perceive the impracticability of William Penn's sweeping proclamation made in his "Letter to the Inhabitants." It became a thorn in his side. T h e promulgation of the Province as a "free colony for all mankind" came to plague both the Secretary and his master. T h e colonists took Penn at his word and settled upon the rich Pennsylvania lands. His

STENTON

41

words, "You shall be governed by laws of your making, to live a free . . . sober and industrious people," sank deep into their consciousness. This "ingratitude" incensed Penn. He wrote indignant letters, asserting himself as lord, as an absentee landlord, threatening, cajoling, and pleading—all with model logic and rhetoric, forgetting that gratitude plays small part in history. True, he granted the Province freedom of conscience and worship, and certain political rights, but it was as a sovereign or feudal lord, and not as an equal, and he expected these privileges to be exercised in such manner as not to interfere with his own economic interests. But this was impossible. T i m e and time again Logan advised Penn to sell his governmental rights in the Province for a reasonable price. When he failed to effect a modification of the L a w of Election in order to secure "a better set of Representatives," he became more urgent in this advice to the Proprietor. But Penn did not recognize the value of this counsel. Instead, he issued an order to annul "both the charter of privileges and the charter of the city of Philadelphia," an order which could not be enforced peacefully and hence, under the circumstances, not at all. In 1708 Penn determined to dissolve the Assembly, but Logan, who could realize the consequences of such a proceeding, warned him against it, declaring: " T h y character binds thee from it and there must be no breach of that with the people." It was a case of letting the Crown widen the breach. T h e sale of Penn's governmental rights, on the verge of being made, was never consummated, for the Proprietor suffered a stroke and was unable to sign the deed. He never recovered, and after his death in 1718, his energetic wife, Hannah, carried on for her children until her own death in 1727. Logan in this struggle attempted to stem the tide of forces constantly encroaching upon the Penn interests. For fifty years he helped to make and unmake governors. Wise enough to make concessions to the Assembly, he secured more or less willing concessions for his master. His most formidable adversary was David Lloyd, a spokesman of the poorer Quaker landowners and a relentless but exceedingly able

PENNSYLVANIA

42

CAVALCADE

p o l i t i c i a n . It was he w h o persistently f o u g h t for and crystallized the d e m o c r a t i c p r i n c i p l e in g o v e r n m e n t . H e towered a b o v e all factions, a n d in his decade-long rule of the Assembly he m o r e than o n c e t r i u m p h e d over L o g a n . H e knew the Secretary's p o w e r and used every means, even that of i m p e a c h m e n t a n d arrest, to underm i n e it. I n the clash b e t w e e n proprietary interests and constitutional gove r n m e n t , battles were w o n by either side b u t victory b e l o n g e d to the former. G o v e r n o r K e i t h , for e x a m p l e , f o u n d o u t a little too late that, w h i l e the A s s e m b l y p a i d h i m his salary, it was the P e n n f a m i l y w h o o w n e d P e n n s y l v a n i a . Nevertheless, the Penns e n j o y e d a certain degree of p o p u l a r i t y in the P r o v i n c e despite occasional r e v u l s i o n w h e n interests clashed too sharply. T h e colonists remembered too well the oppression they had suffered in the countries they h a d left b e h i n d , a n d were g r a t e f u l for the new franchises. I n the face of this a m b i g u o u s situation, the part of L o g a n that sought an outlet in his study, the part that m a d e h i m at times acutely u n h a p p y in his p u b l i c life, came to the fore. As early as 1 7 1 1 , w h i l e P e n n still lived, he had asked to be relieved of his responsibility, of the u n r e m u n e r a t i v e p u b l i c duties that h i n d e r e d his business career. A f t e r Penn's death he h a d o f t e n threatened to let " i t fall w h e r e it w i l l . " E v e n t u a l l y he b e c a m e a successful merchant, his i n c o m e p e r m i t t i n g h i m to i n d u l g e in a large estate a n d a w o r l d of books. W i t h this scholarly phase of his life Stenton is chiefly associated. H e r e his active m i n d was increasingly stimulated by the spirit of scientific investigation, w h i c h in that age was beg i n n i n g to e x p l o r e the physical universe. Basic principles attracted him. It was shortly b e f o r e the construction of Stenton that L o g a n suffered, in his garden, the c r i p p l i n g accident that largely

debarred

h i m f r o m active p u b l i c life. H e wrote: " I t is my greatest happiness in this c o n d i t i o n to . . . a c c o u n t a solid, i n w a r d peace of m i n d . . . ." T h e accident afforded an o p p o r t u n i t y for his private interests. H e b e g a n to w o r k d u r i n g his illness o n a translation of Cicero's Senectute,

De

and felt m o r e at h o m e in this than in the P r o v i n c i a l

C o u n c i l of w h i c h he was a l i f e l o n g m e m b e r , o n the bench, or as m e d i a t o r in b o r d e r a n d I n d i a n disputes. H e turned his attention to scientific subjects and had lengthy correspondence w i t h some of

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the leading scientists and rationalists of Europe. T h o u g h he d i d not abandon politics and diplomacy completely, the accident was a turning point in his life. H e was fifty-three when it occurred. T h e merchant in J a m e s L o g a n was not completely obscured by the scholar and statesman. T h o u g h his direct earnings as Provincial Secretary were small, his connections with the Penn family a n d his own business acumen allowed him to amass a fortune. A t the time of his retirement he was Philadelphia's principal f u r and skin merchant. T h e Penn heirs showed even a larger balance sheet f r o m his service. In 1747, at the age of seventy-three, after eight years of retirement, he was again asked by them to take u p the reins as governor of the Province. He wrote a polite letter to T h o m a s Penn, making it clear that he considered his " d e b t " to the Penns fully discharged. L o g a n was forty when he married. In his early thirties he had unsuccessfully sought the hand of A n n Shippen, daughter of the first mayor of Philadelphia, who possessed "the biggest person, the biggest house, the biggest coach" in the Province. She chose another man, T h o m a s Story, in 1706, and died in 1 7 1 0 . F o u r years later Logan married Sarah R e a d , daughter of a Philadelphia merchant. T h r o u g h all this, the lifelong friendship between the two men remained unchanged. L o g a n rented Story's bridal house in 1 7 1 9 and occupied it with his family for more than ten years. It was long after his marriage that Logan, with an eye on the f u t u r e and his growing children, planned a homestead. H e intended originally to build " a plain, cheap, farmers stone house" with stone from his own quarries. B u t these sources failed him; and, after a two years' search for stone not "dearer than brick," he was forced to take brick, probably made on his own premises. In 1 7 3 0 the L o g a n family moved into the " n e w country house," named after the village in East Lothian where Logan's father was born. It was a matter of great pride to him. A f t e r w a r d he liked to refer to himself as " J a m e s L o g a n of Stenton." Stenton was one of the more pretentious countryseats of the period and remains one of the finest examples of Colonial architecture, furnished with a simplicity and conservatism reminiscent as much of the man as of his time. T h e mansion, forty-five by forty-two feet, bears such Colonial earmarks as massive double doors

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with large wrought-iron hinges, heavy oak bars, immense lock and key, and solid wooden shutters lined with iron. T h e brick exterior is ornamented with a combination of black "headers" and red "stretchers," typical of the time. Circular stone steps, considerably worn, reveal the rusty iron bands holding the stones together. There is a great profusion of many-paned windows, without pulleys and sash cords, including the characteristic sidelight windows flanking the front doors. At the rear of the house a long, narrow, gable-roofed extension, running from the right end, at one time sheltered the servants' quarters, kitchen, greenhouse, spinning room, and possibly the blacksmith shop. T h e brick oven, copper boiler, and fireplace are still to be seen. T o the south of an open porch that runs the full width of the rear is an old-fashioned pump, mounted on a wooden platform, and a tool house. In the summer the mansion is almost completely covered with wistaria. T h e old barn, east of the mansion, still stands, and some distance away, on a hillside that overlooked Wingohocking Creek, is the enclosed burying ground of the Logan family. Beyond it extended the stream-threaded pasture. T h e front entrance opens into a long broad hallway, paved with English bricks in "diagnonal blues," that leads directly to the stairway. Windows on stair landings have cozy seats, which the Indians, who flocked to Stenton in hundreds, are said to have favored as lounges. Certain aspects of Stenton's construction recall the necessities of Logan's political career, not altogether ended with his occupation of the house. A staircase on the eastern side ingeniously connects all stairways from cellar to attic. Built in the manner of a "priest's escape," it has an outlet to the roof, to the cellar, and thence, through a passageway, to the barn and graveyard. In the dining room is a closet with grill and sliding top, which permitted effective eavesdropping, and a built-in bench and slanting writing board for taking notes. Stenton's original woodwork, entirely handworked, was said to have been imported from England. Fireplaces were an inseparable part of most rooms. Blue and white Dutch tiles illustrating scenes

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from the Bible are still visible here and there. Particularly well preserved are those in the northeast room on the second floor. In the parlor, left of the hallway, a fireback bears the initials " J . L. 1728." This fireback came from the famous Durham furnace, of which Logan was the principal owner. In the hallway sits an ancient iron chest that may have served Logan in his two sojourns abroad—the first from 1709 to 1712, in connection with his impeachment by the Assembly and the proposed sale of the Proprietary; the second from the autumn of 1723 to midsummer of 1724, following his removal as Provincial Secretary by Governor Keith. Its camouflaged lock has no connection with the lid, as the real lock is concealed under a sliding plate constituting part of a fastening band. In the cellar, directly under the hallway, are the wine racks which indicate that the Logan family either imported or brewed a variety of beverages. The bulk of the second floor was used for the library. This is the largest room in the house, with six windows and two fireplaces, one white- and one blue-tiled. Here were kept the volumes Logan later bequeathed to the city of Philadelphia. The room now has on display maps, documents, prints, and books. Of unusual interest are the rare collections of firearms, a life-size portrait of James Logan, a sofa, and a child's cradle said to have been his own. The north parlor has a built-in closet with concealed compartments for the family's silver. Here are the family's knife boxes, cutlery, china, mahogany tables, sideboard, and rare hand-loomed linens, some of which may well be the work of Sarah Logan and her favorite spinning wheel. The famous Stenton garden, laboratory for Logan's botanical researches, was once the envy of John Bartram and Abraham Redwood. Both took the Logan plot as a model for their own worldfamous gardens. It once extended beyond the present graveyard and was surrounded by orchards and a great variety of fruit trees. Logan carried on an extensive correspondence with botanists and nurserymen in England, exchanging with them rare plants and shrubs. He gathered a botanical collection that included specimens from every corner of the earth. His best-known experiments, con-

4

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ducted as early as 1724 in the garden of the Story home, dealt with sex in plants and were carried on with maize, or Indian corn. Logan incorporated the results of his experiments in a Latin treatise, Experimenta et meletamata de Plantariim generatione, published at Leyden in 1739. An English translation was published in London in 1747. Subsequently, similar experiments by John Bartram on Lychnis dioica, "illustrative of the doctrine of the sexes of plants," corroborated "those previously made upon the Indian corn (Zea Mays), by James Logan." Linnaeus named a family of plants Loganiacae. Similarly, fifty years after Logan's death, the botanist Robert Brown named a group of plants the Logania; and in 1790 Dr. Richard Pulteney, in his Sketches of the Progress of Botany in England, referred to Logan's Experimenta as "the most decisive in establishing the doctrine of sex in plants." Though Logan conducted no known scientific experiments before the Stenton period, he corresponded with leading men of science in Europe and America as early as 1 7 1 3 . His range of studies included history, archeology, theology, ethics, natural philosophy, anatomy, and law. There still exists a collection of his mathematical papers in manuscript that shows the extent of his excursions in this field. Young and aggressive thinkers came to Stenton. Thomas Godfrey, a glazier employed on the Logan estate, impressed his patron with his knowledge of mathematics, and Logan opened to him his scientific library and laboratory equipment. With Logan's encouragement Godfrey invented the sextant. T o Benjamin Franklin, Logan gave every possible encouragement. " O u r most ingenious printer," he wrote, "has the clearest understanding." In the late 1740's the two (Franklin was thirtytwo years the younger) frequently exchanged books and research information and engaged jointly in scientific experiments at Stenton. Together they attempted to use electricity as a cure of paralysis, apparently with Logan as the subject. Franklin wrote him: " I shall be glad to hear that the shocks had some good effect on your disordered side." As a writer Logan laid down his own dictum, declaring it incumbent upon an honest man "to publish nothing but what he is at least convinced of . . . and believes to be true, so far as the

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subject admits certainty." His letters had literary charm and simplicity, and his correspondence with William Penn is a model of fine form, incorporating a poctic touch and a sagacity that matched his patron's. His papers on the Maryland border dispute, written during his term as Provincial Governor of the Province (1736-38), to which office he was elevated by virtue of being president of the Council, shows Logan at his best as a scholar and statesman. His better-known political pamphlets were written in white heat in the course of his struggles with Governor William Keith, who w-as appointed by the Crown in 1717. T h e Antidote and A Memorial from James Logan were published in 1725. Several of Logan's papers, in the form of essays on ethics and scientific subjects, appeared in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society. Perhaps the most interesting paper and the most significant historically is Logan's letter to the Society of Friends, penned in 1741, attacking the Quaker stand on non-resistance. Penn had never established a militia, hoping the Colony would run itself without police. But in 1 7 1 5 Isaac Norris wrote: "We have no courts—no justice administered—and every man does what is right in his eyes." T h e stubborn refusal of the Quakers to take oaths and affirmations interfered with the normal administration of justice, and later their opposition to the building of needed defenses endangered the safety of the Province. Logan pointed out that, if it were wrong to defend property, it was equally wrong to acquire it, and that possession of wealth implied the imperative necessity of seeking means to defend it. As all civil and military governments are founded on force, Logan said, the Friends would be in a better position to keep faith with their precepts by staying out of the government. He actually urged the Friends, already a minority in the Province, to abstain from the coming Assembly elections. In that connection he alluded to an incident that had occurred aboard the ship Canterbury during his and William Penn's passage to America in 1699. Faced with an attack upon the vessel, Logan and the crew prepared to resist, while Penn and his entourage retired to their cabins. Later, when taken to task by Penn, Logan retorted that the older man's remonstrance should have come before, not after, the ship had passed all danger. Logan stood alone in his views, and the Society of Friends sup-

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pressed his letter. Only his outstanding qualities saved him from public censure as a result of it. Fifteen years later, under the pressure of the French and Indian War, the Friends were forced to relinquish power. In his dealings with the Indians, Logan's record is remarkable. He not only kept peace for over a half-century, but won the Indians' lasting friendship and admiration. Yet it was never merely a policy of expediency and tolerance. He carried on a correspondence with Indian chiefs and welcomed their companionship. At Stenton he built temporary accommodations for visiting Indians, who sometimes camped for protracted periods on the spacious grounds. Nevertheless, the interests of the Indians and the white settlers rarely coincided. Although Logan did not seek an exclusive monopoly on Indian lands for the Penns, he did urge the Indians to deal with the Pennsylvania traders rather than with those from Maryland, Virginia, and the Jerseys. From time to time the forgetful Indians had to be reminded of William Penn's priority rights. Logan made an effort to banish the rum trade. It was a hopeless task. Rum attracted Indians. T o exclude it from the market would mean to sacrifice a large part of the Indian trade. He therefore confined himself to pressing for legislation that would check the official tendency of the white man to indemnify for murder of an Indian by the gift of a blanket "to wipe away and dry up the blood that has been spilt and to cover it so as it may never be seen or heard of any more." T h e Walking Purchase occurred during Logan's administration as governor. It is difficult to determine just how much responsibility he bore in this unsavory business, but as agent for the Penn heirs it is unlikely that he did not know of the intended fraud. T h e faith of the red man in Logan, however, was not shaken even by that transaction. They continued to come to him rather than to the Assembly or the governor. One Indian chief said of him: "He is a wise man and a fast friend of Indians and we desire when his soul goes to God you may choose in his room just such another person of the same prudence and ability in counseling and of the same tender disposition and affection for the Indians." There is the story of the old chief Wingohocking who, in token of admiration for Logan, suggested they exchange names. Logan pointed to

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a stream near his estate and replied that, while he would soon pass away, the stream would flow on, and was, therefore, a more fitting and enduring memorial. T h e sage advice was naively accepted; the chief adopted Logan's name and gave his own to the creek, which now flows underground. A searching student and an avid collector of books, Logan in his letters to Europe, particularly to his business associates, frequently sent orders for various books. In addition to many important scientific works, his collection contained many Greek and Roman classics. Upon his death in 1751 he bequeathed his library of two thousand rare and valuable works to the city of Philadelphia and set aside funds to augment it "as the advance of literature and science required." This became the Loganian Library which in 1792 merged with the Library Company of Philadelphia. On contemplating his literary treasures, Logan at one time complained that they "will not find an heir in my family to use them when I have gone." In his retirement he was something of a lonely figure, "austere and melancholy." His wife and four surviving children did not share his literary or scientific interests, and he spent much time with his books, reflecting upon the world and its "beautiful creation." His attempt to teach his daughter Sarah the Hebrew language was in the nature of an experiment and is the only intimation of an exhilarating intellectual experience with a member of his family. Logan could be as overbearing as he could be gracious, depending on his mood, or on whether a particular person pleased or annoyed him. He spoke little to his family, but took great delight in showing his library to visitors. A man of integrity, a bred aristocrat, he did not permit the prejudices of his age to blur his vision or dull his progressive spirit. T h e College of Philadelphia, now the University of Pennsylvania, was established with Logan's help. He cheerfully offered each student the use of his library. His loyalty to Philadelphia was such that, on the occasion of J o h n Penn's death, he expressed surprise "that in his will his native city was absolutely forgotten, not leaving it so much as one lot for any public building in it." Logan's thought, in many respects akin to the philosophy of the great French rationalists, represented the views of the most ques-

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tioning scientists and thinkers of his day. "Courts only punish offenses," he declared in 1736. " T h e y do not inquire into causes of crime." Examining these causes, he held that man's "disorder and wild confusion" arose from some inexplicable error in the design of the universe, perhaps in man's own depravity, his "perverse use of free will." But he was firm in the belief that man was essentially a gregarious being with a nature fundamentally good, whose life was too precious to be misused. Stenton, the one-time mainstay of proprietary rule, seethed with revolt during the period preceding the Revolutionary War. John Dickinson, son-in-law of Logan's elder daughter Sarah, here wrote his Farmer's Letters and many other pamphlets which helped to crystallize Revolutionary sentiment. For this reason General Howe singled out the mansion for destruction, along with many other mansions between Philadelphia and Germantown. But the house was saved from the enemy's torch by a Negro stewardess, Dinah, who outwitted the officers by sending them off on a fool's errand. A monument has been erected to the memory of this savior of Stenton. Logan's eldest son, William, continued to look after the interests of the Penn family. His relations with the Indians, like his father's, were the friendliest. Unlike his father, he did not take an active part in the government, though he did serve in Council and at the making of Indian treaties. However, his activities were confined chiefly to Stenton. During his life the garden assumed even a greater importance in the Province, but William was a gardener and not a botanist. Stenton's third occupant, Dr. George Logan, was born here in 1753. He was a United States senator, an outstanding agriculturist, an active member of philosophical and agricultural societies, and was often referred to as the "scientific farmer." Under his expert management, Stenton became a thriving and profitable farm. His laconic diary, now in possession of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, gives an account of active farm life on the Stenton acres early in the nineteenth century. Dr. Logan's wife, the exquisite Deborah Logan, an accomplished historian, spent her declining days in the Stenton attic deciphering the Logan archives, copying laboriously the correspondence of her

STENTON husband's grandfather. T o her belongs the credit for preserving the Penn-Logan Papers, among the most fascinating pages in the Colony's history. Late in her life, she wrote of Stenton: M y peaceful home! amidst whose dark green shades And sylvan scenes my waning life is spent, Not without blessings and desire content . . . H e r treasures,—still 'tis mine among thy groves M u s i n g to roam enamour'd of the fame O f him who reared these walls whose classic lore F o r science brightly played, and left his name Indelible—by honor, too, approved, And Virtue cherished in the Muse's flame.

FORT NECESSITY GEORGE WASHINGTON'S surrender to the French at Fort Necessity on July 4, 1754, was no doubt a bitter moment in his life, but the more glorious "Fourth" of 1776, which it foreshadowed, was to compensate for it. A chain of related events led from the one event to the other. For, had there been no Fort Necessity, there would probably have been no need for the Colonies to unite later, during the Seven Years' W a r , in the common cause of defending themselves against the French and Indians. And, had the Colonies not learned the value of unity in that struggle, they would never have been able to oppose successfully the tyrannous taxation which the Crown subsequently levied on them to defray the cost of the Seven Years' War. But the Colonies learned their lesson; the Declaration of Independence and the birth of the Nation were the result. Washington's inauguration as first President of the United States was a fitting epilogue to the drama begun three decades earlier at the crude fort in the wilderness of southwestern Pennsylvania. W h e n the struggle for colonial supremacy between France and Great Britain approached the decisive stage, Washington, a mere 52

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lad lately emerged from his schoolbooks, was assisting a surveyor for the O h i o Company. For almost a century the two empires had waged intermittent warfare in Europe and North America. Queen Anne's W a r (1701-1713) ended with France relinquishing to Britain, by the T r e a t y of Utrecht, suzerainty of the Iroquois and their lands, and control of Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, and the Hudson Bay territory. Again in 1745 King George's W a r in Europe brought strife to the colonies of the rival powers in America. T h i s war ended w i t h the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748. But it failed to achieve a satisfactory delimitation of American colonial boundaries. Scarcely was the ink dry on the peace treaty when the two nations were again at odds over their colonial dominions. In 1748 the O h i o Company was formed by T h o m a s Lee of Virginia. Associated with him were twelve persons in London, Maryland, and Virginia, among them Lawrence and Augustine Washington, elder brothers of George. By royal grant the company was allotted five hundred thousand acres of land in the O h i o and Allegheny valleys. T h e purpose of the enterprise was threefold: to trade British merchandise with the Indians in exchange for furs; to oust the rival Colony of Pennsylvania as a competitor of Virginia and Maryland in the Indian fur trade and in the settlement of the western frontier; and to build posts and settlements as a bar to future French encroachments. T h e French, meanwhile, continued to claim all land west of the Allegheny Mountains on the strength of prior exploration and occupancy. As early as 1669 Robert, Chevalier de la Salle, they declared, had descended the Allegheny, Ohio, and Mississippi rivers. Other French exploring parties were said to have retraced his route in the early part of the eighteenth century. As a check to English expansion, and almost simultaneously with the forming of the O h i o Company, the Governor-General of Canada, Marquis de la Galissoniere, sent Céloron de Blainville with an expedition in 1749 to claim the land along the Allegheny and Ohio. Céloron, traveling down the St. Lawrence to Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, reached the headwaters of the Allegheny by way of Lake Chautauqua and Conewango Creek. A t the mouth of every tributary of the two rivers he planted leaden plates graven with an inscription asserting that the adjacent lands belonged to the K i n g of France.

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In 1752 the Marquis Duquesne was appointed Governor-General of Canada and began an energetic campaign against the English. T h e following January an expedition of three hundred men under Monsieur Babeer set out from Quebec to Fort Niagara, thence to Erie, where in the spring of that year Fort Presque Isle was erected during the spring months. Another fort was built at the headwaters of French or L e Boeuf Creek, at the present site of Waterford, Erie County. News of the French encroachments alarmed the English colonies. Governor Robert Dinwiddie of Virginia decided to send young George Washington to demand of the French an explanation of their activities along the Allegheny River. For this purpose Dinwiddie gave the twenty-one-year-old surveyor a major's commission in the Virginia militia. Accompanied by Christopher Gist, agent of the Ohio Company, and several others, Washington started on his mission in October 1753. He went first to Logstown below the Forks of the O h i o to confer with Indian sachems and persuade them to side with the English. A t the conference were such prominent chiefs as Shingas and the Half-King; the latter accompanied Washington on his journey northward to the French forts. Snow and ice had set in by the time the party reached the upper Allegheny. A t Venango, which had a log trading post built by the English subject, John Frazier, whom Céloron dispossessed, Washington was received by Captain Joncaire, the commandant. Joncaire politely told the young Virginian that Legardeur de St. Pierre, commander of Fort Le Boeuf, was the proper man to see. Journeying to L e Boeuf, Washington delivered Governor Dinwiddle's message to St. Pierre, who promised he would send it to the French governor-general. But meanwhile he would hold possession of the Allegheny country for France, as he had been ordered to do. During Washington's stay at the two posts, the French tried hard to win over the Half-King and other Indians by plying them with liquor and presents. Captain Joncaire used every wile to ingratiate himself with the Half-King; but the latter, while accepting a gun and other presents, remained loyal to the English. In January 1754, on orders from Governor Dinwiddie, a com-

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pany of volunteer militia was raised in Virginia to help the Ohio Company and forestall French encroachment. William Trent served as captain, John Frazier as lieutenant, and Edward Ward as ensign. Trent's company arrived at the Forks of the Ohio in February and began to build a fort. Before it was half completed a far superior French force under Captain Pierre de Contrecœur came down from Venango and forced Ensign Ward, temporarily in charge, to surrender. Taking possession of the Forks, the French proceeded immediately to erect a strong fortification, which they named Fort Duquesne, in honor of the Governor-General of Canada. Contrecœur became commander of the line of forts extending from the Ohio to Presque Isle. Meanwhile alliances had been made in 1753 by the Six Nations with the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia. Christopher Gist, George Croghan, and Andrew Montour, the half-breed, acted as emissaries and interpreters. T h e French advance along the upper Allegheny, and the erection of their forts, caused the chiefs on the Ohio to send messages to the governors of Pennsylvania and Virginia, warning them and appealing for military aid against the French. Believing, or pretending to believe, that the Ohio territory was under Virginia jurisdiction, the Pennsylvania Assembly refused to cooperate, although the Crown had sent a circular to all the Colonies, urging them to aid one another in repelling the French. Governor Dinwiddie likewise pleaded for a united effort against the enemy, but received little encouragement. He then ordered Washington, commissioned lieutenant colonel, to lead a force of one hundred and fifty men to the Forks of the Ohio, drive out the French there, and occupy the fort. As an incentive, the members of the expedition were promised a royal grant of two hundred thousand acres of land in the contested region, the acreage to be divided among them. T h e Virginia Assembly deemed the cause serious enough to vote an increase of men and money for the campaign. T h e expedition was therefore augmented by three hundred more men and divided into six companies, with Colonel Joshua Fry in command. Young

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Washington, second in command, was to advance to Will's Creek (now Cumberland, Maryland) with two companies, there to be joined by other detachments. He left Alexandria, Virginia, with his force on the second of April, 1754, and reached Will's Creek on the seventeenth. W h i l e waiting reinforcements, he received from Ensign W a r d news of the latter's surrender of the fort to Contrecœur. Realizing that he would have a large enemy force opposing him, Washington decided to proceed with caution until aid should arrive. Acting on Governor Dinwiddie's instructions, however, Washington proceeded northward to begin the trek to the mouth of Redstone Creek on the Monongahela, where the O h i o Company had erected a storehouse the preceding year. T h i s point, the present site of Brownsville, was to be the base of operations against Fort Duquesne and the point where Colonel Fry's force with wagons and cannon was to be awaited, before advancing by way of the Monongahela to attack the French. W i t h sixty men detailed to clear a road through the wilderness for the column and its few cannon and horses, Washington's force moved from Will's Creek on May 1. T h e route led over mountains and streams, the going made doubly arduous by inadequate supplies and equipment. Shoes and clothing wore out quickly on the stony slopes and weed-choked hollows. T h e r e were no tents, though the season was unusually rainy. N o t until May 23 did the expedition reach and cross the Youghiogheny River. W h e n an Indian runner brought word from the Half-King that the French were advancing within striking distance and that the sachem would join Washington soon, the latter hurried his force to the Great Meadows, a few miles west of the Youghiogheny, near the present town of Farmington, Fayette County. Arriving there on. May 24, Washington had his troops dig entrenchments and clear the ground of bushes. O n May 27, Gist arrived at the camp from his place thirteen miles to the north near Laurel Hill. H e informed Washington that a party of fifty Frenchmen under L a Force had passed near his plantation and were now only a few miles from the camp at Great Meadows. Washington dispatched seventy-five men in pursuit of L a Force,

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but they failed to find the French. T h e same night a runner from the Half-King arrived with word that the sachem, six miles away, had spotted the trail of the French, who were believed to be encamped in a near-by ravine. Leaving part of his force behind to guard the camp, Washington led forty of his men through the rainy night to the Half-King's camp, arriving there at dawn. T h e young colonel and the friendly sachem decided to make a joint attack on the French. Each leading his group in single file, they advanced through the woods until the tracks of the enemy were sighted. T w o of the Half-King's warriors were sent to follow the trail and report the location of the French. T h e y soon returned with word that the enemy were encamped in a sheltered, rocky glen a half-mile away. Washington and the Half-King agreed to attack the position on all sides, the Indians advancing from one flank and the Virginians from the other. W h e n they neared the glen they were discovered by the French, who leaped for their stacked arms; but before they could reach them the Virginians and Indians opened fire. T h e attackers held the advantage from the start. T h e French returned the fire as well as they could but were unable to cope with the fusillade the English poured into them from the rocks above, while at the same time the Half-King and his braves were rushing at them with tomahawks and scalping knives from the rocks on the other side. T h e struggle, short and furious, ended in defeat for the French. T h e i r losses were ten killed, including Coulon de Jumonville, commanding officer; one wounded; and twentyone taken prisoners, among whom were Drouillon and L a Force, the latter an important and competent French negotiator with a knowledge of native dialects. Washington's losses were slight, one man being killed and two or three wounded. T h e Half-King's warriors sustained no casualties, as the French had concentrated their fire on the English. W h i l e unimportant in size and duration, the skirmish with J u monville, which took place in what is now W h a r t o n Township, Fayette County, was the spark that led to the conflagration of the Seven Years' W a r between France and Britain. T h e skirmish was also the preliminary to the greater engagement to be fought a

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month later by Colonel Washington at Fort Necessity, a few miles from the scene of the encounter with Jumonville. French authorities immediately seized upon the incident of the skirmish and enlarged it into a pretext for waging open war. They contended that Jumonville and La Force had been sent with the detachment on a peaceful errand, that their presence in the vicinity was merely for the purpose of seeking a conference with Washington, and that Washington's surprise attack was nothing less than a cold-blooded assassination and flagrant act of hostility. They emphasized the fact that, at the first volley fired by the English, Jumonville had tried to signal for a parley, but that Washington had deliberately ignored this peaceful gesture and continued his murderous assault. T h e French further played up, in support of their grievance, the contrast between the courteous treatment they had accorded Washington, when he was sent as emissary to Venango and Le Boeuf the year before, and the outrage committed by him against their envoys on a similar mission. Whereas St. Pierre had shown the young major every hospitality and deference, the latter not only had attacked the French emissaries but had spurned Jumonville's desperate appeal for a parley, even permitting the Indians to scalp the dead and wounded. It is interesting to note that the scalping was admitted by Washington in his report to Governor Dinwiddie and in his journal, which was later picked u p by the French at the scene of Braddock's defeat and published widely in France. Like the French, the British and Colonial authorities were no less determined to use the incident as a pretext for open warfare. They realized that the dispute over the Ohio region could no longer be settled by diplomatic means. T h e issue thenceforth could be decided only by a resort to war. They therefore flatly denied that the French had any just grievance with regard to the Jumonville affair. T o all the French charges, Washington advanced countercharges in justification of his act. On being questioned by Washington after the skirmish, Drouillon and La Force insisted that Jumonville had been sent to meet Washington and deliver a summons requesting that the English withdraw from the region. Regarding this, Washington wrote the following in his report to Governor Dinwiddie the day after the skirmish:

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T h e s e officers [Drouillon a n d L a Force] p r e t e n d they were c o m i n g o n an embassy; b u t the absurdity of this p r e t e x t is too glaring, as you will see by the I n s t r u c t i o n s a n d S u m m o n s enclosed. T h e i r instructions were

to

r e c o n n o i t r e the country, roads, creeks, a n d the like, as far as the Potomac, which

they were a b o u t

to do. T h e s e e n t e r p r i s i n g m e n

were

purposely

chosen to p r o c u r e intelligence, which they were to send back by some brisk despatches, with the m e n t i o n of the day that they were to serve the summ o n s ; which could be with n o o t h e r view than to get a sufficient reinforcem e n t to fall u p o n m e immediately after. T h i s , with several o t h e r reasons, induced all the officers to believe firmly that they were sent as spies r a t h e r t h a n a n y t h i n g else, a n d has occasioned my d e t a i n i n g t h e m as prisoners, though they e x p e c t e d . . . that they should b e regarded as ambassadors. They,

finding

where we were e n c a m p e d , instead of c o m i n g u p in a

p u b l i c m a n n e r , sought out o n e of the most secret retirements, fitter for a deserter than an ambassador to e n c a m p in, a n d stayed there two o r three days, sending spies to r e c o n n o i t r e o u r camp, as we were told, though they d e n y it. T h e i r whole body moved back n e a r two miles, a n d they sent off two r u n n e r s

to a c q u a i n t C o n t r e c œ u r with o u r strength a n d where

we

were e n c a m p e d . Now thirty-six men would almost have b e e n a r e t i n u e for a princely Ambassador, instead of a petit.

W h y did they, if their designs

were open, stay so l o n g within five miles of us, without delivering their message o r a c q u a i n t i n g m e with it? Washington

f u r t h e r m o r e denied that the F r e n c h h a d called

a parley when the to a p p r o a c h

firing

started. H e asserted he was the

first

for man

t h e F r e n c h c a m p a n d w a s t h e first t o b e s e e n b y t h e

F r e n c h , w h o " i m m e d i a t e l y r a n to their a r m s a n d

fired

briskly till

they were defeated." H e m a i n t a i n e d that h a d the e n e m y called

to

h i m n o t t o fire, h e w o u l d h a v e h e a r d t h e m a n d c o m p l i e d w i t h t h e i r request. As for the F r e n c h s u m m o n s c a r r i e d by J u m o n v i l l e ,

Wash-

i n g t o n b e l i e v e d t h a t J u m o n v i l l e h a d b e e n i n s t r u c t e d t o u s e it o n l y if s u r p r i s e d b y a n E n g l i s h f o r c e l a r g e r t h a n his o w n , a n d t h a t h i s r e a l m i s s i o n w a s t o r e c o n n o i t r e t h e c o u n t r y a n d spy o n t h e E n g l i s h . I n his r e p o r t t o t h e B r i t i s h M i n i s t r y , G o v e r n o r D i n w i d d i e u p h e l d Washington's

conduct.

Had

not

the

French

committed

act of hostility earlier in the year when C o n t r e c œ u r took possession

the

first

forcible

of t h e unfinished fort at t h e F o r k s o f t h e O h i o ? As

m i l i t a r y officer u n d e r o r d e r s f r o m t h e V i r g i n i a g o v e r n o r ,

a

Washing-

t o n h a d o n l y d o n e his d u t y i n a t t a c k i n g J u m o n v i l l e ' s f o r c e .

The

m e r e p r e s e n c e of a n a r m e d d e t a c h m e n t o f t h a t size p r o w l i n g i n t h e

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vicinity made untenable the French claim that Jumonville's mission was a peaceful one. T h e French, however, were shortly to gain their point in the controversy by inflicting a military defeat on Washington and forcing him to assert unwittingly that he had "assassinated" Jumonville. News of the skirmish, which occurred at dawn on May 28, was brought to Fort Duquesne by a Canadian, the only member of the French detachment to escape from the ravine. Contrecœur and C o u l o n de Villiers, half-brother of the slain Jumonville, made immediate preparations to avenge the French officer's death. Reinforcements from Presque Isle, L e Boeuf, and Venango came d o w n the Allegheny River to Duquesne. Several hundred French-speaking warriors from tribes in Canada arrived at the fort. Other Indians from Ohio and Pennsylvania, who previously had been proEnglish, also joined Contrecœur, having been won over by presents and diplomacy. T h e French sedulously instilled in their minds the propaganda that the English were the real enemies of the red men; that the English had defrauded them of their lands and were bent on exterminating the Indian race, while pretending to be friendly. Meanwhile, Washington was preparing for the large French force he expected would be sent to retaliate for Jumonville's defeat. T h e chances of resisting were not favorable, and the outlook became gloomier with news from Will's Creek that Colonel Fry had died after a short illness caused by a fall from his horse. He was on his way to join Washington with the remainder of the expeditionary force when the accident occurred—two days after Washington's skirmish with the French. Actual command thus devolved upon the young colonel, although Governor Dinwiddie did appoint a successor in Colonel Innes, w h o had arrived at Winchester with three hundred and fifty troops from the Colony of North Carolina. Innes, however, did not advance his troops farther than Winchester, so that his command of the expedition was purely nominal. O n June 9, Major Muse and Andrew Montour, w h o had been commissioned captain, arrived at the Great Meadows camp w i t h the rest of the Virginia force, which Colonel Fry had led as far as Will's Creek. W i t h the reinforcements were brought nine swivel guns and a small supply of powder and cannon balls. Washington, sorely disappointed at the failure of the Virginia authorities to for-

FORT

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ward adequate artillery and supplies, sought to have Christopher Gist procure wagons and horses in Pennsylvania to haul the cannon and material from Will's Creek. But in this he was unsuccessful, owing to the determination of the Pennsylvania Assembly to abstain from any participation in the expedition despite the willingness of Governor Hamilton. T h e arrival, on June 10, of Captain Mackay with the Independent Company from South Carolina added to Washington's difficulties. Numbering one hundred men, this company had been recruited for the King's service and was commanded by officers holding royal commissions. As Washington held his lieutenant colonel's commission from the Virginia governor rather than from the King, Captain Mackay felt that his own rank of royal officer was above that of a Colonial. He therefore declined to accept Colonel Washington as his superior and maintained a separate encampment for his company. Washington was thus faced with the problem of conflicting authority. Extra men were needed to help clear the road to Redstone and enlarge the entrenchments at Great Meadows, but Mackay made it plain that his men could not be detailed for such work, as they were not in the pay of Virginia. Rather than bring on a state of discord and insubordination, which would result from the Virginians doing all the work while Mackay's Independents looked on in disdainful idleness, Washington decided to march his men on to Redstone. Captain Mackay's company was to stay at the Meadows to guard that camp. The total force at Great Meadows now numbered about four hundred, including several groups of Indians. Because of the difficulty in clearing a road for the artillery and wagons across Laurel Ridge, two weeks were required for the advance to Gist's plantation, thirteen miles to the north. The Virginians continued clearing the road ahead toward Redstone, while Montour's scouts kept well in advance to watch for the French. Indian chiefs came to Gist's to confer with Washington, offering aid in return for goods and presents, but as Washington had few supplies for his own troops, he could offer no material inducements to the chiefs. Disgruntled, they withdrew and headed for Duquesne, where they knew their services would be amply paid for by the French. T h e Half-King also quarreled with Washington over the

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question of campaign strategy and marched his braves back to Great Meadows. On learning from French deserters and Indian spies that Contrecœur had received large reinforcements from Canada, and that a force of five hundred French and Indians were advancing from Fort Duquesne to engage him in battle, Washington gave orders that entrenchments be dug at Gist's. A runner was sent to Captain Mackay at the Meadows, asking him to bring up his company. T w o detachments under Captain Lewis and Captain Poison were also called in from road-building. When Mackay arrived with the Independents a council of war was held—on June 28. It was decided that, in view of the enemy's superior strength, resistance at Gist's would not be feasible. It would be more prudent to fall back to the Great Meadows, where their few supplies were stored and where a better defense could be made in case of sudden attack; and, if the two independent companies from New York did not soon arrive, it might be necessary to abandon the expedition altogether. With a few weak horses to help with the hauling, the retreat to the Meadows began. Footsore, hungry, and worn out by the grueling labor of road-building and trench-digging, the Virginians stoically bore the burden of dragging the nine swivel guns and baggage. Washington set an example for his men by loading his own horse with supplies and baggage and trudging beside it during the entire two days' march. As usual, Mackay's Independents studiously avoided sharing any of the burdens of the march, considering it beneath their dignity as soldiers of the King to perform any manual labor. Their callousness and indolence served to intensify the fatigue and resentment of the Virginians. Just about one month had elapsed since the preliminary skirmish with Jumonville. Washington realized now that the New York companies would never arrive in time. He abandoned his original intention to retreat farther than the Great Meadows upon learning that a force of nine hundred French and Indians had already reached Gist's and was pressing on toward the camp. He would have to make a stand, regardless of inferior numbers and lack of supplies. T o make matters worse, the Half-King and his braves, chafing under the strict discipline imposed by Washington, deserted the expedition altogether.

FORT

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63

Frantic efforts were now made to fortify the Great Meadows. A log stockade, surrounded by a trench and breastworks, was hastily erected in the approximate center of an open meadow. T h e nearest slope on which the enemy could take cover behind trees was at least two hundred feet away, while on the other sides the clearing extended one hundred to one hundred and fifty yards from the palisades. A small stream ran through one angle of the stockade, assuring a supply of water to the defenders. They would not thirst, though such staples as flour and salt were almost gone. Because of the pressing circumstances under which the fortification was hastily thrown up, Washington aptly named it Fort Necessity. Early in the morning of J u l y 3, the sharp report of a musket rang out from the near-by woods. A wounded scout staggered across the meadows, shouting that the French were upon them. Instantly the whole force leaped to arms. Muskets were primed and heavy balls were rammed into the hungry throats of the swivel guns. Washington, cautioning the troops to keep cool and hold their fire until the enemy had come close enough for accurate shooting, drew up his force in battle line on the level ground in front of the entrenchment. He expected an immediate assault. Clouds were rolling across the already murky sky. A few scattered drops of rain began to fall. In the dull gray light, dim figures could be seen stealthily moving among the trees several hundred yards away. Not until eleven o'clock in the morning, however, did the French fire the first volley. Soon feathered arrows were joining the hail of lead falling on the defenders from the woods. From among the trees with their French allies, the Indians sought sheltered points nearest to the fort from which to send their deadly shafts. Seeing that the French had no intention of making a direct assault, Washington ordered his men to take cover in the trenches and stockade and to fire at will. T h e rain was falling now in a torrent, drenching the men and filling the trenches with water and mud. T h e rain-sodden air reverberated with bursts of musketry, the boom of cannon, and the shrieks of the Indians. From time to time agonized cries were heard as bullets and arrows tore into human flesh. T h e horses and the few remaining cattle were either driven off or killed by well-aimed shots from the woods. All through the

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day the battle raged and the rain fell intermittently. Not once did the French or Indians attempt a charge across the stretch of sodden meadow; they kept prudently to the shelter of the trees. And not once did the spirits of Washington and his men falter, though their situation was becoming more precarious. T h e wounded, the dead, and the dying were strewn all over the fort, or lay partly immersed in the swampy mud and water of the trenches. Ammunition was almost gone, and little remained of the stores except several kegs of rum and a small quantity of flour. T h e rum was rationed out to the active soldiers as well as to the wounded, and its substitution for food brought results that may have given a comic note to the all-too-grim affair. T h e men probably shouted louder and more defiantly than ever, though one-fourth of their number had been killed or wounded. They may have reeled and staggered as they ran from one side of the stockade to the other, but they shot as accurately and fought as hard as before. At eight o'clock that night the French stopped firing and called for a parley. Washington at first ignored the request, thinking it a ruse to enter the fort and see the desperate condition of its defenders. Finally he agreed to send Captain Van Braam to discuss terms. T h e Dutchman was the only one available, except Ensign de Peyroney, who understood the French language, and Peyroney was seriously wounded. Reaching the French lines, Van Braam discussed the terms of capitulation with Coulon de Villiers, the commander, who emphasized that his chief demand—evacuation of the fort by Washington and withdrawal of his force to Virginia for a full year—would sufficiently avenge the "assassination" of Jumonville. The articles of capitulation were then written in French in duplicate copies, which Van Braam carried back to the fort for Washington's consideration and signature. By shielded candlelight, flickering in the gusts of rain, Van Braam translated orally the French text to Washington and his officers, huddled together in a group. Van Braam had none too good a command of either English or French, so that his oral rendition of the French terms was far from accurate. Laboriously he read aloud each article of the text, while his listeners discussed various points that were not clear. T h e preamble stated that Contrecceur's intentions

FORT

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65

were—aside from the question involving Jumonville—to hinder any English establishment on the lands belonging to the French king, and to that end the French were willing to grant protection and full honors of war to the English upon the terms stipulated in the seven appended articles. By the first six, Washington was to retire with all his garrison and stores except artillery; the English were to be accorded the right to march out with drums beating, taking with them a swivel gun; the English colors were to be struck and the French were to take possession of the fort; the French promised to prevent the Indians from molesting the English column; and the English were to give their word of honor not to work on any building or other operations in the vicinity or west of the Allegheny Mountains during a year. Then came the seventh and last article, which stipulated that Captains Van Braam and Stobo, both of Washington's staff, were to be held as hostages until the French prisoners taken in the Jumonville skirmish were released from confinement in Virginia and returned to Fort Duquesne. Either through carelessness or deliberate deceit, Van Braam read the French words, which literally meant "prisoners taken in the assassination of Jumonville," as "prisoners taken in the death of Jumonville." In reading the preamble, too, he had mistranslated the word "assassination." Unaware of this, Washington signed the articles at midnight. Had the young Colonel known the true import of the French text, he would never have placed his signature on it. For, besides the virtual admission that he had assassinated Jumonville, he, by implication, upheld the right of the French to claim the Ohio Valley by agreeing to the article concerning his promise "not to work on any establishment either in the vicinity or this side of the highlands," that is, west of the Allegheny Mountains. T h e next morning (July 4), in accordance with the terms of capitulation, Washington evacuated the fort with full honors of war, his men marching out to the tune of "St. Patrick's Day in the Morning." Without horses or wagons, the weary troops had to carry the wounded and the baggage on their backs. But they did not falter. With drums beating, they began the long march back to Will's Creek in Maryland. Fighting nearly broke out again when

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the Indians tried to plunder the baggage, but they were restrained by the French. Besides Captains Van Braam and Stobo, left behind with the French, Washington lost in the battle thirty killed and seventy wounded, as against about three hundred casualties for the French and Indians. Governor Dinwiddie subsequently repudiated Washington's agreement with Villiers to exchange the French prisoners taken in the Jumonville skirmish. He refused to release the prisoners, with the result that Van Braam and Stobo were taken to Canada and imprisoned. Washington's word of honor to Villiers, whereby the English pledged not to return west of the Alleghenies for a year after the capitulation, was also broken. By the spring of 1755 the English under Braddock and accompanied by Washington were marching again on Fort Duquesne. It is little wonder, then, that Washington was regarded by the French for many years as a perfidious character. In fact he continued to bear the stigma of villain in France until the outbreak of the War for Independence, when his reputation was redeemed as commander-in-chief of the revolting Colonies. Washington always felt a sentimental attachment for the land where he sustained his first defeat. After the French and Indian War he purchased a three-hundred-acre tract at Great Meadows, including the site of Fort Necessity. He retained the land until his death, when the historic battleground passed to other owners and fell into neglect. By Act of Congress, in 1931, the ground on which the fort had stood was purchased by the Federal Government. A restoration of Fort Necessity was undertaken and dedicated as a national shrine on J u l y 4, 1932, as part of the Washington Bicentennial Celebration. T h e land surrounding the site of the fort was purchased by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and today is known as Fort Necessity State Park. Now under the care of the National Park Service of the United States Department of the Interior, the restored log stockade flies the American flag. Near by wave the flags of England and France. Trees have been planted to reconstruct, with as much fidelity as possible, the locale of 1754. Big Meadow R u n originally flowed through a corner of the

FORT

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67

stockade, but d u r i n g the years its course has straightened; it now lies about twelve feet from the fort. A cabin within the enclosure is a replica of one that is said to have served as a hospital during the battle. T h e park and fort lie beside US 40, near Farmington in Fayette County. J u s t off the highway near the fort stands M o u n t Washington T a v e r n , the State Park Museum. T h i s red-brick building of two and a half stories was erected in 1 8 1 6 as an inn. It contains early Colonial and Indian relics. N e a r the park's entrance along the highway stands a monument with a bronze plaque set on a background of stones, marking the G r e a t Meadows as the site "where Washington fought his first battle and m a d e his first and last surrender."

THE FORT PITT BLOCKHOUSE of a bygone day, Pittsburgh's Blockhouse stands as lone memorial of the city's birthplace and one of America's most historic structures. T h e only brick blockhouse of our Colonial times still standing, it is the one existing monument to British occupancy of the region. RELIC

Like a solitary sentinel, the tiny redoubt of old Fort Pitt looks out upon the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers where they join to form the Ohio. It harks back to the era when the Point was the key to western dominion, for which England and France struggled long and bitterly. Overshadowed by symbols of modern industrial life along Penn Avenue, a hundred feet east of Water Street, the former outpost and its little garden are enclosed by an iron fence and a cement wall. Near-by are warehouses and freight yards, while overhead loom elevated railroad tracks and two bridges, vital arteries of traffic north and south of the Triangle. T h e Blockhouse stands a hundred yards from the water's edge at the Point. It is a two-story five-sided structure coming to a point at the north, the side facing the city being twenty-three feet wide and the other sides each about sixteen feet. T h e building reaches 68

FORT

PITT

BLOCKHOUSE

69

fourteen feet from the ground to the rough-shingled, pyramidal roof, the stone foundation alone rising five and a half feet. T h e upper walls are of brick, save for two thick bands of timber running all around the structure, one a short distance below the roof and the other immediately above the foundation walls. These timbers, pierced for musket barrels, accommodated two ranges of defenders at every wall. O n the eastern façade, just under the eaves, a stone tablet bears the inscription: "A.D. 1764 Colonel Bouquet." A t the building's entrance a step leads down to the floor, a foot and a half below the yard level. T h e rough walls are decorated with various symbols of Colonial times. A m o n g the mementos are a bas-relief model of Fort Duquesne, copies of original sketches of Fort Pitt, and a photograph of Mary E. Schenley. A few relics remain, such as guns and ammunition used in Colonial days. T h e little square park surrounding the old redoubt is nicely landscaped. Floral beds add color; willows, maples, and the sacred Japanese ginkgo trees lend their shade. T h e sun marks its progress on an ancient dial set in the center of the park, and several bronze tablets record the military occupancy of the Ohio Forks. T h e stormy chronicle of the Point begins late in 1753 when Virginia's Governor, Robert Dinwiddie, decided to establish a military post at the head of the Ohio. W i t h a view to dominating the land west of the Alleghenies, the French had been building a chain of strongholds from Lake Erie down the Allegheny and O h i o rivers. George Washington, then twenty-one and a major in the Virginia Militia, was sent to warn the French they were encroaching upon English territory and must quit that region. O n his way to Fort Le Boeuf (Waterford, Erie County) Washington examined the site at the Forks and was instantly impressed with its defensive possibilities. His emphatic recommendation to Dinwiddie upon returning from L e Boeuf strengthened the Virginia governor and the English Government in their determination to make that strategic spot the crux of their resistance to further French aggression. Accordingly the O h i o Company, chartered five years before by the British Crown for the purpose of colonizing the O h i o River country, dispatched a party of forty men under command of Captain W i l l i a m Trent, Indian trader and the firm's factor, to erect a

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stronghold at the Forks and call it Fort Prince George. They descended the Monongahela in canoes, transporting their materials on crude rafts, and arrived at the head of the Ohio, February 17, 1754. Construction was begun, with the help, at first, of friendly Delawares under command of Tanacharison, better known as HalfKing. An Oneida chief, Tanacharison had been appointed by the Six Nations to look after the Delaware Indians. T h e cooperation of the Indians, however, proved short-lived. Supplies dwindled, the cold was bitter, and in no time the savages were refusing even to hunt game, though wild turkey was plentiful in the near-by hills, and the hungry backwoodsmen were willing to pay seven shillings and sixpence for each bird. John Frazier, second in command of operations at the Point, also disappointed the little band by remaining at his trading post at the mouth of Turtle Creek and taking care of his own affairs. Conditions became so desperate that Captain Trent set out to hasten the supplies and reinforcements then on their way from Alexandria, Virginia. Foundations of the military post were barely completed when word reached Ensign Edward Ward, in charge during the absence of Trent and Frazier, of a flotilla advancing down the Allegheny to take over the territory in the name of the King of France. Augmented by French Canadians and Indians, the invaders, to the number of several hundred under command of Captain Pierre de Contrecœur, disembarked on April 16 from their canoes and bateaux at Shannopin's Town (Lawrenceville section, Pittsburgh). Moving within range the next day and training his cannon on the tiny encampment, Contrecœur sent Le Mercier, captain of Canadian artillery, with a polite but resolute demand for immediate surrender. Behind an unfinished defense and in the face of overwhelming odds, the harassed ensign capitulated. Accepting rations for three days, Ward and his handful of men ruefully departed. T h e initial effort of the British to establish a base of operations at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers was thus abandoned without the firing of a shot. But the bloodless occupation may be called the first overt act in a long and exhausting war—a war that saw France begin with control over vast regions in America and finish shorn of her fairest colonial possessions. T h e French demolished the unfinished fort, set about erecting in

FORT

PITT

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7

its stead a larger one than that planned by the English, and called it Fort Duquesne after the Marquis Duquesne, then Governor of New France (Canada). T h e new defense, engineered by Captain Le Mercier, was situated directly at the Point, the northwestern corner being only ten yards from the junction of the rivers. T h e main structure was fifty yards square, with the sides, or "curtains," facing the points of the compass. T h e landward curtains were f o u r or five feet thick at the top, with firing platforms inside; those toward the rivers were simple log stockades twelve feet high. Arrowhead-shaped bastions, formed of two walls twelve feet thick and eight feet high, and composed of squared logs chinked with earth, were erected at each corner. From these bastions the garrison guarded the approaches with cannon. A moat, equipped with gates to permit flooding from the Allegheny and Monongahela, enclosed the entire fort. Entrance was obtained through the eastern curtain by means of a drawbridge over the moat, and a tunnel under the moat provided entrance from the Monongahela R i v é r and an emergency exit from the western curtain. T h e fort contained a kitchen, smithy, storehouse, powder magazine, commandant's house, and other buildings. Most of the garrison, ranging at times from a few hundred to nearly fifteen hundred men, was lodged outside the fort in barracks along the bank of the Allegheny. For f o u r years the French, with their Indian allies, held this wilderness outpost against the British and Colonials. Within a few weeks of Ensign Ward's surrender, a hastily organized contingent of Virginia and South Carolina volunteers under Washington, now a lieutenant colonel, marched from Will's Creek (Cumberland, Maryland) in the first of the attempts to recapture the strategic site from the French. A superior force of French and Indians set out from the Forks, attacked Washington's men on J u l y 3, 1754 at Fort Necessity, and compelled their surrender after an all-day battle. T h e engagement was significant in that it revealed the American colonies as wholly unprepared to check French encroachment by force of arms. In 1755, General E d w a r d Braddock, sent f r o m England with instructions to regain the stronghold at the Point, led a strong force of trained British troops, augmented by Colonials, against Fort Duquesne. Again the French and Indians sallied forth from the

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Forks, and on July 9 met Braddock's army on the north bank of the river at the present site of Braddock, eight miles u p the Monongahela. Opening fire from wooded hillside and ravine, they cut the British column to ribbons and mortally wounded Braddock. Another attempt to take the fortress at the O h i o had failed. For the ensuing three years the French held undisputed possession of western Pennsylvania, and gory indeed was that occupancy. Captain Jean Daniel Dumas succeeded Contrecœur in command, and François Marchand de Ligneris became commandant in 1756. U n d e r both, Fort Duquesne became the springboard for French and Indian raids against the villages and lone settlers' cabins of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. T h e marauding bands, led by French cadets, carried carnage into unprotected Colonial settlements and brought back hundreds of prisoners, doomed to captivity in Indian villages or to torture and death on Smoky Island, in the Allegheny River opposite the Point. N o t all was war and torture at the western outpost, however. T h e r e must have been lively, colorful scenes as bateaux and canoes floated down the Allegheny with provisions and munitions from French forts on the Great Lakes and in Canada. T h e fleets, manned by roistering red-capped boatmen, would tie up at the bank, and trim French soldiers and Canadian militiamen would leap ashore to mingle with villagers, soldiery, and painted warriors. T h e military storekeeper would busy himself bartering gaudy beads, bracelets, and sundry wearing apparel to the Indians for their pelts and furs, with perhaps a bottle of rum slipped surreptitiously to a thirsty native. T h e long, hazardous journey over portages and down tortuous streams, though, made these visits infrequent, and both the garrison and inhabitants of the sixty cabins near the Forks tilled the soil and grew what food they could on available plots near-by. Nor were spiritual needs neglected. Father Denys Baron made his kindly presence felt in the little "parish," baptizing children of French settlers, recording births and deaths, saying Mass in the tiny chapel, and listening to the confessions of homesick soldiers. A n d sometimes, as in later years, the usual business of the place was interrupted by the rivers which would swell from their channels and carry away the cabins and worldly belongings of the villagers.

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With the accession of William Pitt to power in the British Government in midsummer of 1757, the fortunes of the English in America began to ascend. T o the region about the Forks the new Prime Minister's influence was especially important, for capture of Fort Duqucsne loomed vital in his plans. Reinforcements for this purpose were dispatched, and in April of the following year General John Forbes arrived at Philadelphia to take charge of an expedition which has become famous in Colonial annals. It was the end of June before his troops were ready to march, but by then Forbes had at his command the biggest and best-equipped force yet organized against the western foe. His army of more than six thousand included Highlanders, Royal Americans (mostly German and Swiss Pennsylvanians), and militiamen from Virginia, Maryland, North Carolina, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. T h e roster of his subordinates was bright with the names of Colonels Archibald Montgomery, John Armstrong, James Burd, and Hugh Mercer. Final stages of a painful malady that was to prove fatal had struck the General, however, and he was unable to accompany his army. Colonel Bouquet, with an advance force, had been sent forward to Raystown, where he erected a strong post that was later named Fort Bedford. General Forbes, borne on a horse litter, arrived at that post where the entire force was assembling, about the middle of September. Bouquet meanwhile had been busy hewing a road over the Alleghenies from Raystown to Loyalhanna Creek, where, as early as September 3, a force of Pennsylvanians and Highlanders under Colonel Burd and Major James Grant had begun construction of Fort Ligonier. T h e vanguard of Forbes's army was thus within fifty miles of Fort Duquesne by the time the General reached Fort Bedford, but by that time, too, his forces had already sustained one defeat—the disaster of Grant's Hill. On September 1 1 , Colonel Bouquet had detached Majors Grant and Andrew Lewis with a force of more than eight hundred men— Highland, Royal American, and provincial troops—to make careful reconnaissance toward their goal and to learn of the enemy's strength and intentions. By the third day, Grant had arrived within three miles of the fort—a position near present-day Arsenal Park, along the Allegheny River. There, leaving Captain Thomas Bullitt and fifty Virginians in charge of the supplies, he moved stealthily

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forward. Before midnight he stood upon the hill that still bears his name and where now stand Pittsburgh's municipal buildings and loftiest skyscrapers. Spurred by the desire to distinguish himself, he determined to surprise and overwhelm the enemy at daybreak. Though only half a mile away, Fort Duquesne and the intervening slopes were blotted out by dense fog. Nothing daunted, the impetuous major sent forward a party to fall upon the sleeping Indians encamped outside the fort. Instantly swallowed up in the white pall, his men plunged down the hillside, barging into trees, tripping over underbrush and fallen logs, sinking into treacherous bogs. Soon they were stumbling about cornfields and floundering on the edge of unseen ponds, their sense of direction lost in the fog and darkness. One by one the luckless band returned, emerging from the fog to report that they had encountered no savages or Frenchmen. Their chief accomplishment had been to set fire to a lone cabin, betraying their presence to the garrison. At the point near the present Pennsylvania Railroad Station, Major Andrew Lewis was posted with two hundred Royal Americans and Virginians. His detail was to waylay the enemy if they tried to seize the stores or to encircle the rear of the attacking force. T h e main body, most of them Scottish troops, occupied the brow of the hill overlooking the fort. T h e mist had lifted by now and the sun was shining as Grant gave the signal to attack. With colors flying, bagpipes playing, and drums beating, a detachment of Highlanders swung down the slope and on to the flats before the fort. It was the major's challenge to the garrison to "come out and fight" and, so he imagined, to be surprised and slaughtered by a superior force from the hillside. In astonishing numbers, French and Indians swarmed out of the fort and its barracks. Several hundred fell upon the vanguard and the reinforcements that rushed down to their assistance. Meanwhile, hundreds of other savages who had crept along the concealing banks of the Monongahela and Allegheny surged out of hiding. Brandishing their tomahawks, splitting the air with infuriated whoops and yells, they rained death by arrow and ball upon both flanks of the British. Battling in the open and exposed to a withering fire from behind every rock and tree, Grant's forces made brave but futile resistance. Men were falling like tenpins, and those who still lived

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soon found themselves almost completely surrounded. T h e y were thrown into a confused, disorderly retreat, closely pursued by shrieking Indians, brandishing knives and tomahawks. Alarmed by the war whoops and firing, Lewis plunged forward to Grant's aid but missed the main line of retreat. By then the enemy had gained advantage of the hill, and the provincials soon were scattered and embroiled in a score of desperate mêlées that raged over the triangle between the two rivers. Many of Grant's men, indeed, were driven into the chill waters of the Allegheny, some to drown, others to be shot or taken captive. Half an hour after the attack had begun, the woods and tangled paths between the Point and present Herron Hill resounded to the pell-mell flight of Highlanders and Colonials, bent only on reaching the haven of distant Fort Ligonier. Captain Bullitt, when the fugitives reached his barricaded position, poured a destructive fire into the horde of onrushing Indians and French. His efforts checked further pursuit and permitted the terror-stricken troops to catch their breath, rescue some of their wounded, and retreat with more order. T h e ignominious debacle, so like that of Braddock three years before, cost the British nearly three hundred killed or made prisoner. Majors Grant and Lewis both were captured and lodged in F o r t Duquesne. T h e enemy's loss probably did not exceed a score of men. T h e sound of battle had hardly died away when Commandant Ligneris' savage allies in characteristic manner began to slake their thirst for British blood. T h e naked prisoners were lashed to stakes on the parade ground before the fort and put to the most fiendish tortures imaginable. Coals of fire were piled about their feet, and as painted braves shrieked and whirled in a dance of frenzy, others thrust red-hot ramrods into ears and nostrils of the victims, and prodded their writhing bodies with blazing sticks. T o some of the unfortunate Highlanders a final indignity was meted out. T h e i r heads were cut off, then mounted upon sharpened stakes planted along an Indian race path some distance east of the fort, and their tartan kilts draped below the gruesome masks as a barbaric gesture of derision for the "petticoat warriors." B u t the horrible butchery of Grant's men was the last orgy on a g^rand scale the savages at the Forks were destined to enjoy. Seeking

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to press his advantage, Ligneris a month later dispatched a force to rout the British and Colonials from Fort Ligonier on Loyalhanna Creek. T h e French and Indians attacked but were signally repulsed by Colonel Burd of Pennsylvania. With this defeat of the hitherto victorious French, all but a few of their Indian allies deserted. And after the fall of Fort Frontenac, when provisions failed to reach Duquesne, and the commandant had to send most of his troops to Presque Isle, Detroit, and the Illinois country for sustenance, the fate of the French stronghold at the Forks was sealed. It was bleak November, though, before the tenacious Forbes, suffering on his jolting stretcher, reached Fort Ligonier. On the thirteenth, Colonels Washington and Armstrong pushed westward with a provincial vanguard, followed a few days later by the general with the regular troops. Without tents, baggage, or wagons, and burdened only by meager supplies and a few small cannon, the entire expedition trekked across pathless wilds and snow-clad mountains to camp, during the evening of the twenty-fourth, on the hills around Turtle Creek, ten miles from Fort Duquesne. T h a t night, while sentries trod their cheerless posts beneath leafless trees, the midnight silence was interrupted by a distant, reverberating boom. Certain the blast meant a powder magazine had blown up at the fort, and that the sound boded ill for the French, the dying Forbes could hardly wait until dawn to resume the march. As the army neared the fort next day, the main line of troops entered upon the Indian race path, which was flanked by the stakes decorated with the heads and kilts of Highlanders killed or made captive seventy-three days before. Rank after rank of Forbes's long column of Scotsmen filed through the ghastly gallery, their horrified eyes staring at the remains of their countrymen. At length their combined wrath burst the bonds of restraint. T h e whole corps of furious Highlanders, muskets hurled aside and broadswords drawn, rushed past Forbes, past the vanguard, and hurtled headlong toward the fort to wreak vengeance upon the Indians and to exterminate the French who had condoned such outrages. But when they broke out of the woods and looked down upon the Point, they stopped dead in their tracks, while Gaelic oaths and roars of frustration rent the air. Nothing remained of Fort Duquesne and its near-by cabins but smoldering ruins and blackened chim-

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neys! In their last extremity the French, by firing and partially exploding the fort, had contrived to lessen some of the sting of surrender. In biting wind and swirling snow, Colonel Armstrong unfurled the British flag to signify English possession. T h e next two days were given over to rest and rejoicing. Reverend Charles Beatty, Presbyterian chaplain of the Pennsylvania troops, offered a sermon and prayer of thanksgiving. On the twenty-seventh General Forbes wrote William Pitt: " I have used the freedom of giving your name to Fort Duquesne, as I hope it was in some measure the being actuated by your spirits that now makes us Masters of the place." Without meat, flour, or liquor, with no housing facilities, and with snow already upon the ground, Forbes's army of occupation was in sorry plight to guard so important a position. T o keep alive, the men had to subsist upon deer and bear meat eaten without salt or bread. Too, they were aware the foe was not far away—encamped along the Big Beaver River and French Creek—watching developments at the head of the Ohio. It was too late in the season to begin construction of a formidable defense, and scanty supplies would have prevented maintaining a large force anyway. So 280 of the Pennsylvania and Virginia troops under Colonel Hugh Mercer were left to hold the land at the Point and to erect temporary shelters against the cold. Hoping there might be no immediate effort to retake the post, Forbes, still on his litter, began the painful trip back to Philadelphia with the bulk of his army on December 3, arriving there in mid-January. T h e hardships of the long, arduous campaign had exacted their toll of the brave general, however, and after suffering for eight weeks more he died March 1 1 and was buried in the chancel of Christ Church three days later. Built upon the shore of the Monongahela, about four hundred yards southeast of razed Duquesne and near the present intersection of Water and West streets, the first Fort Pitt was scarcely more than a square stockade of earthwork and logs with a bastion at each corner. By the beginning of January, Colonel Mercer was able to crowd the shivering soldiery into rude barracks within the walls; on January 8, 1759, he reported that the military shelter was "capable of some defense, though huddled up in a very hasty manner, the weather being extremely severe."

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T h e succeeding months of British occupancy must have seemed never-ending to the lonely garrison. Desperately short of food, the troops had to share their meager rations with swarms of halffriendly savages, who had to be appeased to prevent a concerted attack. T h e region, too, was infested with hostile Indians, allies of the French, who lurked in the forests and took pot-shots at traders and soldiers venturing beyond the stockade. T o further harass Mercer and his half-starved men came frequent rumors of impending attack by French forces to the north. But with the defeat of the French and their Indian allies at Fort Niagara on July 24, and their subsequent abandonment of strongholds on Lake Erie and the upper Allegheny, French power in the West was shattered. They had to forego plans for recapture of the territory about the Point, and the worried Mercer and his men finally could breathe easier. Captain Harry Gordon, Army engineer sent by General John Stanwix, who had succeeded Forbes, arrived in August with artisans and equipment to begin construction of a permanent defense at the Forks. Late in the month, Stanwix himself took over supervision and by September 24 was able to write of progress "in erecting a most formidable fortification." T h e work was delayed by tedious pack-horse journeys over the mountains with provisions, tools, and more skilled workmen, but the region itself proved well adapted to such an operation. Wood was cut from surrounding forests; clay dug from near-by hills was baked into bricks; and stone was quarried in the vicinity, probably from the present Herron Hill. By March of 1760 the new Fort Pitt was ready for occupancy, though much work still remained before it could be called completely finished. Designed in the form of a pentagon, with a bastion at each of its five angles, the "permanent" Fort Pitt was by far the most pretentious ever to guard the Western Gateway. Its battlements extended from the Allegheny River on the north, across what is now Liberty Avenue, and thence along West Street to the Monongahela on the south, and from Marbury (later Third, then Barbeau) Street on the east to within a few yards of the Ohio on the west—eighteen acres in all. T h e waters of the Allegheny flowed in to form a deep and wide moat completely encircling the inner fortifications. Parallel to, and outside, the moat was a formidable defensive slope—an earth-

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work constructed in zigzag fashion. A revetment of brick and stone with two bastions, rising abruptly above the water barrier, constituted the inner defense along both landward approaches. O n the three sides of the fort facing the rivers, the inner rampart consisted of a wooden breastwork with three bastions directly back of the moat. It was situated approximately 150 feet from the river on the Allegheny and Ohio sides but extended almost to the banks of the Monongahela. On the steep slopes that rose from the rivers, palisades of sharpened stakes made difficult the ascent to the outer earthworks. Eighteen cannon were mounted in the five bastions. Entrance to the fort was gained only by crossing two drawbridges to the east; one of these spans led to an island in the center of the moat, the other from the island to a gate in the massive wall, fifteen feet in thickness, that formed the revetment. Inside, General Stanwix and Captain Gordon grouped four rows of barracks, together with kitchens, storehouses, a hospital and other necessary buildings for the accommodation of one thousand men, about a brick parade ground—the whole interior comprising eight acres. Between these structures and the walls of the fort, storage vaults, caverns that served as powder magazines, and dungeons for the confinement of prisoners were maintained, while high on the inner walls casemates, shelters, and firing platforms commanded all land and water approaches. A colorful adjunct to the fortress was the "King's Artillery Gardens," which stretched for forty acres beyond the easterly limits. Laid out in pear and apple orchards, flowers, shrubs, and vegetables, the plots brightened the scene and yielded welcome variety to monotonous army menus. T h e verdant gardens with their neat walks became a favorite spot for officers and townsmen to stroll in the cool evening breeze coming from the Allegheny. General Stanwix departed for Philadelphia on March 21, 1760, leaving Major John Tulleken in command of a garrison of seven hundred. On June 29 General Robert Monckton, Stanwix's successor, arrived with additional troops, intent upon consolidating British positions in the West. He immediately dispatched Henry Bouquet with five hundred men to reestablish communication with Lake Erie. Under the Swiss colonel's leadership, the forts abandoned and burned by the French, when they fled from the region

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nearly a year before, were rebuilt and garrisoned—Venango (Franklin), Le Boeuf (Waterford), and Presque Isle (Erie). After his return from the expedition, Bouquet succeeded General Monckton as commandant in October, and the fate of the Forks remained in his capable hands for half a decade. Operations toward completion of the fortification had been going steadily forward, and the final touches were put to the stronghold by autumn of 1761. Swampy, marshy, and subject to dense fogs, the land about the Point was a desolate and unhealthy place. T h e flats between Grant's Hill and the fort were dotted with ponds and creeks—havens for wild ducks, but also the breeding places for myriads of mosquitoes and other disease-spreading insects. Hogg's Pond, largest of these now-vanished waters, began near present Grant Street and Strawberry Way and drained through land occupied today by large department stores and other important buildings and business houses. Another narrower pond lay approximately between present Market and Wood streets, and extended from the Boulevard of the Allies to Fourth Avenue. Still another stretched along Liberty Avenue from Fifth Avenue to Fourth, and drained through Blockhouse Way to enter the Monongahela. British occupancy of the Point resulted in the return of thousands of settlers to lands on the frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia from which they had been driven. Despite its rather uninviting setting and the obvious handicaps to easy existence, the territory about the Forks proved a mecca to many of those sturdy, adventurous people. Within the year the white population of Pittsburgh rose to 221 men, 73 women, and 38 children, most of them occupying crude log hovels along the bank of the Monongahela, near the West Street bastion of the fort. Besides these there were always at least a score of traders, who chose to locate along the Allegheny because the Indians—friendly now, on the surface at least—came down that stream from the North to exchange their peltries for objects they deemed more valuable. W i t h their families and retinues of clerks and packers, the traders constituted quite a populous little community. T h o u g h essentially military in character, life about the head of the Ohio passed through an interesting era during Bouquet's régime. Settlers and traders could build only by permission of the

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commandant, and the selling and renting of property were prohibited. Only small quantities of lead and powder could be sold to savages, and no intoxicants at all. T o lend emphasis to his established regulations, Bouquet banished several traders who dared disobey. Settlers fished in the well-stocked rivers, ranged the woods hunting and trapping, raised cattle, and tended stills to provide the hostelries with whiskey. In the spring they planted beets, cabbages, and other vegetables, and built canoes and bateaux during the warm months. With the approach of cold weather, soldier and settler would ferry across the Monongahela and climb the precipitous path leading to "Coal Hill." There they would dig the precious black lumps, load them into sacks, and roll the winter's fuel downhill to the water's edge. Every Monday, officers at the fort held their " C l u b , " probably an innocent designation for a soldierly drinking bout. Each Saturday night they staged a ball in the commandant's brick dwelling within the fort, and to these soirées the village belles would pick their way daintily through the mud to dance, flirt, and drink punch with the glamorous redcoats. Indicative of the times, the rough new settlement at the Forks in its earliest days boasted a half-dozen or more taverns and inns, but not one church or school. Later, what was most likely Pittsburgh's first school was formed and conducted in the residence of Colonel James Burd part way up Grant's Hill. Inhabitants contributed sixty pounds for the schoolmaster's yearly wage, and twenty scholars attended his first classes. Combining religion with learning, the same instructor read prayers to the religiously inclined among the grownups on certain days. Soon after, J o h n Ormsby, the King's commissary, began reading the Book of Common Prayer in public on Sundays. T h e missionary, Christian Frederick Post, frequently visited the little outpost to hold divine services and argue theology with the more erudite of the villagers and soldiery. T h e youthful Quaker, James Kenny, arrived in 1759 to manage the provincial store, one of the system of trading houses authorized by the Provincial Assembly the year before. Kenny kept a diary in which he painstakingly recorded the day-by-day happenings, and to his journal historians are deeply indebted for a true picture of life in the turbulent frontier community. In unintentionally comic fashion, he tells of thousands of grasshoppers swooping down upon

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the garden patches and devouring their valued produce; of the punishment of soldiers convicted of forgery by the laying on of a thousand lashes each; and of the first epidemic of "flu" experienced by Pittsburgh in 1762, when Dr. James Miller, military surgeon, was kept busy night and day tending the stricken. A n d one night, Kenny relates, the good medico "cut his own throat in his room with two razors, which affect'd ye people very much in general; he had been at times hipt or lunatick." Pittsburgh was the market place to which the Delawaie, Shawnee, Mingo, and members of tribes still farther west journeyed to exchange their spoils of the hunt for the white man's ammunition, blankets, trinkets a n d — i f they could get i t — r u m . W h e n a redskin band lugging skins or furs emerged from the forest and hallooed across the Allegheny, the traders would spring into instant and bitter competition to reach them first and bargain for their trade. Pitching their wigwams in the vicinity of the fort, begging food from the commissariat, and disturbing the rural quiet by drunken fights and bloodcurdling whoops, the savages would linger until the proceeds of their hunt had been dissipated. W h e n one of their number died, he would be buried with ceremony and throughout the night his mourning tribesmen fired off guns to frighten away evil spirits. W h e n their last exchange was concluded and the band could get no more food from the army cooks, they betook themselves back to their settlements to accumulate enough trading material for another trip. T h e redman's reputation for thievery undoubtedly was deserved, but in all-round dishonesty he was no match for the unprincipled storekeeper and trader. Proprietors had to be ever on the alert to prevent the theft of anything that appealed to the Indian, and numerous were the burglaries he committed. T h e score was more than evened, though, by the white man in his transactions with the savage. As young Kenny put it, the Indians would "grummle m u c h " and threaten to take their goods elsewhere, but he found them so ingenuous that "scarcely any of them but may be easily cheated." French influence with the Indian had waned, but resentment was smoldering against English control during those years. T h e Indian could see the reason for more military occupancy and was content with it. But the steady influx of English settlers with their families,

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the presence of cabins and little farms, seemed to mean the end of the old untrammeled way of life so dear to him. T h e same was true of the other British posts in the West. T h e Indian could see himself being crowded out of existence, and his mounting anger was finally sparked to flame by the noted Ottawa chieftain, Pontiac, whose uprising in 1763 almost doomed white supremacy from the Mississippi to the Great Lakes. George Croghan, veteran frontiersman and former " K i n g of the Traders," had been placed in charge of Indian affairs in the Pittsburgh region. Establishing his agency near the fort and building his own residence four miles u p the Allegheny, Croghan played a leading rôle in conferences with thousands of Indians. A n everpresent object of such meetings was to obtain the release of whites taken captive in the war. T h e redman had discovered that by bringing in only a few prisoners at a time he could best maintain the flow of ransom gifts from the English leaders, so that the end was difficult to achieve. Not infrequently, too, the liberated whites, grown fond of primitive life, would steal away and go back to the Indian villages. Always the prime purpose of the assemblies, though, was to smooth the way toward continued peaceful British occupancy of all western lands, and without doubt the Indian agent's experienced and sage handling of those gatherings many times warded off the dread day of concerted attack. Conduct of Pontiac's rebellion in the territory that included the Forks was entrusted to his two allies, the wily M i n g o chief Guyasuta, and Custaloga, a Delaware leader. In the early summer of 1763 the bands descended upon Presque Isle, L e Boeuf, Venango, and posts farther west, wiping them out. Made bold by those successes, they laid siege to the strong defenses of Forts Bedford, Ligonier, Niagara, Detroit, and Pitt. So sudden and well timed were the assaults, and so inadequately manned and provisioned were the garrisons, that only the most desperate resistance at length prevailed against the Indians. But for those courageous stands, English supremacy, challenged and on the verge of downfall so often, would have succumbed, perhaps for a long time to come. W a r n i n g of the impending attack on Fort Pitt came on May 29 with the shocking news that a band of savages had swept down on a farm owned by Croghan some miles u p the Youghiogheny (near

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present West Newton), slaughtering Colonel William Clapham, his wife, three children, and another woman. Three men at work in the field near by had escaped through the woods, bringing the tragic tidings to the Forks. Next, two soldiers were set upon and murdered at the sawmill near the fort. Immediately Captain Simeon Ecuyer, in command during the absence of Colonel Bouquet in Philadelphia, began further to strengthen his defenses and to concentrate the settlers within the protecting walls of the fort. Many of the buildings outside were burned down to prevent their serving as cover for the Indians, while others were torn apart and the lumber used to create additional shelters for refugees. Hastily he made needed repairs and changes, erecting more firing parapets and filling gaps in the ramparts with a row of sharpened stakes pointed outward. He also improved his crude facilities for extinguishing blazes started by Indian fire-arrows. By the eleventh of June, when the terrifying war cries already were resounding through the remains of the lower end of the village, Ecuyer found that he had 330 frontiersmen and soldiers, together with almost as many women and children, crowded inside his post. Accommodations were woefully inadequate, there being an acute lack of sleeping quarters and other necessities; for, though the fort had been designed to house a garrison of one thousand men, it had never been manned to full strength, and gradually the unused buildings and utilities had been razed. But, despite its meager facilities for comfort, the post represented safety and salvation from the four hundred warriors of the Delaware, Shawnee, Mingo, and Wyandot tribes, who, by the sixteenth, were encamped in determined siege. Certain of ultimate victory, the once-friendly aborigines had brought their squaws and offspring along to help cart off the loot and add zest to the torture ceremonies that would celebrate the stronghold's fall. For those inside there ensued seven weeks of suspense, privation, and terror. Kept constantly on the alert by the fear of surprise attack, the defenders were seriously hampered by lack of ammunition. Only when a distinct target was presented could they fire musket or cannon, and many a lurking foe owed his life to that fact. T h e siege took no great toll of lives, but the intermittent barrage kept the unfortunate whites in a perpetual state of alarm and disrupted

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normal activity, including the cooking and serving of their meager meals, as only at extreme risk could the paths between kitchens and barracks be used. T h e garrison spent many a harassed night fighting blazes started by flaming arrows on the wooden buildings. Day after day the women and children, huddled in their cramped shelters beneath a scorching sun, watched the supply of food gradually vanish, saw smallpox lay on its deadly hand. C u t off from all communication, the besieged stared day after day into painted faces and baleful eyes, and night after night they listened for the sounds of expected attack. R u m o r of a rescue party setting out from Fort Bedford under Colonel Bouquet brought some measure of cheer, but, as the long days and nights went by, deliverance seemed a forlorn hope. A l t h o u g h the woods about the Point were alive with Indians, and the forests across the Allegheny and Monongahela screened other camps, no concerted effort was made to storm the fort for more than a month. Assuming that the element of time was on their side, the Indians contented themselves with desultory firing at the ramparts and maintaining close watch to see that no one escaped. Crawling into the moat, dry now because of the summer drought, they took pot-shots at the sentinels, killing a few and wounding others. Several of the beleaguered, seized in daring attempts to go for food or help, were slain and scalped before the horror-stricken eyes of their comrades. O n July 26, a "peace" party of Indians approached the fort and requested an audience with Ecuyer. W a r n i n g the Swiss captain that large parties of warriors were on their way from the West to bolster the siege and make an already desperate cause hopeless, the party demanded instant submission. T h e y solemnly promised safe escort if the whites returned East, but swift and merciless massacre if they stayed. Intimidation seemed to be in order, so Ecuyer himself let loose a blast of overstatement and invective. He spurned their overtures and spoke of Bouquet's advancing reinforcements, adding to the size of the expected rescue party and subtracting miles from its imagined distance away. Boasting of his ample provisions, men, and ammunition, he declared he could maintain the position for three years if need be. Furthermore, he threatened, if the Indians per-

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sisted in the siege, he would turn big guns against them and blow them to pieces. He closed the meeting on a note of generosity by presenting the braves with a couple of blankets and handkerchiefs fresh from the smallpox isolation quarters under the drawbridge. T h e germ-laden gifts had no chance to produce the desired results before the Indians' fury at the white man's defiance exploded in an intensive attack. In the blackness of the next night, the tribesmen swarmed close to the fort on all sides, burrowing into the outer earthworks on the landward sides, and creeping into position just outside the palisades that guarded the river approaches. W i t h loud war cries they launched the onslaught, pouring a steady stream of arrows over the ramparts and directing a fusillade of lead at the cannon loopholes in the bastions and at sentry posts along the parapets. Soldiers and woodsmen fought back as best they could, with failing ammunition. W h i l e the women tended the wounded and prepared what little food remained, the children huddled together in terror as fire-arrows streaked through the darkness. T h e siege continued, with intermittent attacks, five more days and nights. Casualties were not so numerous, but other factors combined to bring despair. Ecuyer had been slightly wounded by an arrow, and sickness and disease had spread during those distressful days. Food, water, and ammunition had reached the vanishing point; the liquor was gone, and, as the captain mournfully put it, there "was no longer any cabbage to mix with what scraps of tobacco were left." T h e n , just when it seemed the little garrison could withstand no further pressure, a kind providence intervened. Most of the attackers disappeared, withdrawing, the exhausted whites learned later, to add their numbers to Indian forces massing to ambush Bouquet in his march toward the Forks. Sufficient warriors stayed behind to maintain a state of siege, but there were no more assaults. It was welcome surcease from a trying ordeal, though the days that followed were still fraught with anxiety for the weary band within the fort. T h e y knew that should Bouquet's rescue party be vanquished, it would mean more agony and death at the Point. T h e Indian forces encountered those of Bouquet on August 5 at Bushy R u n , twenty miles east of Fort Pitt, and a mile and a half east of present Harrison City. T h e bloody two-day battle cost the English heavily, but they finally inflicted a crushing defeat upon

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the Indians—the first victory for British arms in the Southern district—and this telling blow was the turning point of Pontiac's uprising. Bouquet pushed on to complete his rescue task, and on the tenth of the month he led his troops out upon the hill from which Grant had made his ill-fated sortie against Duquesne five years before. T o say that the martial notes of the commandant's drums and bagpipes fell upon joyful ears would be putting it mildly. There were strange scenes as the pathetic little company burst out of the gate and surged across the baked flats to greet the oncoming soldiers. Children forgot their gnawing hunger to dance and yell with glee, tugging at the gaudy kilts of the Highlanders; gaunt frontiersmen fired the last round in their muskets skyward, wrung the hands and slapped the broad backs of their saviors; and weary women let tears of gladness stream down their hollow cheeks. Conversely, into the heart of the red man, now watching from hillside safety across the rivers, the picture must have struck a feeling of ominous futility. He was still destined to struggle long and stubbornly for his precious lands, but in this failure of a supreme effort he must have foreseen ultimate doom. T h e white man had become too formidable. Upon resuming command of the fort, Bouquet's first act was to remedy a feature that had added to the woes of the besieged and might have proved fatal if the enemy assault had continued. During periods of low water, the moat always became dry and thus lost much of its defense usefulness. T h e Indians, many of whom had been able to get inside the sharp-topped palisades, had crawled into the empty ditch and, from that vantage point, made life perilous for any defender who lifted his head above the walls of the fort. Incendiary missiles, also, had often found their target from that shorter range. T o change those conditions, the commandant set about building a blockhouse that would command the moat on the Allegheny, Monongahela and Point sides. It is this structure that now marks the site of vanished Fort Pitt. Having failed to dislodge the English, the Indians from the region of the Forks fled into Ohio and settled along the Muskingum River, one hundred miles away. Peace reigned until the spring of 1764, when raiding parties once more began to ravage the western

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frontiers of Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. T o halt the depredations, General T h o m a s Gage, successor to L o r d Jeffery Amherst as commander-in-chief of the British forces, ordered Colonel Bouquet to head an expeditionary force into the O h i o country. A f t e r strenuous effort in the East, the commandant succeeded in assembling seven hundred Pennsylvanians at Carlisle and marched back to Fort Pitt, where his troops were augmented by Virginia volunteers and most of the fort's own garrison. So w h e n he set out on October 4 his troops numbered nearly fifteen hundred—most of them toughened in Indian warfare and spoiling for vengeance. Following the north bank of the O h i o , they marched northwest to the Beaver River (twenty-five miles distant and on the present site of the borough of Beaver), then veered west and south into central Ohio. W i t h hundreds of warriors retreating before his experienced force, Bouquet continued d o w n the valley of the Muskingum until he reached a broad meadow suitable for a large e n c a m p m e n t — i n the very heart of the Indian country. Summoning the chiefs to conference, the Colonel demanded that they give up all white captives at once and sue for peace. Facing a determined commander and veteran soldiers who, they knew, would relish an excuse to spread death and devastation to the villages in the valley, the Indian leaders perforce capitulated. A n d next day forlorn little groups began arriving from Indian settlements over a wide area until two hundred prisoners had been brought in. T h e chiefs pledged to deliver one hundred others to Fort Pitt without delay, but Bouquet, with foresight born of experience, seized hostages to insure the keeping of that promise. Followed by Indians w h o were loath to part from the white captives they had adopted and learned to care for, Bouquet's army made its way back to the Point, arriving there on the last of the month amid enthusiasm over the bloodless b u t successful conduct of the expedition. Once more the region at the Forks became a scene of rejoicing. Wives flung themselves into the arms of long-lost husbands, mothers clasped children to their hearts, brothers and sisters embraced each other happily. O f t e n the enforced separation had been long, in some instances from the time of Braddock's defeat a decade before. T h e unfortunate ones sought vainly through the crowd for a familiar

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feature or a revealing gesture. A n d here and there one would turn away to grieve a l o n e — d e a d hopes revived, then crushed. Sturdy youngsters h u n g back shyly, some clinging to Indian foster-parents and speaking a guttural language instead of the ancestral tongue they had been too young to master when torn from their true mothers. Harder to cope with were the Indian and white intermarriages. Numerous captive white youths had taken dusky maidens as mates; young white women, too, had listened to tribal ceremonies that made them squaws. W i t h the passage of time, those adopted whites had grown to love the primitive, untamed life of the red man, had raised children w h o m they loved dearly, and had no desire to resume existence with their own people. Forcibly escorted to the fort by Bouquet's soldiery, these renegades, nearly all, forsook a civilization that had become distasteful. Many an Indian brave, certain his paleface sweetheart w o u l d come back, hid patiently in the chill winter woods outside the village until his loved one could make her escape. T h e n together they would journey back to their wild, free life in a wilderness home. Bouquet's superb leadership had again brought peace to the troubled P o i n t — f o r the time being, at least—and he departed for Philadelphia at the beginning of 1765. T h e Assembly of Pennsylvania and the House of Burgesses of Virginia each expressed its gratitude for his valued services, and the K i n g made him a brigadier general. But before the year was out, as he was taking command of the Southern military department, death from yellow fever brought untimely end to the career of this notable soldier. H e died on September 2, 1765, in Pensacola, Florida. A vital instrument in forays against the western frontier, the fortification at the Point lost most of its importance in the period of quiet achieved by Bouquet's Treaty. T h e village at the fort, too, lapsed into a calm unusual for that stormy little community. Some of the settlers rebuilt homes that had suffered from past strife and took up their former lives. Others drifted elsewhere, and few new inhabitants came over the mountains. Feeling that the Americans, already proving fractious in their dealings, should be left to defend their own frontiers, the British ministers made no effort to strengthen Fort Pitt's garrison. It was finally evacuated in 1772.

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T h e long-standing boundary dispute between Pennsylvania and Virginia culminated in the seizure of Fort Pitt by Dr. John Connolly, emissary of Governor Lord D u n m o r e of Virginia, early in January 1774. Connolly, born in Pennsylvania but a staunch and arrogant partisan of Virginia through T o r y sympathy, immediately changed the name of the post to Fort D u n m o r e and proclaimed his authority by issuing a call for the militia to assemble there January 25. He was arrested by the Pennsylvania magistrates, but in turn caused the imprisonment of those gentlemen by order of the Virginia courts. W i t h protracted legal squabbles, marked now and then by physical violence, that controversy dragged on for more than a decade. Pittsburghers not only rejected the new name for the fort but refused to recognize the new domination, believing the whole affair a British plot to create dissension among the Colonies, which, even then, were demanding their freedom. T h e accusations, together with counter-charges from Dr. Connolly and Lord Dunmore, came to the ears of the Earl of Dartmouth, English Secretary of State, and he ordered Dunmore to desist from further intrusion. T h a t written command, dated September 8, 1774, appeared to absolve the British Crown of any scheme to set colony against colony, but it failed to deter Dunmore and Connolly from continuing their efforts to control the country around the Forks. T h e i r power was on the wane, however, and in June 1775 both fled the Governor's mansion at Williamsburg, Virginia, and took refuge on a British man-of-war anchored in Chesapeake Bay. T h e doctor later left the boat and was arrested near Hagerstown, Maryland, in November. Papers found on his person outlined plans for invasion of the western frontier and the capture of Fort Pitt by a force of British and Indians under General Gage and Lord Dunmore. T h u s exposed as a British conspirator, Connolly was imprisoned for the war's duration and exiled to Canada at its conclusion. Alliance of the Colonies to wage war on England did not end the private feud between Pennsylvania and Virginia, and on July 25, 1775, members of the Continental Congress then meeting in Philadelphia, and including T h o m a s Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Benjamin Franklin from the two hostile colonies, united in urging

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mutual forbearance. But within two weeks of that appeal the Virginia Provincial Convention ordered Captain John Neville and his company of one hundred men to Pittsburgh to take possession in the name of Virginia. T h e captain's sudden appearance at the fort on September 17, while commissioners from the Continental Congress were holding a council with the Indians, caused consternation. A clash was avoided, but Neville and his militia remained to dominate military affairs at "Fort Dunmore" for nearly two years, though not interfering with civil authority in the region. Neville relinquished command to General Edward H a n d in June 1777; the name became again Fort Pitt, and the post was garrisoned thereafter by Pennsylvania militiamen. Commissioners from the two colonies met in Baltimore two years later and fixed the boundary by extending the Mason and D i x o n Line to a point five degrees west of the Delaware River (the present southwestern extremity of Pennsylvania) and then drawing a line due north from that point. A c t u a l establishment of today's border lines was delayed by the opposition of individual landowners and numerous factional wrangles until 1786, when both southern and western limits of Pennsylvania as they now stand were finally decided. During the years that had just passed, inhabitants about the Forks had bitterly resented abandonment of Fort Pitt and the blundering efforts of the British to restrict growth of the settlement. T h e y were in full sympathy with the patriots in the East and as early as July 11, 1774, a "very responsible Body of People" assembled at Hannastown and elected Robert H a n n a and James Cavet to represent them in the ensuing Continental Congress. Later, w h e n news of Lexington and Concord reached Pittsburgh, meetings were held there further to align sentiment of the region with that of coastal areas in their struggle against the mother country. T h a t the feeling on the frontier was similar to that in the East was shown by an incident on August 25, 1775. Learning that two Pittsburgh merchants, Joseph Symond and John Campbell, were selling tea " i n an O p e n Contempt and defiance of the Resolves of the Continental Congress," a delegation of twenty-three men seized the unsold tea " a n d it was burned at the Liberty pole in Pittsburgh." T h e town thus staged its own "tea party."

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Military operations at the Point were insignificant compared to the epochal engagements at Ticonderoga, Bunker Hill, Princeton, Saratoga, and Yorktown, but they did serve to protect the rear of the American forces and prevent the British and their Indian allies from severing the long, thin, Revolutionary line by a quick thrust from the west. T h e strategic situation of the fort made it the western headquarters for the Continental Army, and it was the scene of many negotiations with the Indians. T o o , the post was a starting point for expeditions into Kentucky and the Illinois c o u n t r y — valuable contributions to settlement of those territories, and incidentally to establishment of the Mississippi River rather than the Appalachian Mountains as the western boundary of the new nation. In July 1776, Congress, aroused by the increase of sporadic Indian raids, authorized the recruiting of a force of Continentals to be known as the Eighth Pennsylvania Regiment, and commissioned Aeneas Mackay, Pittsburgh trader, as its colonel. Speedily organized, the regiment went into training at Kittanning in the fall. T h e n , not yet inured to the rigors of military life, the soldiers were ordered to the aid of Washington's hard-pressed army in New Jersey. Despite protests that the men had enlisted solely to defend the frontier, they had to prepare for the long, arduous trek eastward over mountains knee-deep in snow. Inadequately clothed, equipped, and provisioned, the troops finally arrived at camp near Philadelphia. Colonel Mackay was one of the fifty who died as a result of the winter hardships, so the regiment was reorganized under Colonel Daniel Brodhead. During that same winter the Thirteenth Virginia Infantry was organized in the Pittsburgh territory, part of it being sent to join Washington and the remainder detailed to frontier posts. W h e n British-sponsored Indian attacks reached alarming proportions the following spring, Congress ordered Brigadier General Edward H a n d to take command at Fort Pitt and systematize western military affairs. N o troops could be spared at the time—one of the most critical in the country's history—but a small quantity of arms and ammunition was shipped to the fort. More supplies of sorely needed weapons and powder were obtained from neutral but friendly Spanish officials at New Orleans in a daring exploit of two frontiersmen, George Gibson and W i l l i a m Linn, who had left

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Pittsburgh in July of the previous year, had made their difficult way down the Ohio and Mississippi, and had effected a safe return in May 1777. A year later George Rogers Clark headed a party from Pittsburgh that took over French villages in the Illinois country which were serving as bases for Indian raids into Kentucky. Captain James Willing, a naval officer, left Pittsburgh in June of 1778 with an armed force that, in due time, made itself "exceedingly obnoxious" to the British in West Florida. He and his company traveled the O h i o and Mississippi to Natchez, and then proceeded overland to harass the extreme southern forces of the enemy. A b o u t the same time David Rogers and forty men set out for New Orleans in quest of another cargo of ammunition. T h e y reached their destination safely, and again the amiable Spanish aided the Colonies with firearms and powder, but the expedition came to grief at the hands of Indians on the return journey. Anxious to lead an offensive of his own, General H a n d in February had attempted to capture a British magazine at the mouth of the Cuyahoga River, future site of the city of Cleveland. His sortie was halted near present New Castle, Pennsylvania, by floods in the Beaver River, and his militiamen had to content themselves with raiding two camps of inoffensive Delawares, taking prisoner two squaws and killing a man, a woman, and a boy. From that ineffectual climax, Hand's expedition was termed the "Squaw Campaign." Hand was relieved by General Lachlan Mcintosh soon afterward, and the Eighth Pennsylvania and Thirteenth Virginia Regiments, on duty with the Continental Army in the East, returned to the frontier. W i t h the idea of capturing Detroit and putting an end to British power in the West, additional regulars to bring the total to three thousand were to be recruited, and Virginia was asked to supply twenty-five hundred militiamen. But the Governor and Council of Virginia opposed the Detroit expedition, and Congress on July 25, 1778, voted that it be deferred, and that General Mcintosh proceed instead against the towns of hostile Indians. Mcintosh's plan, patterned after that of Forbes twenty years before, called for a slow advance into the Indian country and the erecting of forts along the line of march to maintain communications and

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hold the territory occupied. In October the army moved down the Ohio to the mouth of the Beaver, where a large stockaded post was constructed and named Fort Mcintosh. From there, in November, the army proceeded along the route of Colonel Bouquet in 1764 to the Tuscarawas River, where Fort Laurens was built. Beyond that point, however, the Virginia militia refused to advance, asserting that their enlistments expired in December. Sincc provisions were running low, Mcintosh was forced to return. A garrison of 150 regulars under Colonel John Gibson was left at Fort Laurens, the other regulars took up winter quarters at Fort Mcintosh, and the Virginians returned to their homes. General Mcintosh was recalled to the East at his own request in the spring of 1779 and was succeeded by Colonel Daniel Brodhead who, under instructions from General Washington, immediately mapped a punitive expedition against the Seneca on the upper Allegheny, creating a diversion for General John Sullivan, whose army was to attack the Iroquois from the east. Brodhead left Fort Pitt on August 1 1 , 1779, with a force of six hundred men, and traveled by boat as far as the mouth of the Mahoning. Then, pushing on into the wilderness on foot beyond the Conewango Creek, he reached the Indian villages near the present town of Kinzua. Here were spread the luxurious fields that had long been a source of sustenance and power to the wealthy Cornplanter tribe, but were now abandoned. Brodhead's men cut down and burned the miles of waving maize and set in flames the homes of the absent Indians. The expedition, which returned to Fort Pitt without the loss of a man, brought relief to harassed colonists and helped deal a death blow to Britain's alliance with the red man. T h e Colonies' struggle for freedom ended with the surrender of Cornwallis on October 19, 1781, but Indian raids and white fear of reprisal continued in western Pennsylvania for some time to come. General William Irvine took over command of Fort Pitt on November ι, reorganized its garrison of four companies of Continentals, and made extensive repairs to its defenses, in expectation of an attack that never materialized. Several operations were contemplated by the General, but, with the signing in 1783 of the definite treaty whereby Great Britain acknowledged the claim of the United States to the territory between the Ohio and the Great

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Lakes, all thought of further expeditions was abandoned, and the "blessings of peace" finally descended upon the headwaters of the Ohio. Fort Pitt was later sold by the Colonial Government, and a smaller defense, Fort Fayette, was erected in its stead at what is now the corner of N i n t h Street and Penn Avenue. Except for the little redoubt, no reminder of the imposing defenses that guarded the "Western Gateway" remains today. T h e parade ground that once resounded to the tread of martial boots is a railroad yard. A seaplane base on the bank of the Allegheny occupies the site of the northeast bastion. A municipal garage and an interurban freight terminal are bustling hives of industry where British sentries once paced the north revetment. A motley array of gasoline stations, machine shops, warehouses, accessory stores, saloons, and cheap lodgings now serve patrons where trader and savage used to hold bartering pow-wows in the shade of the southern and western ramparts. T h e Point, now only a small triangle of grassy lawn, juts out into the rivers under two towering bridges that lead to the city's West E n d and North Side districts. Unadorned except for a few trees and a flagstaff, it is reached only by threading one's way along, or under, a rickety wooden ramp that joins Duquesne Way with the Manchester Bridge. I n the cool of a summer evening, lovers stroll out upon the tiny tip of land to gaze upon the Ohio at sunset. An excursion steamer moves leisurely away from her wharf on the Allegheny, with calliope blaring a merry tune and her decks thronged with laughing people, on the outward journey down river. A ponderous towboat ploughs a path in the Monongahela, pushing heavy-laden barges. Its giant paddle-wheel churns the river in a sparkling waterfall; its smokestack belches a black stream against the blood-red sky; its siren roars a deep-throated warning to other craft as it swings into the Ohio and heads for Louisville or New Orleans. L i k e a noisy golden bird, a hydroplane skims gracefully over the water and takes off on its sight-seeing tour of the sky. On opposite banks, automobiles sweep along wide boulevards overhanging the shore lines as far as the eye can see, and, closer, to the water's edge, trains rush on gleaming rails into the West and South. Overhead, processions of automobiles dart across the lofty spans, and two by two, like bright eyes, their lights flash on as night descends.

FORT MIFFLIN ON THE DELAWARE A T THE southern tip of the city of Philadelphia, where the Schuylkill empties into the broader waters of the Delaware, a cluster of alluvial islands stood for centuries near the shore, like sentinels guarding the river approaches to the city. Most of these formations of river deposits have become part of the mainland, but they still retain the island names and strategic value they possessed in Colonial and Revolutionary times. H o g Island, famous for its W o r l d W a r shipbuilding yards, is now the site of the third largest airport in the country. Farther upstream at the Schuylkill's mouth is League Island, with the Philadelphia Navy Yard, always a hive of activity in wartime. Midway between H o g Island and League Island, and like them now virtually part of the shore, stands Fort Mifflin on M u d Island. During the Revolution, this island stronghold was the scene of gallant action by the Americans in their campaign to isolate the British in Philadelphia from support by sea. A half-century before the arrival of W i l l i a m Penn in America, Fort Mifflin's island site had been of strategic importance in the struggles between the Dutch and Swedes for control of the Delaware. 96

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The Swedes in 1647 built a blockhouse on or near the island to protect the river fur trade from the Dutch. It was abandoned in 1651 and later burned by the Indians. In 1762, during the war between England and Spain, the General Assembly of Pennsylvania appropriated funds for erection of defenses on Mud Island. T h e project never advanced beyond the paper stage. In 1773 the Pennsylvania authorities again appropriated funds, this time to the amount of £15,000, for erection of a fort on Mud Island. T h e plans were drawn up by Captain John Montressor of the Royal Military Engineers for General Gage, then commander of the British troops in the Philadelphia area. Although construction began the same year, it progressed so slowly that the fort was only partly finished by the fateful year of 1775. Being the seat of Continental Congress and home of many leaders of the Revolution, Philadelphia with its environs was the metropolis of the embattled Thirteen Colonies. Its vulnerability to British warships sailing up from Delaware Bay made vitally necessary the strengthening of the river defenses. Under Franklin's leadership the Committee of Safety appointed engineers to improve the fort on Mud Island and to erect two forts below it on the New Jersey shore: one, Fort Mercer, at Red Bank, almost opposite Mud Island; the other at Billingsport, about ten miles downstream. Beneath the guns of each fort a barrier, or chevaux-de-frise, consisting of triple rows of pine timbers capped with heavy iron barbs was submerged in the river channel to prevent British warships from reaching the city. A narrow secret passage for American vessels was left open in the chevaux-de-frise, however, with floating batteries and fire-rafts providing further obstructions. A lookout station was established at Lewes, Delaware, to warn of the approach of enemy ships, and a flotilla of gunboats was constructed to augment the river defenses. By September 1775, thirteen oar-propelled vessels, each manned by a crew of fifty-three and armed with two cannon and some swivel guns, were put into service. T h e first four warships of the Continental Navy sailed down the Delaware to the bay on January 4, 1776, with orders to patrol the coast and intercept British transports and supply ships. A few months later the newly commissioned Continental brig

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Lexington, commanded by Captain John Barry, sailed from Philadelphia, and on A p r i l 7, 1776, captured the British sloop Edward after a spirited engagement off the Virginia Capes. Brought u p the Delaware to Philadelphia on April 11, the Edward was the first prize of war taken by the American Navy to reach port. T h i s initial exploit by Barry caused rejoicing in the Colonies and hastened the building of more ships for the infant navy. O n May 6, Philadelphia was thrown into a state of alarm by reports that two British frigates, the Roebuck and the Liverpool, which had been patrolling the Delaware capes, were heading u p the river, accompanied by their tenders and prizes. As they neared Wilmington, they sighted the American schooner Wasp, which had to take refuge in the shallows of Christina Creek. Continuing cautiously upstream, the British flotilla met the full force of American resistance below Chester on May 8, when the thirteen river galleys opened fire at long range. T h e two frigates moved forward to close with the galleys, only to find themselves lured into shoal water. Soon the Roebuck was aground, with the Liverpool forced to stand by to protect her from the assaults of American fire-rafts and gunboats. Meanwhile the Wasp sallied forth from Christina Creek and recaptured one of the prizes accompanying the British flotilla. During the night the Roebuck was refloated by the tide. T h e battle was resumed the next day, but the British decided to withdraw to the safety of deep water in the bay. A l t h o u g h this first attempt by enemy warships to penetrate the Delaware failed, it spurred Continental Congress to augment the river defenses and add more vessels to the navy. Philadelphia and the Delaware became, during 1776, the base of operations for a fleet of naval vessels and privateers that raided British shipping off the Delaware Capes and along the Atlantic seaboard. In May three valuable cargoes bound from the West Indies for L o n d o n were captured by Philadelphia privateers off the Capes. T h e privateer Franklin seized a British naval supply ship carrying seventy-five tons of gunpowder and one thousand stands of arms—a rich haul in view of the scarcity of gunpowder among the Americans. Following the British advance down the New Jersey side of the Delaware in the spring of 1777, a systematic plan of defense for the

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city was put in operation, as an attack on P h i l a d e l p h i a by Howe's army was expected in the near future. Congress entrusted to General T h o m a s Mifflin and Monsieur du Coudray, a F r e n c h military engineer, the j o b of strengthening the river fortifications. T h e fort on M u d Island thereafter was called Fort Mifflin in honor of the general. Instead of continuing southward through N e w Jersey, H o w e retreated to A m b o y ; soon his entire army had embarked on transports and was sailing down the Jersey coast. Speculation was rife among the Americans as to his destination, and Washington awaited further developments with uncertainty. W o u l d the British try to force entry u p the Delaware or would they come by way of Chesapeake Bay? Until he knew definitely, Washington could make no move other than to prepare Philadelphia against probable attack. Meanwhile the city was in a state of turmoil occasioned by the presence of large numbers of troops and the predominance of military activities. Smallpox and camp fever had broken out and were taking heavy toll among the soldiers. H u n d r e d s of victims were being buried in common graves in Washington Square. Carpenter's Mansion, on Chestnut Street between Sixth and Seventh streets, was turned into a military hospital for camp-fever cases. M u c h discontent prevailed among the new recruits a n d militiamen concentrated in the city. Although loyal enough to the cause of independence, they bitterly criticized the inadequate food, clothing, shelter, and pay. Many deserted, convinced that the Continental A r m y was too poorly supplied and e q u i p p e d to w i n the war. So widespread was this disaffection that upon one occasion an entire company deserted except for a lieutenant and a private, the latter too lame to walk. A l l roads, bridges, ferries, a n d wharves in a n d around the city had to be heavily guarded to discourage desertions. By the middle of August 1777, Howe's army had landed at the head of Chesapeake Bay near the present Elkton, M a r y l a n d , and had begun its march toward Wilmington, Delaware, about thirty miles to the northward. T h e river forts below P h i l a d e l p h i a were useless as obstacles to Howe's advance by land, but they could still be the means of preventing British ships from bringing supplies u p f o r Howe's army in the event it occupied Philadelphia. Washington's main body of troops lay along the Delaware north

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of the city when news arrived of Howe's advance from Maryland. Immediately the American commander-in-chief set his army of eleven thousand men in motion to meet the enemy. Moving southward, the Americans entered Philadelphia on August 24, marching down Front Street and o u t Chestnut to the Schuylkill. Washington, with Lafayette riding beside him at the head of the troops, wanted to impress the Tories and spies by a display of force, but it is hardly probable that he succeeded. Of this army Lafayette later was to say: Eleven thousand men, tolerably armed, and still worse clad, presented a singular spectacle. In this parti-colored and often-naked state, the best clothed wore hunting shirts of brown linen. Their tactics were equally irregular. They were arranged without regard to size, excepting that the smallest men were in the front rank. Considering the poorly equipped condition of the army, it is not surprising that Washington's officers had to keep vigilant watch to prevent men from slipping out of rank during the march through the city. T h o u g h it is a fact that many lacked enthusiasm for the war, these were outnumbered by soldiers willing to follow Washington anywhere, and to fight the British to the last ditch. W i t h drums beating and colors flying, the shabby troops reached the Schuylkill, where they were ferried across to the west bank. Soon they were on the march to W i l m i n g t o n , ready for the battle that was to decide the fate of Philadelphia. By August 26, Howe's army of seventeen thousand British regulars and Hessians had been landed at Elkton. Cautiously H o w e began to move northward on September 3, seeking to encircle Washington and cut him off from his base at Philadelphia. Only by brisk maneuvering were the Americans able to evade this British trap. Sharp skirmishes ensued until September 11, w h e n both armies faced each other along the Brandywine Creek about twenty-five miles southwest of Philadelphia. Here the Americans exerted all their strength to keep the British from crossing the several fords of the stream. As the main road to Philadelphia crossed the Brandywine at Chadd's Ford, Washington expected H o w e to strike hardest at that point; and there the main American force was concentrated. But H o w e deftly maneuvered his right wing into a feigned attack at Chadd's Ford, while the bulk of his army made a quick detour

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of twelve miles, crossed the stream farther north without difficulty, and attacked Washington's right flank f r o m the rear. Only spirited action by Washington's main force saved the battle from turning into a rout. It was a bad defeat for the Americans, w h o now retreated eastward through Village Green to Chester, leaving the m a i n road to Philadelphia unobstructed. B u t the struggle for the city was not yet finished. Instead of pushing on to Philadelphia, H o w e retired southward to W i l m i n g t o n . While his army rested there on September 14, Washington marched his men from Darby, a few miles northeast of Chester, across the Schuylkill to G e r m a n t o w n , where he reorganized his defenses f o r another attempt to halt the enemy. Howe, intending to give battle again if necessary to capture Philadelphia, moved north to West Chester on the sixteenth to find the Continental A r m y barring his way to the Schuylkill. Skirmishes began, with expectations that a battle would ensue, but a furious equinoctial storm drenched everything with rain, rendering military action impracticable. T h e next day Washington sent General Anthony W a y n e with a division of 1,500 men to harass the British lines of communication. T h e daring W a y n e contrived to place his division f o u r miles to the rear of the British. L e a r n i n g on the 20th that Howe would try to cross the Schuylkill at two o'clock the next morning, he prepared to attack that night. T o r y spies meanwhile informed H o w e of Wayne's plan and the location of his encampment near Paoli T a v e r n . His men were sleeping on their arms prior to launching the night attack when two British brigades, with fixed bayonets, fell upon the sleeping camp. T h e bewildered Americans, taken completely by surprise, suffered such heavy losses during the engagement that the disaster has been well termed the " P a o l i Massacre." A f t e r several more days of vain maneuvering, Washington decided it was useless, with the forces at his disposal, to oppose f u r t h e r the British seizure of Philadelphia. H e retired to a camp twenty miles northwest of the city between the Perkiomen and Skippack creeks, while H o w e and his second-in-command, L o r d Cornwallis, led the British across the Schuylkill near the Falls and toward the city by way of the R i d g e and G e r m a n t o w n roads, meeting slight resistance from small groups of Pennsylvania militia still g u a r d i n g the outskirts. On the m o r n i n g of September 26, 1777, Cornwallis'

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division marched southward into the city by way of Second Street. T h e capital of the year-old nation was now in the hands of the enemy. Congress had fled to Lancaster, where it was to hold one day's session before continuing westward across the Susquehanna to York. T h e local Tories, heretofore in jail or in hiding, and the more cautious pro-British elements of the population who had chafed under the patriotic measures of the Continental authorities, were now in their glory. They welcomed the British with open arms, offering them every hospitality and luxury available. T h e large town houses and suburban mansions were placed at the disposal of Howe and his officers, who, after the fatigue of the campaign, were quite willing to relax amid urban comforts and diversions. T h o u g h the British were masters of the city, they were still faced with the task of retaining it. Washington, lingering in the northern environs, was only biding his time; and below the city the American fleet and river forts still held control of the Delaware, preventing the British fleet from bringing u p much-needed supplies. Indeed, the very next day after Cornwallis' triumphant entry into Philadelphia, a squadron of the American river fleet engaged the shore batteries the British had begun to mount along the Delaware waterfront. At the same time Continental detachments were making energetic forays at Gray's Ferry and other points along the Schuylkill. Altogether, Howe was finding his situation rather precarious. H e knew that Washington was still a potential menace and in a position to strike a severe blow. T h e safety of the British now depended on their ability to batter down the American river defenses on the Delaware and thus enable the royal fleet to reach the city. With this achieved, Howe could then, and then only, feel secure in Philadelphia. T h e first obstacle to British ships in the Delaware was the lower fort at Billingsport on the New Jersey side, under whose guns the chevaux-de-frise formed a barrier across the river channel. On October ι a British detachment, covered by warships, crossed the Delaware below Chester and with scarcely any effort occupied the fort, which had been hastily abandoned earlier the same day by its small garrison of Pennsylvania and New Jersey militia. T h e chevauxde-frise was removed and the British fleet could now ascend the

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river as far as the r e m a i n i n g barriers u n d e r Forts M i f f l i n a n d M e r c e r . T h e s e s t r o n g h o l d s w e r e the n e x t o b j e c t i v e s of B r i t i s h a t t a c k . M e a n w h i l e , r e i n f o r c e m e n t s of troops f r o m the H u d s o n a n d additional drafts of m i l i t i a h a d a r r i v e d at W a s h i n g t o n ' s c a m p n o r t h of the city. W a s h i n g t o n resolved to strike back at H o w e ' s force enc a m p e d in G e r m a n t o w n . T h e two river forts w e r e still e n g a g i n g the attention of the British fleet a n d C o r n w a l l i s ' d i v i s i o n in the city proper, so that these w o u l d be u n a b l e to h e l p H o w e in the e v e n t of a s u d d e n A m e r i c a n attack o n h i m at G e r m a n t o w n . A c c o r d i n g l y , o n the n i g h t of O c t o b e r 3, W a s h i n g t o n m o v e d d o w n u p o n

German-

town by way of C h e s t n u t H i l l a n d the S k i p p a c k R o a d , m a k i n g for the British lines that e x t e n d e d

along

School

House

Lane

from

W i s s a h i c k o n C r e e k to the L i m e K i l n R o a d . T h e n e x t m o r n i n g , in a dense fog, the A m e r i c a n s

encountered

the British outposts b e l o w M o u n t A i r y . W i t h their c a n n o n thunderi n g f r o m the W i s s a h i c k o n heights a n d r a k i n g H o w e ' s l e f t , the A m e r ican c o l u m n s d e p l o y e d a n d swept f o r w a r d against the w h o l e e n e m y line a t h w a r t the G e r m a n t o w n R o a d . H o w e the n i g h t b e f o r e had taken the p r e c a u t i o n to station a b a t t a l i o n of l i g h t i n f a n t r y at the C h e w H o u s e , half a m i l e in a d v a n c e of his m a i n lines. T h e r e the c h a r g i n g bayonets of the A m e r i c a n s m e t an u n e x p e c t e d resistance w h i c h altered the course of the entire battle. T h e B r i t i s h v a n g u a r d was d r i v e n back south of the C h e w H o u s e ; b u t six c o m p a n i e s barricaded themselves in the large stone mansion a n d caused such confusion a m o n g the A m e r i c a n reserves that the latter f a i l e d to s u p p o r t their a d v a n c e units, battered mercilessly by the B r i t i s h r i g h t w i n g . T h e dense f o g a n d the i n e p t i t u d e of some A m e r i c a n g e n e r a l s a d d e d to the c o n f u s i o n , so that by n i g h t f a l l W a s h i n g t o n h a d to order a retreat. L e a v i n g the field to the British, he retired his force northw a r d b e y o n d P e r k i o m e n C r e e k . H i s losses in k i l l e d , w o u n d e d , prisoners, a n d missing w e r e o v e r o n e t h o u s a n d officers a n d m e n , as against a b o u t six h u n d r e d f o r the e n e m y . T h o u g h the b a t t l e of G e r m a n t o w n c o n s t i t u t e d a n o t h e r reverse for the A m e r i c a n s , it d e m o n s t r a t e d to the w o r l d that, g i v e n an e q u a l n u m b e r of m e n , W a s h i n g t o n c o u l d o f f e r a stiff b a t t l e to the seasoned British troops, despite i n f e r i o r i t y in e q u i p m e n t a n d t r a i n i n g . I t also convinced

Howe

of

the

urgent

necessity

of

consolidating

and

s t r e n g t h e n i n g his h o l d o n P h i l a d e l p h i a . H e was, i n d e e d , virtually

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surrounded in his city position. T o the north was the formidable threat of Washington's force, which also patrolled the country west of the Schuylkill, preventing supplies from being brought in from those directions. Across the Delaware, the Jersey side was held by militiamen and Continentals, while south of the city the two strongholds of Forts Mifflin and Mercer dominated the river and prevented Admiral Lord Richard Howe from bringing his squadron of warships to the relief of his brother's army besieged in the city. Food could only be procured in small quantities by foraging parties, which had to fight their way out to the hinterland farms and then fight their way back through the cordons of American patrols. With starvation threatening him, it was of vital importance to Sir William Howe that the Delaware be opened at once to the British fleet. He therefore concentrated all his efforts toward crushing the two forts which, with the chevaux-de-frise stretching across the channel between them, were like a strangling vise. On October 19 he withdrew his army from Germantown into the city to strengthen his defensive position prior to beginning operations against the river forts. As Fort Mifflin on the Philadelphia shore was the stronger redoubt, the British planned first to capture Fort Mercer on the Jersey side and then proceed against the other. Accordingly Howe sent a force of 2,500 Hessians under Colonel Count Donop across the Delaware in flatboats to Cooper's Point, directly opposite Philadelphia. Marching south to R e d Bank, they approached Fort Mercer in the afternoon of October 22, but before coming within cannon range, Donop sent an officer to parley and demand the fort's surrender. Colonel Christopher Greene, the American commander, replied that he would fight to the last man. A furious assault on the fort then began. T h e Hessian artillery pounded the ramparts on land, while five men-of-war from Howe's fleet slipped through the chevaux-de-frise and joined in the bombardment from off-shore. With only fourteen cannon and about four hundred men in the fort, Colonel Greene would have been at a great disadvantage had he not been aided by the American river flotilla of galleys and gunboats. These, stationed above the fort, poured heavy salvos of grapeshot into the Hessians charging the river front outworks. Donop had divided his force into two assault

FORT

MIFFLIN

columns which stormed the fort from north and south. Repeatedly they tried to reach the inner redoubt, only to reel and falter under the deadly barrage of American bullets and cannon shot. In a final supreme effort, D o n o p led his men across the outworks up to the nine-foot wooden palisades enclosing the inner fort. T h e effort proved futile. U n a b l e to scale the high log wall under the murderous fire, the attackers broke and ran, leaving C o u n t D o n o p mortally wounded along with four hundred other casualties. T h e American loss was eight killed, twenty-nine wounded, and one taken prisoner. By nightfall the land attack on Fort Mercer had been completely repulsed by the A m e r i c a n garrison and river boats. T h e shattered Hessians, bitterly complaining that H o w e always used them in the most dangerous tasks to spare his British regulars, retreated to Philadelphia the next morning. But they had fared little worse in the attack than had the supporting squadron of British warships. These had been badly battered by the combined fire from the galleys and the fort. By going through a treacherous channel, the British squadron avoided the chevaux-de-frise, but the frigate Roebuck, the ship-of-the-line Augusta, and the sloop Merlin ran aground during the height of the battle. A l l through the night and the next morning the three stranded ships withstood the combined American cannonade from the galleys, floating batteries, and the fort. T h e guns of Fort Mifflin across the river also joined in the bombardment. Four fire-rafts were launched by the Americans to ignite the grounded Augusta, but the ship's broadsides blasted the rafts to pieces. T h e Roebuck finally got afloat on the incoming tide, while the Merlin was set ablaze by her crew and abandoned. Additional British ships were drawing near to aid the Augusta w h e n she also caught fire; her magazine exploded and she sank in the shallows with heavy loss of life. T h e hulk of this 64-gun ship was brought to the surface in 1876 and towed to Gloucester, where sightseers paid twenty-five cents for the privilege of treading its oaken decks. T h e Merlin was never raised, but in the summer of 1941, while dredging the river channel off R e d Bank, A r m y engineers brought u p a number of timbers, cannon balls, bottles filled with wine, two anchors, and other objects believed to have come from the sloop's rotting hulk. Also brought to the sur-

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face were heavy iron barbs that once capped the timbers of the che vau x-de-fr ise. T h e stinging repulse of the British attack on Fort Mercer made Sir William Howe all the more determined to crush the two river forts. He now decided to concentrate all his efforts on reducing Fort Mifflin, preparations for which had been started even before the assault on the New Jersey stronghold. Captain John Montressor, who had been in charge of strengthening the Mud Island fort prior to the outbreak of the Revolution, knew all the weak spots in Fort Mifflin's defenses, the most vulnerable being the outworks on the land side. So Howe assigned him to erect batteries and gun emplacements along the shore in the rear of the fort. Mortars, howitzers, and field pieces, installed by the score on Province Island and at Penrose Ferry and other adjacent shore points, were now trained on the small island a few hundred feet out in the river. General Washington meanwhile was trying his best to aid the threatened forts. But according to general opinion he was handicapped by the jealousy of General Gates and the intrigue of other high officers in the Continental Army, who were plotting to have Gates made commander-in-chief. Gates's part in the intrigue has never been definitely known. Burgoyne had lately surrendered in New York State, yet Gates seemed disinclined to send any of his surplus troops down into Pennsylvania to reinforce Washington. And as Howe had strengthened his defenses in Philadelphia, there was little Washington could do to aid Fort Mifflin in the impending assault except to make desultory raids around the city, and dispatch Brigadier General James Varnum and the Rhode Island Brigade to reinforce Fort Mercer. While the British were girding all their offensive power for the kill, the commander of Fort Mifflin, Lieutenant Colonel Samuel Smith, and the garrison of three hundred men prepared themselves for the onslaught. Of the island fort's total armament of about twenty-five guns, eight formed a strong battery that commanded the river from Hog Island across to the New Jersey shore. T h e others were mounted on the wooden blockhouses and parapets. Embankments, stone walls, and water-filled ditches formed the outworks, and a stockade of logs surrounded the inner works. Feverishly toiling to strengthen the weak spots on the land side of the island,

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107

members of the garrison saw with misgiving the ominous activities of the British. A few hundred feet away, on the mainland, cannon after cannon was being brought u p and trained on Fort Mifflin, upon whose meager bastions the outcome of the months-long campaign around Philadelphia now depended. T h o u g h in daily expectation of the big assault, Colonel Smith was bold enough to take the offensive when the opportunity came. A i d e d by the American galleys and gunboats that crossed the river from above Fort Mercer, he launched an attack against one of the British shore batteries on Province Island and put it out of commission. Some of Washington's officers tried to cooperate by attacking the British batteries from the rear, but the swampy ground in the vicinity prevented any effective operations. A f t e r weeks of preparation the British finally were ready to begin the assault. On November 10, 1777, the batteries on Province Island and other shore points opened a heavy bombardment on the weak landside works of the fort. T h e defenders vigorously returned the fire, but their few cannon were no match for the artillery that was to hurl destruction upon them all through that and the following day. W h e n the firing subsided at nightfall on the eleventh, there were many casualties among the garrison, including Colonel Smith, whose wounds rendered him unable to continue in command. T h e walls of the fort had sustained so much damage that working parties, dispatched by General Varnum, came over from Fort Merccr during the night to help repair the breaches, and reinforcements of fresh troops also arrived from N e w Jersey in the hours of darkness. W h a t repairs had been made during the night were battered d o w n as the British intensified the bombardment on the twelfth. T w o of the fort's eighteen-pounders were put out of action; the blockhouses and ramparts were heavily battered; the number of dead and wounded mounted hourly. B u t Fort Mifflin's guns continued to roar back a defiant answer. On the verge of exhaustion f r o m the terrific punishment they were receiving, the defenders were inspired by the coolness of M a j o r Simeon T h a y e r of R h o d e Island, w h o had succeeded Smith as commander of the fort. T h e fourth day of battle, however, was to be an even greater ordeal for the defenders. U n d e r cover of the shore batteries, which maintained a steady fire

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PENNSYLVANIA

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all through the night of N o v e m b e r 12, the British managed to move within range seven warships from L o r d Howe's fleet and a number of smaller armed vessels. T h e Vigilant, a British merchantman converted into a floating battery of sixteen heavy guns, slipped past the chevaux-de-frise and maneuvered u p the back channel between H o g Island and the mainland. A small gunboat accompanied the Vigilant, which by dawn had moved so close to the island fort that its guns could not miss their mark. W i t h the coming of day a terrific cross-fire from the fleet and shore batteries began to reduce Fort Mifflin's weakened ramparts. T h e American river flotilla and the guns of Fort Mercer strove mightily to relieve the pressure, but they were no match for the hundreds of British cannon. T h e Vigilant, despite a severe p o u n d i n g from Fort Mifflin's guns, managed to approach so close to the island fort that its crew could hurl hand grenades into the shattered redoubt and pick off some of the defenders with muskets. By the next day Fort Mifflin's defenses h a d been battered into a heap of wreckage. W i t h nearly every gun out of action, and the blockhouses and ramparts c r u m b l i n g ruins, further resistance was impossible. Forty men of the garrison of 350 were all that had escaped death or injury during the six days of almost continuous fighting. T h e fort w o u l d have to be evacuated. D u r i n g the night M a j o r T h a y e r had the wounded ferried across to the New Jersey shore at R e d Bank. Early in the m o r n i n g of the sixteenth the heroic commander and his men set fire to what remained of the fort, and crossed the river to Fort Mercer. Fort Mifflin's fall rendered the N e w Jersey fort untenable. Cornwallis crossed the Delaware to Billingsport on the nineteenth w i t h two thousand men and advanced up the shore to the fort. T h o u g h expecting reinforcements from General Washington, Varnum and his garrison of eighteen hundred men abandoned Fort Mercer to the enemy and retreated northward. T h e American river flotilla, stationed near by, was now virtually entrapped. Some of the galleys and gunboats managed to slip past the British waterfront batteries at Philadelphia and sail u p the Delaware to Bristol. T h e others were set afire by their crews and the tide carried them up river to the city in a blazing pageant of defiance. T h e opening of the Delaware to Philadelphia proved a timely

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109

boon for Sir William Howe. His brother's fleet now proceeded up the river to the city and unloaded food and supplies for the halffamished troops and inhabitants. T h e British settled comfortably in the city for the winter, while Washington and his ragged army faced the cold and privation of Valley Forge. Through the long, cold winter and the spring of 1778, Philadelphia and Fort Mifflin remained in control of the British. But in May the alliance with France encouraged the Americans to renewed efforts that turned the tide of war. T h e approach of the French fleet under d'Estaing off the coast made the British position in Philadelphia precarious. Howe resigned as commander-in-chief and was succeeded by Sir Henry Clinton, who evacuated the city in J u n e upon orders from the British Ministry. When Washington and his army reentered the city on the heels of the retiring British, a garrison was sent to repair and maintain Fort Mifflin. After the Revolution it was allowed to fall into a dilapidated condition. In 1793 the Pennsylvania authorities appropriated funds for rebuilding the fort as a defense against French privateers that were raiding commerce in the Delaware. T h e celebrated French engineer, Major Pierre Charles L'Enfant, who later planned the city of Washington, was commissioned to draw the design. But in 1795 the State ceded the fort to the Federal Government. Three years later President John Adams appointed Colonel Louis de Toussard, a French-American engineer, to complete the work begun by L'Enfant. T h e fort, rebuilt by Toussard from L'Enfant's plans, was described in 1806 as "a regular inclosed work with batteries, magazines and barracks." There was little activity at Fort Mifflin during the War of 1812, though in this period an arsenal and a hospital were built. During the Civil War the old wooden facings of the ramparts were replaced by the present ones of brick. Confederate prisoners were confined in five underground bomb casements. T h e walls of these dungeons still bear the names, inscriptions, and drawings scribbled by the prisoners during their incarceration. As decades passed, the fort again fell into disuse. In 1904 its guns were dismantled, and the army engineers converted the post into a supply depot for dredging operations along the river. In 1915, however, the historic fort was declared a national monument and

1 IO

PENNSYLVANIA

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steps were taken to restore the entire structure. In 1930 the buildings, parapets, and grounds were completely renovated under the supervision of Colonel Earl I. Brown of the United States Army Engineers. Today Fort Mifflin closely approximates the appearance of the post-Revolutionary restoration of L'Enfant and Toussard. Its area, including moat and ramparts, is about eight acres. From north to south the ramparts are about six hundred feet in length, and 475 feet from east to west. T h e level space within is about two acres in area and contains the main group of buildings. In the center of the group is the commandant's headquarters, a one-story-and-attic structure of simple classic design, with Doric pilasters on the sides and a lookout cupola on the roof. T h e barracks nearby is a onestory-and-attic building of brick, with a colonnaded porch along its front. T h e officers' quarters, two stories high, has a full-length, twostory colonnade which supports a second-story balcony. Outside the walls is the hospital, a two-story structure with Ionic columns, built in 1812. All these buildings are interesting examples of post-Revolutionary architecture. Not far from Fort Mifflin on Penrose Ferry Road stands another landmark of the six-day bombardment of November 1777. It is known as the Old Cannon Ball House, so named because it was hit by a cannon ball fired from Fort Mifflin at one of the British batteries in the near-by meadow. This brick Colonial house was built in 1668 and enlarged to its present size about 1720. During the Revolution its owner was John Bleakley, Jr. Captain John Montressor of Howe's Royal Engineers, who constructed the batteries near the house, records in his diary of November 11 : "One Corporal and two Sergeants wounded at Bleakley's house, it being in the line of fire." T h e hole made by the cannon ball has been bricked up, but the spot is always kept whitewashed as a memento of Fort Mifflin's gallant defense.

VALLEY FORGE THERE is the river w i t h the D u t c h n a m e — S c h u y l k i l l — a n d V a l l e y C r e e k , a thin trickle in the shade of massive M o u n t Misery; a n d t h e r e is the g r o u n d r o l l i n g u p w a r d f r o m b o t h streams into the s u d d e n u p h e a v a l of M o u n t Joy a n d the hills stretching southeastw a r d t o w a r d P h i l a d e l p h i a . A m i l l i o n p e o p l e c o m e a n n u a l l y in trains or m o t o r to these trim acres and s m o o t h driveways, seeking the m e a n i n g of V a l l e y F o r g e in the restorations, m o n u m e n t s , W a s h i n g t o n Memorial Chapel, and earthworks. F o r o n e h u n d r e d years the site of W a s h i n g t o n ' s crucial encampm e n t was neglected as a shrine. F o r t u n a t e l y , the very qualities that m a d e it strategic discouraged the p l o w , so t h a t the swell of the e a r t h w o r k s is still visible, a n d p r o p e r f e e l i n g a m o n g the local inh a b i t a n t s accounts f o r the survival of o t h e r remains. Legislative a c t i o n c a m e b e l a t e d l y in 1893 w i t h a $25,000 a p p r o p r i a t i o n , by w h i c h some two h u n d r e d and fifty acres w e r e a c q u i r e d ; succeeding assemblies m a d e f u r t h e r acquisitions possible. T h e present 1,602-acre p a r k takes in most of the original enc a m p m e n t , w i t h the m a j o r e x c e p t i o n of m a n y generals' quarters, w h i c h lie to the south a n d west in w h a t w a s the v a n of the main III

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fortifications line. A detail map of Philadelphia's environs demonstrates the commanding position Valley Forge held over the city— similar to the one Washington occupied in New Jersey when Howe held New York—near enough to make his presence felt, yet safe from surprise, with maneuverability guaranteed and contact facilitated both with the enemy and the farm populace, many of them Quakers, Mennonites, and Dunkards professing non-resistance. Choice of the site came after an active fall campaign: at Brandywine on September 1 1 , 1777, where an attempt to stem Howe's advance on Philadelphia ended in defeat; at Germantown on October 4, where Washington's attack, though it failed, showed Howe a stubborn spirit and greatly influenced the French; and in the slow circling around Whitemarsh early in December, when the British threatened an engagement, hesitated, and returned to the city's comfortable mansions. In the meantime, Wayne suffered near-annihilation at Paoli, and the winter was drawing on. T h e commander-in-chief submitted a circular questionnaire to his generals, asking their opinion as to the advisability of a winter campaign and the practicability of an attack on Philadelphia. Both suggestions met with unanimous opposition. Generals Irvine, Potter, and Duportail advanced the compromise plan of establishing winter quarters near enough (within twenty miles) to exert pressure on the British without further exhausting the army. T h e alternate possibility of wintering at Lancaster or Reading—clearly more comfortable than the cold slopes at Valley Forge—was rejected with equal decision, as it would have delivered a rich portion of the province to Howe's foragers and subjected the inhabitants to coerced oaths of allegiance. It would have meant fatal and premature exhaustion of Washington's backcountry reserves; and, certain to be construed as a retreat, it would have perilously reduced the morale of the untried troops and the countryside. Bleeding and staggering, the army, numbering eleven thousand, reached Valley Forge on December 19, 1777. Here were a few scattered farms and houses, some near the forge Daniel Walker had built in 1 7 5 1 , which now lay in ruins as a result of the British advance through the area less than three months before, twelve days

VALLEY

FORGE

after the Battle of Brandywine. Very soon it began to snow. A n icy wind swept across the hills. T h e men, grim and shivering, quickly set about making their winter encampment It is from the original documents of the period that the stature of Washington emerges in heroic size, that Valley Forge becomes a story of sacrifice to a great principle, a human tale with power to excite and stimulate. It is not difficult to call u p a vision of the ragged and starving soldiers huddled sleepless a r o u n d the wood fires that gave the hills a thousand eyes, to hear the r i n g i n g blows that cut the timber for a thousand huts, or to picture the terrors of the spreading smallpox. L i v i n g in a tent, refusing the comforts of a house until the army had thrown up wooden shelters, Washington determined in the first dark pre-Christmas week of the encampment "to wring from the winter's discipline a solid preparation for the expulsion of the British A r m y . " T h e design to hamper the enemy and improve the Revolutionary forces went hand in hand. H e gave to Colonel Allen M c L a n e the duty of patrolling the area between the city and the camp, of brushing the enemy outposts, of a c q u i r i n g intelligence and forage, and of assisting British deserters to escape. H e placed his own largest outpost at G u l p h Mills, six miles southeast of the camp, under Aaron Burr, then twenty-two years of age. But there were bleak prospects ahead. T o Congress he wrote on December 23: I am convinced . . . that unless some great and capital change suddenly takes place . . . the army must inevitably . . . starve, dissolve, or disperse in order to obtain subsistence. Yesterday . . .

I was . . . convinced that

the m e n were unable to stir . . . and that a dangerous m u t i n y . . . was . . . m u c h to be apprehended. It is time to speak plain. . . . I can declare that no man . . . ever had his measures more impeded. . . . easier . . . thing to draw remonstrances . . .

by a g o o d

It is a much

fireside

than to

occupy a cold bleak hill . . .

T h e r e w o u l d seem to be enough in the letter to justify the speech which M a x w e l l Anderson, in his play, Valley Forge, puts in Washington's mouth: . . . W h a t ' s left of the Revolution Y o u see here, in these windy shacks and starved men. . . .

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W h e n the French alliance threatened the British with hostile sea power, the latter evacuated Philadelphia, and on June 19, 1778, Washington broke camp in pursuit. T e n days later he caught up with Clinton at M o n m o u t h and sent him reeling. Von Steuben, w h o arrived late in February, had left his mark. T h e Prussian drillmaster whose cook departed within a week has won a place in American schoolbooks, together with Lafayette and Washington. T h e fact that his statue was not erected in the park until 1915 does not detract from his fame. Excellent roads that thread Philadelphia's northwestern suburbs lead into Valley Forge Park from every main compass point. W i t h i n it the broad, neat macadam drives, which have gradually replaced the original dirt roads, lead by or near the chief points of interest. Unlike Gettysburg, which has been called a "marble cemetery," the atmosphere of caretaking is not overwhelming. It may be helpful, in attempting to understand Washington's utilization of the camp space, to think of the Schuylkill as his northern barrier—flowing here almost due east, and paralleling the twomile stretch on the Port Kennedy road between Washington's Headquarters and the K i n g of Prussia Road. Opening southward from the river in a rough semicircle lay the main body of troops. A l o n g the outer line, now the Outer Line Drive, was constructed the first line of defense, probably a low earthen barricade of which no trace is left. Here stood Wayne, Scott, Poor, Muhlenberg, and other generals. T h e i r camp sites are marked. O n the left or west flank of this line near Port Kennedy is said to have been a fort named for Mordecai Moore, and the other flank, on the southwestern slope of M o u n t Joy, was protected by Fort Washington. A n inner line of fortifications, one of the most remarkable things remaining at Valley Forge, extended from Fort Washington to Fort Huntingdon, near the river. Between the two the artillery was stationed under General Knox, and behind the guns the brigades of Maxwell, Conway, and Huntingdon were encamped. Protected by the main body of the army, the commander-in-chief made his headquarters at the junction of Valley Creek and the Schuylkill. G u l p h Road, the route followed by Washington into Valley Forge, and Baptist Road, named for the members of that denomination w h o used it to reach the river for their ceremonies, were in

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115

existence in 1777, and still offer the best approach to the camp's remains. Gulph Road connects the Memorial Arch, one of the outstanding landmarks, with Washington's headquarters, and midway between the two it intersects Baptist Road, which connects Fort Washington and Fort Huntingdon. Outer Line Drive and Inner Line Drive, built by the State, follow faithfully the respective original fortification lines. Guards report that occasional visiting busloads of foreign students are lectured by their leader on details of the "battle of Valley Forge," with exact descriptions of cavalry charges and artillery emplacements. T h e fact is that natural enemies at Valley Forge were more insidious than Hessians or redcoats. T h e conflict went on chiefly within the men themselves, as the written records show— the "white war," as it has come to be called in modern times, of nerve, endurance, and determination. Consequently, the remains of greatest interest are passive mementos of this wearing battle. There is no Seminary Ridge, no Pickett's charge, no "gallant six hundred." Instead, there are hut holes—ground depressions the troops dug three feet deep, below the frost line, before erecting their log cabins. T h e best of these are in Wayne's Woods, a tract of several acres, still heavily wooded, near the Memorial Arch. Three thousand soldiers died at Valley Forge. Some died each day, and there has been found no one common burying place. With smallpox, starvation, and exposure killing an average of seventeen a day, some of the burials, at least, must have been haphazard. Only one grave in the park, that of Lieutenant John Waterman, has been identified, and on it was erected the first monument at Valley Forge. Waterman's grave was identified by the initials " J . W . " and the date "1778" cut into a piece of sandstone found over the grave. T h e stone, now on exhibition in the Park Museum, was placed over the grave by soldiers and fellow officers, who could not bear to see the lieutenant's grave go unmarked. T h e other graves were found by farmers who held the land here privately for one hundred years, and some of them heaped stones together when they found a grave, especially if it did not interfere with agriculture. Wayne's Woods are second growth, though the stumps of a few original trees remain. Here, too, reproductions of a soldiers' hut, a hospital hut, and an officers' hut have been erected. T h e general

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effect is reproduced in the rough, doubled-tiered bunks and the bare boards of the surgeon's table. T h e officers' hut held eighteen, from the rank of lieutenant to brigadier general. Their lot was little better than that of the soldiers. This fact may explain the letter of an anonymous officer, who wrote: "Every fellow of them [the soldiers] thinks himself on a footing with his officers, and in fact there is very little distinction can be made between the one and the other." One of the two bake-ovens remains. It is a low, dirt-covered mound about six by ten feet, hollowed out and lined with stones. It is believed that the interior was heated quite intensely, and the dough inserted after the embers had been removed. Its preservation, too, must be regarded as a miracle, performed by some unknown owner of the land. Unfenced and unprotected, it is weathering fast. T h e Wayne statue, together with the National Memorial Arch, dominate this part of the park on the Outer Line. T h e former, a moving sculpture of the Commander of the two Pennsylvania Brigades, was erected in 1908 at a cost of $35,000. T h e mounted figure of "Mad Anthony" Wayne faces the countryside of Chester County where he was born. His boyhood memory of the terrain is said to have led him to urge upon Washington the site for the encampment. Near-by are the Pennsylvania columns with their tribute to the officers and men of the Pennsylvania Line. From this list Conway is absent—Conway who is said to have plotted with Gates to have the latter supplant Washington. T h e "white war" is exemplified, too, in the entrenchment extending along Inner Line Drive around the east side of Mount Joy and continuing almost to the river. Originally it is supposed to have consisted of a ditch or trench about six feet wide and three deep, with the mound about four feet high. T h e present mound rarely rises above two feet, but there can be no doubt of its authenticity, proceeding as it does for such a distance and almost in a straight line over the side of the hill. An abatis of stumps and brush fronted it as far as musketfire could reach, and it was reinforced with projecting stakes and pikes. There were many redoubts or emergency forts in the camp, but only three remain: Forts Washington and Huntingdon and the Star Redoubt. T h e two forts protected the flanks of the inner defense

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line and are still visible, with some alteration and enlargement of their original form. Fort Washington, on the eastern slope of Mount Joy, would delight a tactician of any army, so commanding is its position above the ground slowly falling toward Philadelphia. Fort Huntingdon, near the present picnic grove, is also well marked. Facing it is the grave of a soldier who was killed by a farmer named Beaver, who caught him milking his cow at night. T h e dead soldier was buried in sight of the farmer's window. Irregularities on the part of hungry soldiers were hard to prevent. It is said that the farmer in question had threatened bodily harm to thieves, and W a y n e had jokingly replied: "Well, go ahead and shoot them." T h e Star Redoubt, about five hundred yards east of Fort Huntingdon, held a spot overlooking Sullivan's Bridge, across the Schuylkill, which was completed under urgent orders from Washington early in March 1778, and carried off by a freshet the following year. From Fort Huntingdon and other places is visible the long, rolling parade ground where Von Steuben trained the soldiers. Skeletons have been found here as late as 1937, and it is suggested that more than a few of the soldiers collapsed and died in their tracks during the drills. O n May 6, 1778, the assembled army heard here that the powerful French nation had decided to come openly to the aid of the struggling Colonies. A m o n g the outstanding buildings at Valley Forge are Washington's and Varnum's headquarters and the O l d Schoolhouse. T h e latter, a one-and-a-half-story structure of native stone, was built in 1705 and restored in 1907. T h e headquarters of the two Generals, the only ones within park limits, are well-preserved, two-and-a-halfstory, native fieldstone structures refurnished with genuine pieces of the period. T h e house that served as Washington's quarters was rented from a man named Isaac Potts. It took considerable urging before the General agreed to take over the Potts house, and later he saw that rental was paid to the tenant. T h e hallways and stairs are narrow and the rooms small, but the kitchen is characteristically large. Varnum's quarters have been considerably enlarged. He was judge advocate of the army and sat at courts-martial. T h e r e are two museums at Valley Forge, one adjacent to Washington's headquarters and administered by the Park Commission, and one connected with the Washington Memorial Chapel, con-

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trolled by the Episcopal Diocese of Pennsylvania. T h e former, housed in what was the barn or stable of the Potts estate, contains a large variety of Revolutionary relics, many of which were found on the grounds. T h e Valley Forge Museum of A m e r i c a n History, associated with the Memorial Chapel, is not in the Valley Forge reservation but just beyond it and east of the Star R e d o u b t . T h e chapel represents the life work of the late Reverend W . Herbert Burk, w h o in 1903, while rector of A l l Saints' C h u r c h in Norristown, advanced the idea. T h e chapel, where the Pennsylvania Episcopal Diocese is continuing the work of Dr. Burk, is of native stone in the English Perpendicular Gothic style, modeled after King's College Chapel at Cambridge. Colonial architecture was rejected because of its Georgian association and the presence of George III on the throne during the Revolution. T h e elaborate and somewhat pretentious construction and detail of the chapel were designed to emphasize and associate patriotism and religion. T h e best view of the encampment is from the seventy-five-foot observation tower on the summit of M o u n t Joy. T h e r e is usually a mist in the more distant valleys, and, while the heavy foliage of treetops obscures some of the detail of the park itself, there is visible between Inner L i n e Drive and G u l p h R o a d the pink lake of the dogwood grove in May, the slow sweep of Valley Creek on its way to the Schuylkill, the site of the old forge on the creek, the site of Fatland Ford in the river east of Fort H u n t i n g d o n , and the fat land from which it took its name.

PRESQUE ISLE PENINSULA T o M I L L I O N S of Pennsylvanians the peninsula that has given the Commonwealth its only port on the Great Lakes and has made Erie an important resort city is little more than an abstraction recalling the exploits of Commodore Perry. T h i s seven-mile-long strip of wooded and slowly shifting sand, established as a State park in 1921, is actually a vast playground that draws a million persons annually, with holiday crowds of fifty thousand thronging its beaches during the summer months. W h e n the thermometer climbs toward the nineties—and vacationers from eastern Pennsylvania flock by train, bus, and automobile to the New Jersey coast—thousands from Pennsylvania, eastern O h i o , and western N e w York make for Presque Isle Peninsula. Here a cool breeze, miles of sandy beaches, shaded picnic areas, forest-bound lagoons, and bridle paths offer respite from the heat. In addition, there are attractions such as game sanctuaries, facilities for lake and bay fishing, and the only operating lighthouse within the State of Pennsylvania. Presque Isle Peninsula, named Presqu'île, or peninsula, by the French, juts out into L a k e Erie and then curves back toward shore 119

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to form Presque Isle Bay. It played an important part in the Nation's history, especially d u r i n g the Republic's infancy. Forming, as it does, a beautiful natural harbor for Erie, it was responsible for the early military movements in this region under three different flags, with an interim of several years when only the Seneca Indians roamed the territory. French troops under Chevalier Marin were sent from Canada to Pennsylvania in 1753 to help establish possession of the O h i o Valley by building forts at strategic points. O n the harbor mainland opposite the peninsula they erected Fort Presque Isle—on the west bank of Mill Creek at the foot of present Parade Street, Erie—the first of a string of frontier forts built to protect French interests against the English. T h e French then built a road to LeBoeuf, present-day Waterford, and constructed a fort there in 1753. In 1754 they continued the road to the mouth of French Creek (Franklin) where they built Fort Machault, and then went on down the Allegheny, erecting Fort Duquesne at the O h i o Forks where Pittsburgh now stands. Presque Isle, because of its landlocked harbor, became a supply and munitions depot for the other forts. Supplies from Canada, brought to Presque Isle by boat, were transported by carrier and by packhorse over the French R o a d to LeBoeuf, and from there were floated by way of French Creek and the Allegheny River to Fort Duquesne. T h e British in 1758 regained supremacy at the O h i o Forks, and by 1759 they had also forced the French out of the Erie district. T h e y built a blockhouse at the neck of the peninsula and a stockade to protect their cattle pastured along the peninsula's eastern end. T h e y also rebuilt Fort Presque Isle, which the French had burned before retreating to Canada. T h e Seneca, in Pontiac's rebellion, attacked the fort in 1763 and destroyed it. From then on the region was traversed only by hostile bands of Indians, until "Mad A n t h o n y " W a y n e crushed their spirit of resistance at the Battle of Fallen T i m bers, in 1794. T h e next year Captain Russell Bissell of Wayne's army arrived at Presque Isle. H e built an American fort on the east side of Mill Creek, and the Stars and Stripes fluttered over this section of the country for the first time. In the meantime, Pennsylvania had acquired title to the T r i a n g l e lands, which included

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Presque Isle Peninsula, from the Indians and by sundry quitclaims from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, and the United States. T h e narrow strip of wooded sand and its sheltered bay again figured prominently in American historical annals during the W a r of 1812. Early in that war the British, having control of the Great Lakes, were in a position to strike a disastrous blow at any time upon the American settlements on the south shore of Lake Erie. N o major American military movements could be made in the region because of the British fleet, which not only prevented any campaigns against Canada, but left the United States vulnerable to attack from the north. Captain Daniel Dobbins, an experienced navigator on the Great Lakes, was among the few who immediately recognized this danger. He made a hurried trip to Washington to inform President Madison of the perilous situation. Madison, realizing that a fleet was necessary to cooperate with General Harrison's army in Ohio, authorized Dobbins to proceed with the construction of a fleet on Lake Erie. Dobbins hired some carpenters in New York, among them N o a h Brown, who later did meritorious work in the construction of the fleet, and Henry Eckford, a noted architect. Returning to Erie, Dobbins proceeded with plans to build an American squadron, but the small community of a few hundred inhabitants had no cordage, iron, tools, canvas, paint, or other materials ncccssary in the construction of war vessels. It had only the timber. Supplies and other essentials had to be brought from Pittsburgh and Buffalo. T h e r e was no time for seasoning the green timber. Giant white oaks were cut in the morning, to be laid as the keel of a ship that night. Men worked night and day chopping down pine, oak, and chestnut trees, trimming the branches, whip-sawing them into planks and beams, and fitting them into place. T h e task would have been less difficult had there been sufficient men, especially carpenters, but Dobbins was handicapped in that respect also. W h e n Captain Oliver Hazard Perry arrived over the lake ice to take command of the "squadron" at Erie on March 27, 1813, he f o u n d only two brig keels laid down and two gunboats nearly covered with planking. T h e shipyard, on the bay shore where the Gov-

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ernraent had leased some land, extended from the foot of what is now Sassafras Street to beyond Cascade Street. Perry was further chagrined to learn that the sixty volunteers guarding the ships had no muskets. They would be unable to put up any defense against the British and Indians, should they cross the lake to attack. He dispatched Dobbins to Buffalo for two cannon, and when Sailing-Master Taylor, who had served under him, arrived at Erie, Perry immediately left for Pittsburgh, where he ordered muskets, powder, ropes, sails, and tools. Dobbins returned from Buffalo with only one cannon, but Perry strengthened his inadequate forces by the addition of five hundred soldiers from the command of General Mead, then encamped near Erie. Despite difficulties in procuring skilled craftsmen and sorely needed supplies, construction on the six ships went ahead with the 150 workers available. The gunboat Porcupine was launched April 15, and the Scorpion, a schooner, on May 1. These, built at the foot of Sassafras Street, were followed on May 24 by the brigs Lawrence and Niagara, built at the foot of Cascade Street, together with the pilot schooner Ariel. T h e latter site is now marked by a stone with a bronze plaque. Perry had left Erie on May 23 to aid Commodore Chauncey in an attack on Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara River. He played a heroic rôle in its capture, was cited by Chauncey for bravery and gallantry in action, and brought back from Gonjaquade's Creek at Black Rock five vessels, the Caledonia, Somers, Trippe, Ohio, and Tigress, which the Americans had been unable to move out into the lake until Fort George fell. The ten ships rode at anchor in the bay July 10. But now that he had the ships, Perry did not have the men. T h e fleet's complement was figured at 740, with the two brigs requiring 180 men each, yet there were not half enough men and officers to man even 'one of the brigs. Secretary of the Navy Jones wrote to him repeatedly with instructions to proceed immediately to General Harrison's assistance in Ohio. Perry in turn pleaded with Commodore Chauncey at Sackett's Harbor and the Secretary of the Navy for more men, at least enough for a minimum crew on each ship. The Secretary finally sent some men in response to his plea, but routed them by way of Sackett's Harbor where Chauncey, ever apprehensive of an

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attack, appropriated them for his own fleet. Perry then opened up recruiting stations at Erie, Buffalo, and Pittsburgh, where a few landlubbers were induced to enlist for four months, at $10 a month, or until a decisive battle was fought. This period was one of keen vexation and worry for Perry. He was anxious to engage Commodore Barclay and the British fleet, which almost daily sailed defiantly within sight of Erie, daring him to come out and give battle. For days at a time the British anchored off the sand bar at the entrance to the harbor and blockaded the town. Constant vigilance was kept by Perry lest they land under cover of night and destroy his ships. His plight grew worse as the days went by, though a few stragglers joined his fleet and Chauncey spared him an ill-assorted lot from his own squadron. Sixty more men arrived near the end of J u l y , but they were in no condition to work or fight. Some were sick, some were recovering from fever, and very few had ever helped to man a ship or fire a gun. T h e command now mustered three hundred ,men for the fleet, when the two brigs alone required three hundred and sixty, but despite this shortage of men, Perry decided to act. His mind was already made up when Commodore Barclay suddenly lifted his blockade and sailed for Canada. T h e shallow water of the harbor entrance, which had prevented the British fleet from entering Erie harbor, now presented a serious problem to the Americans. Commodore Barclay had made no effort to destroy the American ships because he thought Perry would never be able to get them over the sand bar. He intended to return shortly to find the ships grounded upon the bar—an easy prey to his guns. Perry anchored his vessels near the harbor entrance on the first of August and found the water at the bar only six feet "deep. As the Lawrence and Niagara drew nine feet of water, it was impossible to get them over the obstruction without lightening them. Five small gunboats were sent over the bar the next day to bear the brunt of attack in the event the British made a surprise appearance. When the Lawrence grounded halfway across the bar, Perry ordered her guns dismounted and set up on shore, with muzzles trained toward the harbor entrance. Lead ballast and everything movable were lightered from the ship, but she remained fast.

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T h e only alternative now was to float her over with "camels," large wooden air-chambers used in buoying ships over shallow places. T h e camels were placed on each side of the Lawrence, and water was pumped into them until they sank into position and were made fast to ropes under the keel. T h e n the water was pumped out. T h e Lawrence slowly rose, but the ropes broke and the ship settled back upon the sand. A f t e r two days and two nights of incessant work the Lawrence was finally lifted and floated over the'bar. Perry ordered the Niagara to be lifted over next. Her guns were dismounted and taken ashore. A t this point, five ships of the enemy suddenly appeared from the northwest, and everything was confusion. T h o u g h the camels had by this time been unfastened from the Lawrence, her guns were still ashore. W h i l e in that condition a freshening wind swung the two helpless brigs around until they were broadside to the British. Fortunately Barclay's vision was obscured by the haze, and he was thus unaware of the defenseless predicament of the two brigs. T h i n k i n g the Americans actually preparing to pour a broadside into him, he turned about andisailed away to get the Detroit, a new ship larger than any of Perry's or his own five. T h a t evening Perry completed the task of lifting the Niagara over the bar. W i t h his force of three hundred men, many ill and most of them lacking naval experience, he set sail. He searched the Canadian shore for a day but, unable to find any trace of the British, returned to Erie, where he took on additional supplies and provisions for a longer search. Before he could start out again, the glad tidings reached him that Captain Elliott with a small force was marching from Sackett's Harbor to join him. T h e Ariel, sent immediately to meet the detachment, returned a few days later with Elliott and 102 men. T h e next day, not k n o w i n g the whereabouts of the British fleet, Perry sailed up the lake to join General Harrison. His fleet was armed with fifty-four guns and had a total burden of 1,671 tons. T h e British fleet, six ships with a total burden of 1,460 tons, had 450 men and sixty-three guns. T h e British superiority lay in their l o n g guns and the stout construction of the flagship Detroit, which had planking more than a foot thick, making it invulnerable to grapeshot.

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Perry anchored off Sandusky and went into conference with General Harrison concerning a plan of campaign against the enemy. He had dispatched the Ohio to Erie for supplies, so that on the morning of September 10, when the British fleet was sighted in Put-In Bay, Perry sailed out to meet it with only nine ships. Of his brilliant victory he wrote modestly: "We have met the enemy and they are ours. . . ." This triumph, considered by some authorities as one of history's great naval victories, gave renewed hope to the Americans and greatly weakened Britain's hold on the Great Lakes. T h e Lawrence was sunk in Misery Bay, just off the peninsula, in 1815, and the Niagara was sunk there a few years later. T h e Lawrence was raised in 1875 taken to the 1876 Centennial at Philadelphia, where it was destroyed by fire. T h e brig Niagara was raised and rebuilt in 1913 to participate in the Perry Centennial at Erie. Older residents of Erie, who have fished from boats anchored near the historic wreck, remember perch and sunfish darting through holes in its planking or lying motionless under the curve of the oak ribs protruding from the keel, long since "covered with sand. For many years the Niagara lay at anchor off the Public Dock, then was taken to the peninsula to be rebuilt for the second time. Its restoration was proceeding on the peninsula's bay side in the summer of 1941, with the Pennsylvania Historical Commission supervising the project. Near Perry Memorial Park in Misery Bay is another historic battleship, the Wolverine, originally christened the U.S.S. Michigan. This, the first American ironclad battleship, was launched in Presque Isle Bay in 1843. It was the only warship on the Great Lakes for more than a half-century, serving later as a training ship. It navigated under its own power until 1926, when it was moored near the Perry Memorial after more than eighty years of service. Presque Isle Peninsula is the base for several marine aids that assist in making Lake Erie safe for navigation. T h e United States Coast Guard Station near the North Pier forms a concrete breakwall on the north side of the channel, leading into Presque Isle Bay. Regular coast guard duties are performed by a Coast Guard unit. T h e Lighthouse Service, operating under the Coast Guard, maintains a lighthouse, tower flash light, fog horns, range lights, buoys, and other aids helpful in guiding ships in and out of the harbor.

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Congress recognized the necessity of navigation aids on the Great Lakes as early as 1810, when it passed an act authorizing the construction of a lighthouse at Buffalo and one at Erie, a straggling town of four hundred people but important as a supply and transportation link between the East and West. Actual work on the Erie lighthouse was delayed because of the impending war with Great Britain, and the matter was forgotten until again called to the attention of Congress by Commodore Perry in 1 8 1 3 . T h e Land Lighthouse, first American lighthouse on the Great Lakes, was built in 1818 on the mainland's "Garrison Hill." Probably of brick, it stood on a sixty-foot bluff overlooking the harbor entrance, not far from where Perry had mounted long guns in 1 8 1 3 to prevent the British fleet from entering the harbor while his fleet was in construction on the bay shore. In 1858 the original Land Lighthouse was replaced by a structure of Milwaukee brick, and this in turn was replaced at a cost of $33,000 in 1867 by one of Berea stone, which operated until 1885. Even with a lighthouse, navigation of the channel entrance was difficult because of the two long, winding sand bars that formed it. T h e shifting sands caused a fluctuation in the depth of the channel water, making it necessary for the larger ships to anchor at the harbor entrance, where they unloaded their cargoes to lighters poled in and out of the harbor. T o assist navigation, early but crude attempts by the citizens were made to construct a channel entrance with hemlock logs and branches. T h e Federal Government cut through the sand bars in 1827 and built piers to hold back the sand, thus insuring a straight passage and uniform depth through the channel. An octagonal wooden tower beacon light was erected the following year at the east end of the peninsula pier near the harbor entrance. About thirty years later the schooner Pilgrim's Progress ran into the pier during a storm and damaged the beacon. T h e tower was then replaced by a cast-iron structure, and a frame dwelling was built on the beach for the keeper. In 1880 the pier was lengthened and the tower transferred to its end. T h e Presque Isle Pierhead Light, as it is now known, is still maintained on the North Pier, close by the North Pier Fog Horn. Pennsylvania's only operating lighthouse today, the Presque Isle

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Lighthouse, on the north shore of the peninsula, was built in 1873 at a cost of $15,000. It has a square, white-painted tower of brick, sixty-eight feet high, with a red-brick dwelling attached. T h e alternating, flashing red and white beams can be seen at distances of twelve and sixteen miles, respectively. T h e first definite steps to preserve the peninsula's wild beauty were taken in 1919 when a local movement was started to create a State park. T h e enabling act creating the park was passed in 1921, and the area's subsequent development along recreational lines was made possible. Roads were built along its entire length, a memorial park was established at the southeastern tip, a water line was extended from the mainland, and the entire peninsula was developed to promote recreational and health facilities. Steel breakwaters now prevent storms from severing the peninsula from the mainland, and they also delay wave action that tends to carry sand from the western end to the eastern tip. Soil erosion studies and reclamation work have accomplished some good, but not enough to eliminate entirely the damage done by severe lake storms. Trees planted along the lakeside now help to keep the sand from being blown away. These young poplars take a firm hold in the sand and in a few years become good windbreakers. Steel jetties, large stones on the beaches, stone jetties, and storm fences have been enlisted in the defense against storms that threaten to breach the peninsula's neck, or western extremity, which at some places is only one hundred feet wide. Vegetation that springs up also prevents the dried sand from being washed away by the water or blown away by the winds. Driven by the prevailing west wind on Lake Erie, the waves wash sand, gravel, and shingle from the bluffs west of Erie and deposit them against the perpendicular northeast shore-line to form a "recurved sandspit." T h e rate of deposit is rapid when one considers that the peninsula, more than a mile wide at the eastern end, and resting in from twenty-five to forty feet of water, is growing eastward at the rate of twenty-six feet a year. T h e peninsula's growth eastward is caused by deposits which form beach pools in the bay, isolating them into ponds and eventually lagoons. T h e seed of the cottonwood poplar sprouts up around the edges of these ponds and forms hedges of trees. In time the lagoons

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become filled with sand, and brush grass grows between the trees. Bearberry, a hardy evergreen shrub, appears about forty years later and forms a heath. Humus forms on 'the heath, and several years later red cedar and white pine trees take root. T h e white pine forest forms a dense shade that prevents the heath and white pine seedlings from growing, and the white pines thus last only one generation. But red oak successfully combats the shade and eventually supersedes the white pines. Hemlocks penetrate the oldest red oak section, and, according to some authorities, sugar maples will finally replace other trees and become the permanent forest. T h i s unusual combination of sand plains, marshes, ponds, and forests has always attracted a variety of wild life. A few deer roam the park at will. A t the eastern tip is a sanctuary for hundreds of gulls. Mallard ducks at Fox's Pond have become so tame they will eat from the hands of visitors. Goldfinches, bluebirds, wild canaries, bobwhites, blue jays, crows, and many other birds enliven the woods with their musical calls and bright plumage. Woodcock and quail may be seen as well as the strutting pheasant, and a pair of eagles have their eyrie in one of the highest trees. T h e peninsula tip curving back against the mainland forms the largest landlocked harbor on the Great Lakes. Freighters, packet ships, and coal, iron-ore, pulpwood, fish, and grain boats tie up at modern docks and elevators. T h e bay is dotted with rowboats, motorboats, sailboats, yachts, and scout kayaks. Muskellunge, grass pike, black bass, and many other varieties of freshwater fish lure anglers from the Tri-State area. Regattas, swimming meets, skating, ice boating, and ice fishing likewise attract thousands in season. T h e Erie Power Squadron conducts classes in navigation to promote interest in aquatic sports and to improve nautical skills. Only from a sufficient height in the air can one comprehend the freakish outline shown on the map, which encloses the 3,200 acres of natural beauty found on this weird sandy stretch. Fifteen miles of trails and equestrian paths, and hundreds of picnic tables and stoves are hidden by virgin timber. Visible changes are the eleven miles of concrete roads, a city reservoir, parallel channel piers, stone jetties, steel breakwaters, Coast Guard buildings, the Presque Isle Light, and minor structures. But the sandy beaches, lily ponds, lagoons, the swampy lee-side area, Misery Bay, the dense growths—all are

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pretty much the same as when Monsieur Le Mercier, engineer under Pierre Marin, paddled his canoe into the bay in search of a site for a French fort and a shorter route to the Ohio country. This French soldier was the first recorded white man to view "the finest spot in nature," as Duquesne, Governor of Canada, described it to the French King.

WHEATLAND THIS is a story of an American homestead which, along with a shattered romance and a diplomatic manifesto, became a stepping stone to the W h i t e House. It was the scene of the first "front porch" campaign for the Presidency, eighty-three years before W a r r e n G. Harding successfully tried the same plan of action. T h e candidate was James Buchanan, fifteenth President and only Pennsylvanian to attain that office. Wheatland, Buchanan's home located just beyond the city limits of Lancaster, is a stately brick mansion of Southern style architecture set in quietly aristocratic surroundings. It became campaign propaganda when lithographs of it were distributed widely throughout the South by Buchanan's supporters. T h e inference that Buchanan, a Democrat, was a gentleman of the Southern type was intended to add sentimental force to the economic and political popularity he already enjoyed among the slaveholding States because of the part he played in formulating the Ostend Manifesto. T h i s manifesto, warning of the danger of European interference with the slave question in the Western Hemisphere, was drawn u p in October 1854 by Buchanan, w h o was then Minister to England, 130

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and the ministers to Spain and France. It was a result of orders from the administration in Washington to frame a resolution on what was deemed a plan of Spain to Africanize Cuba. T h e document made note of the clouds of the Civil War already gathering in the United States and sounded the first drumbeats of another—the Spanish-American War—which came forty-four years later. T h e resolution warned that we should not "permit Cuba to be Africanized, with . . . attendant horrors to the white race, and suffer the flames to extend to our neighboring shores, seriously to endanger or actually to consume the fair fabric of our Union. W e fear that the course and current of events are rapidly tending towards such a catastrophe." Recommending that an offer be made to Spain for purchase of the island, the document warned of what would happen if the offer were refused. "Self-preservation is the first law of nature, with States as with individuals. . . . Should Cuba become necessary to our safety, then by every law, human and divine, we shall be justified in wresting it from Spain if we possess the power." This expressed attitude further endeared Buchanan to the Southern slaveholders, with whom he had previously expressed strong sympathy on the slavery question. Like most Pennsylvanians, he was opposed to the practice in the abstract and considered it a moral and political evil, but, unlike the great majority, he thought it irremediable. He believed the Federal government's duty was to protect slavery just as other private property, wherever it existed, and to him abolitionists were fanatics. When Buchanan returned from England in 1856 he was hailed by many as a hero. His efforts that year to have himself nominated for the Presidency on the Democratic ticket were successful. It was his fourth attempt for the high office, attainment of which had become his consuming ambition after his fiancée inexplicably severed their engagement and then suddenly died. A t the time, Buchanan, a native of Franklin County, had lived ten years in Lancaster, where he studied and then practiced law. Although previously expelled from Dickinson College at Carlisle for engaging in every sort of extravagance and mischief, he had returned and graduated cum laude. He was admitted to the bar in

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1812, and within three years his legal ability and oratorical powers were bringing him annually more than $11,000, a substantial income for those days. His mentor and preceptor was James Hopkins, who had the longest and most lucrative practice in the history of the Lancaster bar—perhaps because he never aspired to public office. This was an example his young Scotch-Irish pupil did not follow. At twenty-two Buchanan was elected to the Pennsylvania House of Representatives; before reaching twenty-five he had defended single-handed, and won the acquittal of, Judge Walter Franklin on articles of impeachment. In 1819 the young barrister wooed and won Ann Caroline Coleman, daughter of Robert Coleman, one of the Nation's outstanding ironmasters. Buchanan planned to retire from public life after marrying. He never did either. Miss Coleman, with no explanation, but apparently under parental pressure, asked him late that summer to release her from the engagement. Her note informed him that he was neither to visit her nor attempt to see her again. There was no alternative for him—he released her. That this was not her wish was evidenced by her immediate and rapid decline in health, followed by her death in Philadelphia on December 9, at the age of twenty-four. Buchanan thereupon returned to his earlier love—statesmanship —and never again strayed. In 1820 he was elected to Congress for a two-year term and was reëlected five consecutive times. Because his law practice income had dwindled to $2,000 by 1828, he made a futile effort to retire from public life in 1832. But fate intervened in the person of President Andrew Jackson, who appointed the Lancastrian as Minister to Russia. Buchanan became friendly with the Czar, a relationship that made possible his international diplomatic triumph—the first commercial treaty between the United States and Russia. This completely banished all thoughts of retirement. After his return from Russia in 1834, Buchanan was elected United States Senator from Pennsylvania, continuing in that office ten years. He was, as one writer put it, "now high in the seats of the mighty both in Pennsylvania and in Washington. He could claim the friendship of the great Andrew Jackson; he could debate with the peerless

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Clay; Webster praised both his ability and his entertainment, while at home he was ranked as Lancaster's foremost citizen." After a decade in the Senate, Buchanan in 1844 made his first try for the Presidential nomination. He lost, but won the post of Secretary of State from his successful rival, James K. Polk. Four years later he again lost in the convention wars, this time to Lewis Cass, who was defeated in the election by the W h i g candidate, Zachary Taylor. T h e n came the break in his political fortunes which gave him a front porch to campaign from. He bought Wheatland from William Meredith, a Philadelphia lawyer who was then United States Secretary of the Treasury. In 1849 Buchanan moved into it from the bachelor establishment he had maintained in the first block of East King Street, and the mansion William Jenkins had built in 1828 on the Marietta Pike, just west of Lancaster, soon became a rendezvous for politicians, big and little. Here Buchanan built his fences for a third attempt at the Presidential nomination. But once again he lost, this time to Franklin Pierce, and the post of Secretary of State, which he thought might be his in the event of defeat, went to his rival, W i l l i a m Learned Marcy. But Buchanan, like the mythical Antaeus, gained strength each time he was knocked down. President Pierce shunted him off to England as Minister to the Court of St. James, and Marcy did his best to embarrass and discredit his able subordinate. T h e envoy's Scotch-Irish wit carried him victoriously through such trying episodes as appearing at Court without the traditional knee breeches, Marcy having decreed he was to attend functions in the "simple dress of an American citizen." His social popularity in England was enhanced by the visit of his charming niece, Miss Harriet Lane, mistress of Wheatland who was destined to be mistress of the W h i t e House. T h i s greater honor was assured when her uncle, on Marcy's orders, helped draw up the famous Ostend Manifesto. T h e r e was no stopping Buchanan in 1856. T h e Democratic Convention nominated him and he returned to his beloved Wheatland—which he had left in 1853 with "regret and a heavy h e a r t " — to conduct his campaign. T h e place became a national mecca for politicians, a center of news for headline hunters, and a rostrum for the candidate, who addressed many thousands from his porch.

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The journalists, who flocked to Lancaster over the newly opened railroad from Philadelphia, paying a fare of fourteen York shillings for the three-hour ride, left among their records some interesting descriptions of the town, the candidate, and his home. They depicted Lancaster as a respectable but dull and sleepy town of seventeen thousand people, living chiefly in little brick houses with white shutters and door casings. In these respects it was said to resemble Philadelphia, but differed from the larger city in that it was located on a high, airy upland and its nocturnal dullness was relieved by numerous small taverns. One of these taverns was the Old Grape Hotel, on North Queen Street, where the Executive Council of Pennsylvania had met in 1777. T h e center of Revolutionary activities then, it now became the focal point of Candidate Buchanan's back-room conferences. He held them in an old-fashioned cozy room behind the barroom, contending that one could always get a good dinner there. Besides the taverns, the correspondents found several other features of Lancaster sufficiently interesting to keep them awake. They listed among them an abundance of patriotism, native whiskey, roses, strawberries, and pretty girls. Also noted were large Pennsylvania horses, doubtless the Conestoga breed, stagecoaches, and queer old streets. Then, of course, there was the main attraction: Wheatland. A New York Herald man, who once hired a horse and carriage in Lancaster for a ride out to the mansion, paid twelve shillings to use the team three hours. Nevertheless the horse insisted upon confining its pace to a walk, even when going downhill. It was an intriguing adventure, said the reporter, for nobody could tell him how far he had to go or precisely in what direction. The distance was said variously to be a mile and a half, two miles, and three miles. These estimates are current among the residents to this day. The actual distance, however, is given by an old milestone opposite Wheatland as "1 M to L"—-that is, one mile to Lancaster, meaning approximately the center of the town. Reaching the "crest of a slight hill," probably at Chestnut Street and College Avenue, the newspaper man had a good view of the many church steeples and the Franklin and Marshall College

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buildings to the northwest, while before him lay a "wondrous" countryside. He passed through two wooden gates in a whitewashed fence and was on the grounds of Wheatland. Just inside the fence stood a large weeping willow tree beside a brick-walled spring. T h e tree is gone now, a low hedge has replaced the fence, and there are no gates between the stone gateposts. Still remaining is the limpid pool Buchanan loved. "If the Oriental doctrine of transmigration is true," he once remarked, "I would like to return to this spring in the form of a frog." Running past the spring is a narrow driveway to the main entrance of the mansion which faces north. Wide wooden steps and a roofed porch, with four white wooden pillars, adorn the front of the main building, a two-story brick structure with nine greenshuttered windows, topped by a sloping roof with three dormer windows. Adjoining it on the east and west are three-story, flatroofed, setback wings, each with six windows and a door in front. T h e walls are covered with ivy. On the first floor of the west wing are the kitchen and the room in which Buchanan ate his breakfast. A huge dining room, still containing the mahogany suite and a number of cream-colored, gold-striped china pieces, occupies the western half of the main building's lower floor. On the west wall is a great mantel above a closed fireplace. Beyond the eastern door of the dining room on the other side of a beautifully carpeted hall, running the length of the main building, are the music room and parlor, in which the vivacious Miss Lane presided as hostess at many a social function. T h e Chickering piano she and her friends played is still there. Next to the parlor, in the east wing, is the den of the former "Sage of Wheatland." In the spacious, pleasant study, Buchanan wrote his campaign letters and entertained politicians and newspaper men. Here, wrote the Herald correspondent, he found "the old man" (Buchanan was then sixty-six) sitting "in his high backed chair beside the open door, for it is late in J u n e 1856. He wore a loose gown made of checkered calico not at all Romanesque or picturesque in the effect. He had light slippers on his feet and a cigar in his mouth." Here the reporter saw a room containing "a few book cases filled for the most part with legal lore. A large table was in

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the middle of the room and this was covered with books mostly of that sort which burden the mails under frank, and are marked 'Public Documents.' T h e r e were also several large stuffed chairs, covered with leather." Buchanan greeted the newsman courteously after glancing at his card "with one eye, according to his usual custom." Another journalist once reported that Buchanan "had a way through life of keeping his head stiffly on one side and of keeping one eye almost permanently closed," adding that it had a surprising effect "when at rare intervals he opened both eyes and looked bolt upon you." Buchanan worked alone during his campaigns, often until late at night. Frequently Hetty Parker, the housekeeper, would find him in his den sound asleep at the desk, with head resting on his arm, candle guttering at his side, and fire burning low in the quaint coal stove under the east-wall mantel. She would waken him, and the future President would rise and walk wearily through the large hall, with its magnificent old prism chandelier overhead; then he would take a candlestick from a niche in the wall and climb the wide, easy, mahogany-railed staircase, passing the old grandfather clock at the top, on the way to his room with its high poster bed. T h e bed is still there, and the only other items of furniture in the bedroom are a chair, a rocker, and a mahogany chest of drawers on which Buchanan kept the Bible and Jay's Exercises, both of which he read daily. On the same floor, behind doors opening from a hall extending across the building, are numerous other bedrooms. From this floor three enclosed stairways lead to the chambers on the top floor under the sloping roof. In the eastern room there is only a large wooden shipping-case, with the legend, "James Buchanan, Wheatland, Lancaster," stenciled on it. Apparently it once enclosed the grand piano used by Miss Lane. T h e middle chamber now is empty. T h e western room contains a large metal tank, into which emptied the rain spouts from the various roofs. It was the source of water supply for a bathtub—one of the country's earliest—in a second-floor room adjoining Miss Lane's bedroom. Buchanan had his deep, zinc contraption, with the sharply sloping end, installed in 1848. In 1856 Buchanan deserted his beautifully lawned, tree-shaded

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estate to live in the White House. He had been elected without a popular majority but had carried nineteen of the thirty-one States, including all those legalizing slavery except Maryland, which was won by the short-lived American Party. Although the Democrats held a majority of seats in the Senate during the thirty-fit.h and thirty-sixth Congresses while Buchanan was President, they were considerably outnumbered by the Republicans alone in the House of Representatives without including the substantial representation of the American Party, an outgrowth from the disintegrating Whigs. This situation made it extremely difficult for Buchanan to secure legislation on the slavery issue that might have prevented secession in i860 and the resulting Civil War. When he returned to the peace of Wheatland in 1861, the thunder of battle was already rolling over the Nation. T h e people of Lancaster welcomed Buchanan home with an acclaim equaling that with which they had sent him to the Nation's Capital. But he was a tired man and sought no more public honors. He felt he had but a few more years to live and wanted to spend them leisurely preparing for death—perhaps to join at last the only woman he had ever loved. Although many women had come into his life, and he had delighted in their society and gossip, he seems never to have stopped loving the girl whose untimely death had deprived him of happiness and sent him into the maelstrom óf politics. For seven years the ex-President wandered over his beloved Wheatland, reading the Bible and Jay's Exercises, writing a defense of his administration, and brooding over the memory of the girl it had been denied him to see even as she lay dead. A letter he had written to her father, asking his permission, was found, returned and unopened, among his effects after he died. T h e end for Buchanan came on J u n e 1, 1868, after a siege of rheumatic fever. T h e townsfolk mournfully bore him away to Woodward Hill Cemetery, where a simple marble monument informs the passerby: "Here rest the remains of James Buchanan, Fifteenth President of the United States." Wheatland passed into the possession of Buchanan's niece. In 1884 she sold it to George B. Willson who, with the Lancaster County Historical Society, marked it with a bronze tablet in 1928.

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Willson in turn bequeathed the estate to his niece, Mary Rettew of Lancaster, who died in 1934. Four years after her death, thirty prominent citizens, three hundred volunteers, and the Junior League of Lancaster launched a drive for $80,000 to purchase the estate and maintain it as a national shrine. Today, Junior League hostesses and guides are on duty seven days a week to welcome the public to a homestead that now belongs to the Nation.

HISTORIC HIGHLIGHTS

T H E B A T T L E OF BUSHY RUN IN POINT of casualties and number of contestants involved, the Battle of Bushy R u n might be considered as hardly more than a brush skirmish between white men and Indians. B u t when that fierce hand-to-hand encounter of August 1763 is analyzed in the light of its results, it must be regarded as one of the most decisive battles ever fought on American soil. T h e conflict took place on a wooded hill within musket sound of the small military post known as Bushy R u n Station, about twenty miles from Pittsburgh, where a small detachment of British regulars and Colonials under Colonel H e n r y B o u q u e t met a vastly superior force of Indians, while convoying food and supplies to besieged Fort Pitt. T h e Indians, picked warriors of a half-dozen nations involved in Pontiac's uprising, surrounded Bouquet's force a n d threatened it with annihilation—their purpose to prevent aid f r o m reaching Fort Pitt. A f t e r a two-day battle which at its start seemed hopeless, Bouquet smashed through the savage ring and by means of an incredible flank movement hurled the enemy back in w i l d disorder. So completely were Pontiac's western allies demoralized that the Indian's hope of driving the British back into the sea was shattered forever. 141

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T h e Pontiac War, often referred to as a "conspiracy," did not involve the French. T h e sagacious Ottawa chief, who contrived to enlist the aid of all the western and Great Lakes Indians in a concerted drive against white supremacy, may have been led to expect French help when he struck his first blow at the British forts, but a definitive peace between France and Great Britain had formally ended the Seven Years' War a few months before the Pontiac War began. For Pontiac's masterly but abortive stroke many reasons have been assigned, but the underlying cause was fear. T h e great war chief realized only too well that the Indian would have to drive out the white man or suffer virtual extinction. And as the British represented the greatest immediate menace to the red man's ancestral grounds and to his traditional way of life, Pontiac concentrated his efforts against the British. Had he succeeded in expelling them, there is little doubt but that the French in turn would have had to face an Indian foe even more formidable. Long before the French and Indian War ended, the British had gained complete control of the upper Ohio Valley, gateway to the Mississippi Basin. As early as 1760 they had proceeded to rebuild and garrison all the Western posts relinquished by the French, this despite promises made to the Indians that they would not occupy Indian lands once the French had been driven out. Settlers from the East poured over the Allegheny Mountains to lay out homes and plantations. T h e Indians protested at this invasion of their hunting grounds, but their complaints fell on deaf ears. Ultimately they realized that the British had come to the Ohio country to stay. By terms of the Treaty of Paris, signed in February 1763, the French gave up all continental possessions in North America, except Louisiana, to the British. Commanding all the British armies in America at this time was Lord Jeffery Amherst, who cordially detested the Indians. Feeling that they interpreted British kindness or consideration as an evidence of weakness, he sharply curtailed the practice of handing out presents to the peaceful tribes and ordered his post commanders not to permit Indians to idle about the forts.

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This policy was directly contrary to that of his predecessors, who had given arms, food, clothing, and other presents to the Indians, as the French had done, and otherwise handled them with great tact. Unlike the formal, business-like British, the French had always fraternized on terms of equality with the Indians, living and even intermarrying among them. Naturally the Indians' distrust and hatred of the English steadily increased. Some British commanders at the frontier posts responded with renewed disdain and rudeness. On the other hand, French traders, habitants, and coureurs-de-bois continued on friendly terms with the different tribes and secretly incited them to rise against the English who, the French said, were planning to exterminate the red men and seize their lands. In addition, the Indians were emboldened by rumors that new French armies from across the seas would come to help them. Around the council fires of all the Ohio and Lake tribes, sachems, warriors, and medicine men solemnly pondered the crisis that confronted their race. They knew only too well the menace inherent in the ever advancing westward movement of land-hungry settlers. But the problem that most vexed them was the question of what measures would be most effective in combating the admitted might of English armies. Some of the older and wiser chiefs knew the plight of their race was due partly to the internecine rivalries among the tribes, which prevented any united opposition to the white men. U p near Lake Michigan the sachems of the Ottawa tribe were especially concerned over the problem. T h e i r leader was the brilliant Pontiac. About fifty years of age and of medium height, Pontiac had a bold and imperious personality which, coupled with his superior intellect and broad vision, made him a power in his own and other tribes. It was his avowed purpose to bring his race back to the primitive virtue and strength it had known before the advent of white men. Above all, Pontiac was hostile to the English, seeing in them a force more inimical than the French. With his native shrewdness he realized that a united front of all the tribes was the only effective means of checking white encroachment. W i t h unity as the

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watchword, he therefore conceived a bold plan of attack, which should drive the English back into the Atlantic Ocean. In A p r i l 1763, he summoned a conference of all tribes. Chiefs and warriors from the lower O h i o to Canada journeyed to the river Ecorces near Detroit, where Pontiac told them of his plan and made arrangements for the offensive. A l l the British posts from Detroit and Niagara down to Fort Pitt were to be attacked simultaneously, in order to prevent the English from sending assistance from one fort to the next. Each tribe was to attack the fort in its territory, and after all were destroyed, a combined offensive against the frontier settlements was to be launched. In this alliance were the A l g o n q u i n tribes of Canada, the Wyandot, Shawnee, and some tribes from the southern Mississippi Valley, as well as the western Delaware. T h e Seneca was the only tribe of the Iroquois Confederacy, or Six Nations, to participate, as Sir W i l l i a m Johnson in N e w York had exerted his influence among the other five to keep them neutral. W a r belts were carried by Pontiac's runners to all the allied tribes, setting the following month of May as the start of the offensive. Efforts were made by the Seneca to draw the whole Delaware Nation into Pontiac's alliance, but Teedyuscung, chief sachem or " k i n g " of the eastern Delaware in the Susquehanna Valley, was on bad terms with the Seneca and M o h a w k chiefs. Besides, his friendship for the English had been cemented by a gift of several hundred pounds in coin and goods, which Governor James Hamilton of Pennsylvania had presented to him at the Lancaster T r e a t y in August 1762. L i v i n g in opulence on the money granted by the Province of Pennsylvania, Teedyuscung spurned the Seneca invitation to take u p the hatchet. O n April 16, 1763, his house at W y o m i n g (now Wilkes-Barre) was set afire, and Teedyuscung was burned to death as he lay asleep on his couch. T h e crime is said to have been perpetrated by the Seneca and charged by them to the English in order to alienate the Delaware and thus swing the latter over to Pontiac's conspiracy. Preparations for Pontiac's offensive were being made with great diligence, while every ruse was employed to lull the suspicions of the English. Little by little the Indians, as was their custom, began to gather in small groups near the forts, encamping in the woods

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near by, ostensibly to trade their winter haul of furs for supplies. But actually these innocent-looking groups were bands of picked warriors waiting for the propitious day of attack. In the second week of May, Pontiac launched his war, attempting to capture Detroit by a ruse. Foiled in this, he then besieged the fort, while allied tribes simultaneously attacked and destroyed other posts. So well did the Indians carry out Pontiac's plan that by the end of J u n e every Western fort had fallen except those at Detroit, Niagara, and Pittsburgh, and these were withstanding constant assaults. Fort Pitt was placed in a critical state by the siege. Besides the garrison of 330 soldiers, several hundred settlers, including women and children, were crowded within the walls. Smallpox broke out, food and other supplies ran low, but the commander, Captain Simeon Ecuyer, continued to hold out tenaciously. T o the demand that he surrender, he defiantly replied that he would fight to the last man. He informed the Indians that a large army from the East was on its way. Nevertheless they renewed their attacks. Meanwhile desultory steps were being taken in the East to quell the Indian uprising. Reports from the frontier arrived daily in New York, urging General Amherst to take immediate action. Aroused by news of death and torture inflicted on captured royal officers, Amherst ordered Colonel Henry Bouquet, stationed at Philadelphia, to lead a punitive expedition to Fort Pitt. " I wish to hear of no prisoners," he wrote, "should any of the villains be met with in arms." Born in Rolle, Switzerland, in 1719, Bouquet was a countryman of Captain Ecuyer, and already had served more than six years with the British forces in America. Previously he had campaigned for many years in Europe under the flags of Sardinia, Holland, and Germany. Unlike the luckless Braddock, he was well versed in Indian warfare and had a better opinion of the fighting ability of the backwoodsmen and provincial soldiers. Because of the vast territory—from Canada to Florida—over which the British forces were spread, Amherst could not concentrate a large body of troops at any one point without leaving another region unguarded. He therefore could spare for Bouquet's expedition only the remains of the Forty-second and Seventy-

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seventh regiments of Highlanders, newly arrived in New York from service in the West Indies. These, totaling about five hundred men and officers, had joined Bouquet at Carlisle by July 10. As the scarcity of available regulars made them more valuable, and as Amherst did not relish losing more men than was necessary in curbing the savages, he suggested in a letter to Bouquet: "Could it not be contrived to send the Small Pox among those disaffected tribes of Indians? We must on this occasion use every stratagem in our power to reduce them." Later he wrote: "You will do well to try to inoculate the Indians by means of blankets, as well as to try every other method that can serve to extirpate this execrable race." Indeed, it is on record that two blankets and two handkerchiefs from Fort Pitt's smallpox hospital actually were presented to a Delaware delegation early in June. In the meantime the frontiers had fallen back to the Susquehanna River, though Carlisle continued to hold out in the Cumberland Valley. Gateway to the two hundred miles of wilderness stretching from the settlements to the Ohio Forks, Carlisle then comprised a few-score houses strung along both sides of the main road. When Bouquet arrived there during the last week of June, all was disorder and confusion. Men, women, and children, fleeing from Indian raiding parties in the outlying settlements, were crowding into town. T h e roads eastward swarmed with panic-stricken settlers on their way to Lancaster or Philadelphia. Many had left slain relatives and neighbors behind in their gutted backwoods homes. Bouquet's first task on reaching Carlisle was to try to augment his force by enlisting frontiersmen. Many of the Highlanders, still weak from tropic fever, could be used only to garrison the posts, and even the best would be ineffectual at Indian fighting without rangers to act as scouts and flanking parties. But he faced the same lack of cooperation from Pennsylvania that had hindered earlier campaigns, such as Braddock's eight years before. Instead of receiving help, Bouquet was obliged to aid the terrified refugees. Homeless and hungry, they had to be sheltered and fed by the military as much as by the community. There was also the problem of procuring wagons, packhorses, and provisions for the expedition.

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Cattle, flour, and other supplies were needed to replenish the stocks of the besieged forts along the line of communications. Haste became all the more imperative after news of the fall of Presque Isle, LeBoeuf, and Venango was received on July 3, together with word that the Indians were moving nearer to the eastern valleys. Five small frontier forts lay between Carlisle and Pittsburgh, of which the two most important were Fort Bedford and Fort Ligonier, both containing large stores of ammunition and arms. T h e latter post, being nearest to Fort Pitt, was already encircled by the Indians. Fearing for its safety, Bouquet sent thirty Highlanders with two officers ahead to reinforce the small garrison. Led by guides, they traveled swiftly by night, eluding the Indians until near the fort, which they entered safely after a short skirmish. Bouquet scoured the near-by counties until he had collected enough supplies and the means to transport them. But in recruiting frontiersmen he was not successful. T h e y refused to join the expedition, declaring it was necessary for them to protect their own women and children. T h a t this would be futile unless the main Indian offensive were checked was a point that seemed to escape their comprehension. "I find myself utterly abandoned by the very people I am ordered to protect," wrote Bouquet. "I have borne very patiently the ill usage of this province, having still hopes that they will do something for us; and therefore have avoided a quarrel with them." A f t e r several weeks of delay, the expedition was ready to start on the long and hazardous march westward across Pennsylvania's wilderness. Bouquet's total marching force numbered less than five hundred. It comprised, besides the Highlanders, a few Royal Americans, Rangers, packhorse men, and wagoners. As it set out from Carlisle on July 15, the little army presented a colorful picture, with the brilliant red-coat uniforms of the R o y a l Americans, the dull green of Rangers, and the tartan kilts of the bare-kneed Highlanders. But townsmen noted with misgiving that about a hundred of the Highlanders lay in wagons, too ill to march. It was hardly a proper expedition to succor Fort Pitt, which could be reached only by traveling at slow pace through the Indianinfested wilderness where Braddock's large and well-equipped army had met disaster.

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On the way through the Cumberland Valley to Shippensburg, Bouquet found the still smoldering ruins of cabin after cabin. In Shippensburg the crowding and confusion were terrible. Nearly fifteen hundred backwoods refugees were on the verge of starvation. Hundreds of them had no other shelter than barns, sheds, stables, and cellars. Here Bouquet again failed to recruit backwoodsmen as scouts for his force. They claimed the necessity of defending the community against raiders already prowling in the region. Although settlers in the vicinity of the march were daily being slain and scalped, the troops encountered no Indians all the way to Fort Bedford. Only small parties were operating so far eastward from the Allegheny ridge, avoiding any contact with the large body of troops while making swift assaults upon isolated settlements and keeping watch on the progress of the expedition. Through the Tuscarora and southern Juniata country the little army advanced slowly. Deep valleys and high mountain ridges alternated along the line of march. T h e summer heat began to penetrate the leafy forest shade, slowing the pace of troops and train alike, but Fort Bedford was reached by J u l y 25. For several weeks this post, commanded by Captain Lewis Ourry, had been constantly besieged by Indians, who fled only on the approach of Bouquet's troops. T h e place was crowded with refugees and the largest military stores between Carlisle and Pittsburgh. Much concern was evinced for the safety of Fort Pitt, from which no word had got through for several weeks. Colonel Bouquet remained for three days at Fort Bedford, resting the men, horses, and cattle. T o increase the garrison and expedite the difficult trip westward, some of the sick Highlanders were detailed to remain at the fort. Thirty frontiersmen, however, agreed to join the expedition as scouts. This was a piece of good fortune for Bouquet, who had felt keenly the lack of experienced woodsmen. That the regulars were woefully unfitted for scouting or for use as flankers is manifested by his complaint: "I cannot send a Highlander out of my sight without running the risk of losing the man, which exposes me to surprises from the skulking savages I have to deal with." On July 28 the expedition set out on the next stage of its march—

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to Fort Ligonier. Absence of word from this fort in recent days meant that it either had fallen or was being closely besieged. Caution was now more necessary than ever, as the wilderness through which the Forbes R o a d ran was alive with warriors. Frontier riflemen were put to scouting, well in advance of the column and on its flanks and rear. In the center, bet%veen the marching files of troops, moved the convoy of wagons, packhorses, and cattle. T h r o u g h the hot days of midsummer the toiling army moved steadily westward, crossing the Allegheny ridge and then w i n d i n g slowly through the hills beyond. A t last they topped Laurel H i l l and descended into Ligonier Valley, where the Indians w h o had been harassing the little fort now melted away before the advancing troops. August 2 was a happy day for Fort Ligonier. Bouquet and his men were hailed with joy by the exhausted garrison and backwoods refugees. T o them the bright tartans and red coats of their deliverers never looked more cheering. Lieutenant A r c h i b a l d Blane, commanding the fort, informed Colonel Bouquet that no news had come from Fort Pitt in weeks, as the intervening country was too infested with Indians for any messenger to get through. W h e t h e r Captain Ecuyer was still holding out was a matter of conjecture. Fifty miles of heavily forested country now separated the expedition from its goal, Fort Pitt. In order to insure a rapid advance, B o u q u e t decided to leave all the wagons and most of the cattle at Ligonier. O n 340 packhorses were loaded the munitions, the bags of flour and grain, and other supplies needed at Fort Pitt. W h e n preparations were completed, on August 4, the expedition started out on its last lap with A n d r e w Byerly among the scouts. Byerly, a Pennsylvania G e r m a n w h o had settled a tract on Bushy R u n , a now-vanished tributary of T u r t l e Creek, had fled eastward to the fort some weeks before, and knew the region thoroughly. A few miles west of Fort Ligonier, camp was made for the night, and the march was resumed early the next morning. T h r o u g h the wooded hills and hollows of what is now Westmoreland County, the column marched at a lively pace. Bouquet planned to reach by mid-afternoon the abandoned blockhouse at Bushy R u n , where the troops and horses could rest until nightfall. Under cover of

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darkness they would then creep through the dangerous defiles of T u r t l e Creek, which Bouquet thought could be crossed most safely at night. Meanwhile the Indians were planning and preparing. T h e sachems knew that if the expedition reached Fort Pitt it might mean the end of their great offensive which the intelligence and daring of Pontiac h a d conceived. They began to collect a large number of warriors for the attack against Bouquet. Hundreds of braves who had been engaged in the siege of Fort Pitt were led eastward by Kukyuskung, the Wolf, and other chiefs, to meet the oncoming English force. About eight h u n d r e d were gathered, including Ottawas, Delawares, Shawnees, Mohicans, Mingos, and Wyandots, who moved swiftly and silently through the forest to strike the supreme blow at the English. Onward through the wilderness of Westmoreland trudged Bouquet's force. T h e hot morning sun had climbed to the meridian when Andrew Byerly and the scouts reported that the deserted blockhouse at Bushy R u n was only a half-mile ahead. T h e weary, thirsty troops quickened their steps at the prospect of water and of rest in the cool shade. Many of them believed the Indians had become frightened and would avoid a pitched battle. All looked forward to reaching Fort Pitt in another day or two. A vanguard of eighteen riflemen led the rapidly moving column. Suddenly a burst of gunshots shattered the forest stillness. A few of the riflemen fell. Immediately the woods rang on all sides with war whoops. In no time the attackers were pouring a furious fire into the English from every direction while keeping cover behind trees and brush. T h e terror-stricken screams of the packhorses indicated that the Indians were attacking the convoy in the rear of the column, now completely surrounded. Dozens of soldiers were falling, but there was no panic. Coolly following the commands shouted by Bouquet and his officers, the Highlanders and Americans charged with fixed bayonets at the Indians in the woods. Driven back at one point, the warriors would rush in at another. Repeated bayonet charges were made to keep them at a distance, while a protective circle was formed around the cattle and packhorses. T i m e and time again they tried to pierce Bouquet's lines, b u t the circle held firm.

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By skillful maneuvering B o u q u e t managed to occupy a sparsely wooded hill, sloping off from the road. On the summit a barricade of flour bags was thrown up around the wounded, while the horses and cattle were bunched nearby. Around these the troops formed a ring of fire and steel, against which the Indians drove in vain. All through the afternoon the battle raged, with the soldiers suffering the more severe casualties. T h i r s t was becoming a horrible torture, as the water canteens were either empty or needed for the wounded. T h e Indians had fewer casualties, because they fought from the cover of the surrounding trees and thickets. W i t h darkness came a lull in the battle but no real rest for the exhausted soldiers, who slept on their arms. T h e pangs of thirst in the hot summer night added to the general misery. Andrew Byerly and a few daring scouts stole through the Indian lines to a spring, bringing back hatfuls of precious water for the parched soldiers. W a r whoops sounded occasionally in the dark woods. During the tense hours of the night Bouquet wrote his report to Lord Jeffery Amherst: In case of another engagement I fear insurmountable difficulties in protecting and transporting our provisions, being already so much weakened by the losses of this day in men and horses, besides the additional necessity of carrying the wounded, whose situation is truly deplorable. Wearied by a night of fitful slumber and parched with thirst, the little army on the hill sprang to arms at the first glimmering of daylight, and the surrounding woods resounded with war whoops. Soon the Indians were again pouring a terrific fire into the circle from every direction. So thick were the bullets flying near him that Colonel Bouquet, according to one account of the battle, changed his brilliant gold-braided uniform for a less conspicuous one. Sensing a weakening of their foe, the Indians became bolder in their tactics. W i t h fierce rushes they tried to break through the circle of Highlanders and Royal Americans that formed a bulwark around the piles of flour bags protecting the wounded. B u t each attempt wilted under the steady fire and bayonet thrusts of the troops. Out from the trees the Indians would dash, vainly seeking

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a foothold on the slopes of the hill, only to be repulsed by bayonet charges that made an ever widening circle from the summit. But the strain began to tell on the soldiers. Stampeding horses, deserted by their drivers, added to the growing confusion. Something had to be done quickly if defeat and massacre were to be averted. Colonel Bouquet saw that his soldiers would be more than a match for the Indians if he could entice the enemy into open ground. So he ordered two companies of light infantry, with two others in support, to fall back into the center of the circle, out of view of the main force of the savages. As these fell back, the line was thinly closed by ranks of the other companies. Withdrawal of the four companies led the Indians to believe that the English meant to retreat under cover of the thinly held outer line. They surged in a body out into the open and began dashing up the slope. Instead of quickly reaching the convoy, with its promise of scalps and rich booty, they were caught unawares by the fierce bayonet charge of the first two companies, which had stealthily maneuvered around the hill to the Indians' right flank. The surprised warriors endeavored to beat off the charge, but soon recoiled in confusion. Attempting to retreat to the cover of the woods several hundred yards behind them, they ran directly past the other two companies, which poured a deadly fire into them. With the Indians fleeing in disorder and many fallen, the four companies now pressed their advantage and pursued them into the woods. So fierce was the charge that the Indians had no time or desire to stand and reload. They were completely routed. Placing the wounded on litters, the troops moved forward to Bushy Run, where Bouquet decided to encamp and rest the men for two days before proceeding to Fort Pitt. The weary soldiers, confident that the Indians were thoroughly beaten, expected no further fighting. But they had barely started to set up the camp when some of the redskins still prowling in the vicinity for scalps fired a volley from the woods. Before the angered soldiers could reach them they had fled. Bouquet's casualties during the two days amounted to sixty killed and fifty-five wounded, but the Indians sustained as great a loss in man power and a far greater loss in that their defeat in the two-day battle completely shattered their fighting morale. The largest and

BATTLE

OF BUSHY

RUN

>53

best force of warriors ever assembled against the English had been routed. Pontiac's dream of driving the white man into the sea was over. Retreating sullenly before Bouquet's triumphant march to Fort Pitt, the vanquished chiefs and their hundreds of warriors retired beyond the Ohio. During the following year they ventured in sporadic raids against the Virginia and Pennsylvania frontiers. But in October 1764, when Bouquet marched a new army into Ohio, the Indian chiefs, such as Guyasuta, who had led the eastern wing of Pontiac's offensive, humbly offered to make peace and agreed to all the conditions imposed by Bouquet. Many years were to pass before the Indians ever again engaged in battle with a large body of soldiers, so decisive was their defeat at Bushy R u n . Bouquet's victory over the most formidable Indian uprising in American history restored the lost prestige of English military power among the Indians. He was hailed as a hero in all the Colonies and was given a vote of thanks by the provincial assemblies of Pennsylvania and Virginia. T h e one hundred and twentieth anniversary of Bouquet's victory was celebrated August 6, 1883, on the site of the Bushy R u n battlefield, and the one hundred and seventieth anniversary was observed in 1938. A granite monument now marks the site, which is conserved by the Commonwealth as the Bushy R u n Battlefield Park, comprising 132 acres near the village of Harrison City. T h e park contains an Indian museum and facilities for picnicking and general recreation. Byerly Spring, within the park, marks the site of Andrew Byerly's cabin.

PHILADELPHIA'S YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC OF 1793 THERE had been epidemics of various degrees of virulence in America before 1793, but the yellow fever epidemic of that year in Philadelphia gave rise to more controversies, had more contemporary accounts written about it, a n d had more attention focused upon it than any previous A m e r i c a n epidemic. R e n é L a Roche's "definitive" study of yellow fever, written in 1854, attributes this intense interest in the epidemic of 1793 to the fact that it was the first time trained scientists were on hand to note every aspect of the plague. Previous epidemics had taken a greater toll of life in proportion to the population, but there was a dramatic angle to the plague of 1793 that made it comparable in historical importance to the great plagues of other centuries and other countries. Here was the first city in the U n i t e d States, the new Nation's capital, a city unsurpassed for its cultural a n d economic achievements; a city, moreover, in which the Nation's first medical school was established, possessing brilliant physicians and first-ranking scientists. If Philadelphia could succumb to a devastating scourge, what American city was safe? 154

YELLOW

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l55

A t the end of the eighteenth century the responsibility of a city government for the physical welfare of its citizens had not been fully formulated. Philadelphia's shortcomings, therefore, were not outstanding. T h e r e were, of course, the usual quota of "cranks" who maintained that the filth of the gutters, streets, and wharves was a menace to the city's health. T h e r e were those who complained that the foulness of Philadelphia's drinking water was the origin of the frequent stomach disorders among the populace. T h e r e were a few voices raised against the evil odors arising from the tanneries, the starch manufactories, and the many privies in the center city, but such complaints usually went unheeded. Philadelphia, as a matter of fact, did have an active board of street commissioners who were constantly engaged in pointing out the most obvious inconveniences. Some of these, such as the flooding of the commercial sections after every heavy rain, were to a large extent corrected. But Philadelphia could not boast of an organized scavenger system, sewage disposal, street-cleaning department, or board of health. In a city of nearly fifty thousand inhabitants, the refuse, which must have been considerable, was left more or less to take care of itself. T h e spring and early summer of 1793 were fairly dry. N o portent appeared to warn the city of an impending catastrophe. Afterward it was remembered that the fruit crop had been unusually bad and that overripe peaches and melons, sold in the open stalls of Market Street in early August, had attracted swarms of insects and contributed to the "noxious effluvia of the atmosphere." In August all the normal activities of the city for that season continued unabated. T h e families who could afford it had retired to their country homes along the Schuylkill. Congress had adjourned, and Washington, as was his custom, had removed with his family to Mount Vernon. T h e rest of the working populace toiled and sweltered during the day and strolled along the banks of the Delaware in the early evening. T h e city's health in July had been normal. T h a t is, there were quite a few cases of severe scarlet fever; cholera morbus was common, particularly in the latter part of the month; and "bilious remitting fever," now called malaria, was about usual for that time

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of year, meaning that every susceptible person suffered f r o m it to some degree. Philadelphia wharves were a scene of continual bustle. Boats from Continental Europe, Britain, and the Indies arrived almost daily, discharging cargoes and passengers without any too bothersome inspection or quarantine. T h e port, it is true, had a health officer and a port physician, the latter's position a petty sinecure worth about twenty pounds a year. T h e sloop Amelia from San Domingo docked on J u l y 24 and attracted no special notice, except that she unloaded a particularly unhappy cargo of refugees, f o r the relief of whom various fundraising proposals were made. Later it was recalled that soon after her arrival influenza became quite prevalent. August was hot but no hotter than other Philadelphia Augusts. T h e expected rain never fell, however, and by the third week in August the city became aware that it was in the grip of a severe drought. Even the duck ponds scattered around the center of the city dried u p and exposed their rank bottoms to the burning August sun. T h e lovely pond at Fifth and Market streets, a scene of lively ice-skating parties in the winter, was now an offensive mudhole in which mosquitoes, including the female stegomyia, ceaselessly multiplied. T h e doctors made their rounds in August, prescribed their various treatments—purges, blisters, sweats, glysters, blood-letting— and noted nothing seriously amiss with the city's health. On the seventh day of August the child of a Dr. Hodge died of "bilious fever," her skin shortly after her death turning yellow. Mrs. T h o m a s B r a d f o r d took to her bed with symptoms of acute bilious remitting fever, but under the care of Dr. Benjamin R u s h she recovered. A young man named M c N a i r was suddenly seized with virulent symptoms of a "bilious f e v e r " and died despite purges and bleeding. Another victim, Peter Aston, also died, his skin turning yellow before death came. T h e r e were a half-dozen sporadic cases, all in the vicinity of the waterfront, of a particularly acute type of bilious fever characterized by vomiting and jaundice. On August 20 occurred a fortuitous meeting of Doctors Foulke, Hodge, and Rush at the deathbed of a

YELLOW

FEVER

EPIDEMIC

»57

Mrs. Lemaigre, who, after vomiting a dark substance resembling coffee grounds and complaining of great heat and burning in the stomach, had died in torment. The doctors were much impressed by the violence attending her end. A brief conference at the bedside disclosed that each of them had been treating, during the preceding ten days, an unusual number of cases of bilious fever attended by symptoms extraordinarily acute. Dr. Rush had been an apprentice of Dr. John Redman during the last yellow fever epidemic, thirty years before. Memories of that experience now swept into his mind. The similarity of the symptoms pointed urgently to the truth. This virulent "bilious remittent" could only be that dreaded infection, that disease whose name alone could produce heart-shaking panic—-yellow fever! Dr. Rush was not a reticent man. In fact, there were those who felt that to characterize him as opinionated, and even blockheaded, was an understatement. His integrity and his devotion to the public weal, however, had never been questioned. He hastened to make public his conclusion, and pulled a hornet's nest down upon his head. Wishful-thinking citizens denounced him as an alarmist and refused to accept so horrible a dictum. But the number of cases kept on multiplying. When the grim reality could no longer be ignored, Governor Mifflin ordered Dr. Hutchinson, port physician, to investigate the reports that a contagious disease was abroad in the city. Hutchinson appealed to Dr. Rush for advice. Rush hastened to reply: A malignant fever has lately appeared in our city originating, I believe, from some damaged coffee, which putrefied on a wharf near Arch Street. . . . T h e disease puts on all the immediate forms of a mild remittent and a typhus gravior. I have not seen a fever of so much malignity, so general, since the year 1762.

Hutchinson's report, published in the American Daily Advertiser on August 28, stated that "a malignant fever has lately made its appearance in Water Street and Kensington." This was the first official report on the epidemic, three weeks after the first victim was taken ill. Most people had already learned from the newspapers, from whispers in the market place and taverns, and above

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all from cases in their own circles, that yellow fever had struck the city. T h e older ones recounted the horrors of the last epidemic, while the others added their own fearful imaginings. But, as if awaiting the signal of official confirmation, they only now gave full rein to their panic. T h e directors of the Almshouse, which functioned as a hospital for the poor as well, had also known for a week or more that an emergency existed. They knew because of the number of indigent sick they were obliged to turn away from their doors. They knew, long before the official confirmation, because the entire burden of caring for the destitute sick had fallen on them. Matthew Clarkson, the mayor of Philadelphia, himself had acknowledged that some reason for alarm existed, for in August he had requested the College of Physicians to draw up a list of rules of conduct best calculated to avoid the infection. T h e commercial interests of the city, the wealthy, and the property owners still refused to believe that the scourge had come. Only with the greatest reluctance did they finally admit the state of affairs and for the most part, with some notable exceptions, take refuge in flight. Dr. William Currie as late as September 17, still insisted in the Federal Gazette that yellow fever was nonexistent in the city, even though a thousand persons had already died, many thousands more were sick, and other thousands had fled the city. Philadelphia assumed the aspect of a plague city. Terror became palpable to the senses. T h e air was charged with it. T h e invisible horror stalked through the hot streets, swept along narrow, stinking alleys, and exhaled its paralyzing breath under the burning summer sun. Those who had country homes or friends outside the city fled to them. As the days went by, as the number of dead and stricken mounted, this desertion of the city took on the character of a mass exodus. It is said that more than eighteen thousand persons, nearly half the population, fled from their homes during the course of the epidemic. They left in any kind of conveyance, on foot, with or without household goods or the means of keeping alive, but away, anywhere away, from the stricken city! In those first days the plight of the refugees found immediate response in the surrounding countryside. Succor for the distressed and suffering was freely given.

YELLOW

FEVER

EPIDEMIC

'59

When the available quarters near by became exhausted, they were forced to wander farther afield, and to camp out of doors. A city of tents sprang up along the Schuylkill. As terror mounted, fear closed many doors to the fugitives, and where fear was overcome by the desire for profit, exorbitant prices were demanded for refuge. It is not recorded how many of those who sought safety in flight perished from deprivation. But it would seem that though they had fled the horrors of the fever, they met almost every other kind of suffering; not least of these was the anguish of having abandoned friends and relatives, homes, and businesses. Mathew Carey in his classic account of the fever, written at the time, condones the behavior of those who fled, suggesting that flight was not without justification. As the momentum of tragedy increased, the complex machinery of city life came to a standstill. Taverns and public houses closed, businesses ceased to operate and shops shut their doors. Churches that remained open aroused the criticism of the people. Farmers brought provisions into the city only under the compulsion of its great need. T h r e e out of the four daily newspapers suspended publication. On August 27, Mayor Clarkson published the list of suggestions he had requested from the College of Physicians. These included that a sign be placed upon the door of such houses as had infected persons in them; that the custom of tolling bells on the death of a citizen be stopped; that the sick be placed in large, clean, airy rooms; that all unnecessary intercourse with infected persons be avoided, and that a large hospital be provided for the poor. T h i s last provision was immediately acted upon. At the insistence of the Almshouse directors, a special committee of citizens appointed by the Mayor took over Bush Hill, the large estate of William Hamilton at what is now Eighteenth and Buttonwood streets. T h i s was hastily converted into an emergency hospital for epidemic sufferers. Every civilized Charles Mervyn

normal concern, every natural interest, and finally every impulse seemed swallowed up by the monstrous scourge. Brockden Brown in the fictional memoirs of Arthur recounts:

Between the verge of the Schuylkill and the heart of the city, I met not

i6o

PENNSYLVANIA

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more than a dozen figures; and these were ghost-like, wrapt in cloaks, from behind which they cast upon me glances of wonder and suspicion; and as I approached, changed their course, to avoid touching me. . . .

And Dr. Rush wrote to his wife: "Many people thrust their parents into the streets, as soon as they complained of a headache." Symptoms attributed to the fever were soon known to all. They included every indisposition to which the flesh is heir, so that fatigue, a headache, or a disordered digestion was fraught with dreadful significance. Rush noted that no one was perfectly well. "One complains of giddiness . . . another of chills . . . and all have more or less quickness of pulse and redness or yellowness in the eyes." T h e symptoms might vary with the individual, it was said. According to Dr. Rush there might be a pain in the right side and loss of appetite, "flatulency, perverted taste, heat in the stomach, giddiness, or pain in the head, a dull, watery, brilliant, yellow or red eye, dim and imperfect vision, a hoarseness, or slight sore throat, low spirits or unusual vivacity . . . a disposition to sweat at nights . . . or a sudden suppression of night sweats." Either the eyes resembled two fiery balls or "the whole countenance was downcast and clouded." T h e n , as more and more cases were diagnosed, the symptoms were published with greater preciseness. Chills, a quick pulse, severe headache, acute thirst, high fever, the typical "black vomit," black because of the internal bleeding, nasal hemorrhages and bleeding gums, profound prostration, and finally general jaundice of the entire body. Sometimes the end was attended by delirium, sometimes until the last a complete clarity was maintained. In all cases the psychological suffering was as intense as the physical. Philadelphia was in the throes of a dreadful emergency. Most of the city officials had left, the State legislature had almost ceased to function, and almost all the opulent and middle classes had gone. Every day additional thousands streamed out of the city. Due to the cessation of business, prices were soaring, and the poor, as usual, were bearing the brunt of the calamity. There were too few doctors and nurses, too few attendants, carters, and gravediggers. T h e weather had continued hot and dry.

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161

Each day the sun rose over a city in which the dead of the preceding day still lay unburied. As it blazed down on streets where orphaned children wandered, it intensified the odors of pestilence that rose from the rotting bodies and from such reputed preventives as vinegar, burning gunpowder, tobacco, and camphor. Mayor Clarkson called a meeting at City Hall and requested all public-spirited citizens to attend. Comparatively few responded, but out of this town meeting on September 12 was formed a committee charged with the burden of the emergency. Philadelphia now entered the second phase of its ordeal, during which the people settled down to the routine of a pestilential city. T h e wild anguish of the first days had been succeeded by the oppressive calm of despair. Sorrow had "descended below weeping and I was much struck," Rush wrote to his wife, "in observing that many persons submitted to the loss of relations and friends without manifesting any . . . common signs of grief." T h e committee set about its work methodically. Its eighteen members divided their work into various categories: care of the poor, of the acutely sick, and of the orphans; providing gravediggers and coffins, food, and other necessities. In fact, every aspect of the emergency was taken in charge by the committee, one of whose first acts was to investigate conditions on Bush Hill. Stephen Girard and Peter Helm, to the amazed gratification of the rest, volunteered to assume responsibility for Bush Hill. Their immediate report on September 15 showed that, during the two weeks of its existence as a hospital, the state of affairs at Bush Hill had become so bad that hundreds of poor were concealing their infection, preferring to die unattended than to be transported to the hospital from which it was said no one emerged alive. So successful and indeed heroic was the work of these two men that within a few days Bush Hill was transformed from a "charnel house" into a model hospital. Under the direction of Dr. Jean Devéze, a French refugee from Cape François, the situation was soon reversed, and those afflicted now clamored for admittance. Every day the committee convened at City Hall to receive applications for relief from distress and requests for coffins and buriers. Under their direction the Loganian Library was transformed into an orphans' home. T h e services of carters and attendants directly

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PENNSYLVANIA

CAVALCADE

responsible to the committee were obtained. A sub-committee of forty-five, charged with reporting on conditions in different sections of the city, was formed. Particularly distressing was the lack of attendants on the sick. Dr. Rush, acting on a theory he had developed, that Negroes were immune to the fever, sent out pleas for members of that race to act as nurses, attendants, undertakers and carters. T h e African Society urged its members to respond, and, for the duration of the epidemic, Negroes assumed many of the m a j o r chores of caring for the city's sufferers. It is said that four out of five Negroes exposed to the disease contracted it, and almost as many died. But before their tragic ending, they had extended their indispensable services and had displayed a high order of courage, showing compassion toward sufferers whose own friends and relatives had abandoned them. News of the epidemic traveled over the nation, and all intercourse with Philadelphia ceased. Stagecoach travel was rerouted to avoid the city. From Massachusetts to Georgia, legislation was enacted curbing or forbidding all contact with it. Boston and Gloucester raised funds for relief. N e w York advanced a loan of five thousand dollars. Other towns near by contributed gifts of food and clothing. T h e dumb misery of the tragic city was not lessened by the fierce controversies engaged in by the opposing camps of physicians. Acrimonious attacks of one side against the other filled the newspapers daily. Not only were the methods of treatment of the disease, its symptoms, and its origin debated, but for a time even the fact of its existence was learnedly disputed. T h e r e were charges, countercharges, accusations, and denunciations. T h e effect of these harangues on the people's morale was profound. If the physicians themselves were torn by conflict, how was a patient in the grip of a particularly unpleasant disease, which came usually as the culmination of days of dread, to determine what course to follow? T h e story of the epidemic is to a great extent Dr. Rush's story. His own account of it, written primarily in defense of his treatment, is still considered one of the finest records of an epidemic ever compiled.

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Particularly bitter were the attacks on Rush, "the bleeder." Dr. Currie warned Philadelphians: T h e disease which Dr. Rush calls the yellow fever, and of which Dr. R. says he has cured such numbers by the new method, is only the fall fever, operating on persons who had been previously affected by influenza. It is time the veil should be withdrawn from your eyes, my fellow citizens.

Rush immediately retaliated. N o two epidemics of unequal force can coexist, he said. T h e stronger epidemic wipes out all other diseases. Yellow fever was monarch. During its reign every disease was yellow fever and every death was caused by it. Currie himself finally recanted, but Dr. Adam Kuhn remained an implacable foe to the bitter end. H e maintained that Dr. R u s h was killing more patients than the fever, and that the only treatment was bark, camomile tea, cold baths, and wine. Very early in the epidemic Rush had brought forward his mercury purge and blood-letting treatment. For the duration of the epidemic, and indeed for the duration of his life, Rush was convinced that mercury was practically a specific for the disease, and blood-letting a cure for almost every ailment. So completely convinced was he of the efficacy of his cure that he did everything pos-> sible to prevent patients from being subjected to any other treatment. Rush has been the target of such divergent judgments as "father of American medicine," and initiator of "the great vogue of vomits, purging, and especially of bleeding, salivation and blistering which blackened the record of medicine and afflicted the sick almost to the time of the Civil W a r . " Almost as heated a controversy arose concerning the causes of the epidemic, whether it was of local or imported origin, or whether or not it was contagious. Dr. R u s h maintained that the disease was attributable to conditions inherent in Philadelphia, that the filth of the streets and the stagnant water in the numerous ditches, particularly the "effluvia arising from the putrefying coffee on Ball's wharf," polluted the air and gave rise to the infection. Dr. Devéze of Bush Hill, though opposed to Rush's course of treatment, concurred with him substantially as to the fever's origin. T h e disease, he said, was caused by the "alterations in atmospheric air" caused by putrefying animal and vegetable substances, by

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"miasmata" arising f r o m d a m p a n d marshy g r o u n d s , by the presence in the center of the city of tanneries a n d starch m a n u f a c tories, and by p o l l u t i o n of the city's w a t e r f r o m n u m e r o u s midcity cemeteries. T h e r e were a p p a r e n t l y so m a n y reasons w h y the air m i g h t suffer f r o m p o l l u t i o n in P h i l a d e l p h i a at this time that a doctor, convinced of the correctness of this analysis, h a d not far to search for corroborative evidence. C o m m e r c i a l interests of the city were h i g h l y i n d i g n a n t at Rush's account of the origin of the fever. T h e y i m m e d i a t e l y circulated a contrary report that there c o u l d b e n o d o u b t of the f o r e i g n importation of the disease, a n d that R u s h ' s p o i n t of v i e w was not only unpatriotic but definitely i n i m i c a l to the c o m m e r c i a l security of the city. If w o r d got a r o u n d that the disease was a local product, they declared, the city w o u l d be s h u n n e d p e r m a n e n t l y a n d business w o u l d be ruined. For a time there w e r e even threats of e x p e l l i n g the physician. T h e C o l l e g e of Physicians

finally

p r o d u c e d a definitive w o r k —

w h i c h comforted the m e r c h a n t s — a d d u c i n g

documents and

testi-

m o n y f r o m every section of the c o u n t r y i n p r o o f that the disease was imported. A n y b o a t that h a d d o c k e d at P h i l a d e l p h i a wharves immediately preceding the o u t b r e a k m i g h t h a v e b e e n responsible for it. T h e r e was the sloop Amelia,

w h i c h h a d arrived o n J u l y 24

f r o m San D o m i n g o , w h e r e the disease h a d raged. T h e r e was the French privateer Sans Culotte

w i t h her prize ship, the Flora,

soon

after, a m o n g whose crew were sailors w h o h a d b e e n to infected ports of call. T h e r e was the D a n i s h ship Henry

on A u g u s t 16, f r o m

w h i c h the captain and two sailors d i s e m b a r k e d w i t h symptoms of yellow fever. T h e r e was, of course, the b r i g Mary f r o m C a p e François, w i t h its cargo of distressed refugees on A u g u s t 7 — t h e b o a t on w h i c h D r . Jean Devéze himself h a d arrived. A n y a n d p r o b a b l y all c o u l d have b r o u g h t the fever. A n d w h i l e the controversies raged, the fever continued a n d thousands died. P h i l i p Freneau, c o n t e m p o r a r y p o e t a n d j o u r n a l i s t , s u m m e d u p the situation: Doctors raving and disputing Death's pale army still recruiting.

YELLOW

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EPIDEMIC

By mid-October the fever reached its peak of deadliness. During the second week in October more than a hundred persons died each day. Now almost the only movement in the streets was that of hearses carrying the dead to a quick unceremonious burial. It was said that coffins, piled up outside the State House each morning for the use of the poor, were gone long before evening, and that pits were dug in Potter's Field, into which was dumped at nightfall the accumulation of the day's corpses. T h e people had been told that a heavy rain would cleanse the air, wash away the "noxious effluvia," and break the fever's hold. But the days continued bright and sunny. Rain did not come. Soon the despairing city looked and hoped for nothing save a cessation of the terrible scourge. It is recorded that time was even forgotten and most of the timepieces were incorrect; that one night the city watchman on his rounds called out ten o'clock when it was only nine, and few detected the error. " 'Tis very affecting," Elizabeth Drinker wrote in her diary on October 12, "to walk through the streets of our once flourishing and happy city; the houses shut up from one corner to another, very few seen walking about. . . . T h e weather is much changed this evening; it blows hard from N . W . and is very cold." It continued cold. T h e trees showed autumn colors. T h e mosquitoes of the hot days diminished in number. A n d the fever waned. Daily the number of new cases declined, until by the beginning of November there were only a few sporadic ones to deal with. For six weeks the functioning of the city in every department had been in the hands of the committee. It was through the committee that official announcement came of the epidemic's end. O n November 4 the indefatigable committee instructed the vanguard of returning refugees to make sure in advance that their houses were properly purified and disinfected. Slowly the shops along the central streets opened their doors. Before the middle of November the committee "addressed their fellow citizens, informing them . . . that no new cases of the malignant fever having occurred for many days . . . the absent citizens of Philadelphia might safely come to it without fear of the disorder." Soon the citizens of Philadelphia were streaming back. T h e y came

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so quickly that it was necessary for the committee to threaten that any person refusing to have his house aired and purified would be branded a public nuisance, dangerous to the general welfare. This was the last act of the committee. T h e members now settled their accounts and prepared to surrender up their trust "into the hands of a town meeting of their fellow citizens, the constituents by whom they were called into the unprecedented office they had filled." On November 14 Governor Mifflin felt called upon to publish a proclamation announcing that it had pleased Almighty God to put an end to the grievous calamity which recently afflicted the people of Philadelphia. He officially designated December 12 as a day of "general humiliation, thanksgiving and prayer . . . that the mighty power would be graciously pleased . . . to avert from all mankind the evils of war, pestilence, and famine and to bless and protect us in the enjoyment of civil and religious liberty." As an aftermath of the epidemic, certain salutary changes were brought about. One of the first acts of the spring session of the legislature was to establish a board of health and appoint health officers. T h e quarantine laws governing the port were made more stringent; there were some attempts made to clean the city streets and the wharves, and newspapers were asked not to mention the recent epidemic. Vital statistics of the time are not too reliable. During the months the epidemic raged, records show, there were 4,044 deaths, or half the number stricken with the plague. A century was to pass before the cause of yellow fever was discovered; and in that century many hundred thousands were to die of its effects before Walter Reed in Havana performed his epoch-making experiments on the function of the blood, the existence of bacteria, and the rôle of the insect carrier. Each account of a recurring epidemic, each description of its course, of the "miasmata arising from stagnant water"—and the epidemic of Philadelphia in 1793 was rich in these accounts—added to the clues that eventually led to the mosquito as the real culprit. Since 1905 there is record of only one case of yellow fever in the United States. Everything about prevention is known, but it is still admitted that once the infection sets in, no treatment can change its course.

YELLOW

FEVER

EPIDEMIC

T h e eternal miracle of the recuperative powers of the human body is nowhere more graphically demonstrated than that so many patients survived the amazing course of treatment advocated in 1793. In the end the mortality was no greater than the expected average for the disease—that half the number contracting it will die.

THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION A SULLEN wind was rising, the wind of men's discontent, and it came from Pennsylvania's southwestern counties of Westmoreland, Allegheny, Fayette, and Washington. It was 1791, and frontiersmen w h o but lately had settled to the enjoyment of peace, after helping to throw off the tyranny of Britain and an excise-placing Parliament, now f o u n d another tyranny raising its h a n d — a federal tax on their livelihood. Westmoreland men, among the first to take action against the old injustices, gathered to resist the new. Fayette men, brave in revolution against earlier iniquities, once more spoke their warning, and Allegheny County men added their voices in protest. W a s h i n g t o n men, most bitterly of all, declared that, free of odious excises, they w o u l d not now submit to others just as oppressive. If it had been right to flout the British tea tax and the Stamp Act, it was also right to fight a whiskey tax imposed by the Federal Government. By the Act of March 3, 1791, the yearly duty on whiskey would amount to sixty cents for every gallon of capacity of a private still. T h o u g h the excise was later reduced to fifty-four cents, or an option of seven cents on every gallon produced, the reduction failed to 168

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assuage the wrath of people w h o felt they were being discriminated against. T h e first murmurs of protest were heard in separate cabins or taverns or gristmills where men gathered on business. " W h y should we be made subject to a duty for drinking our grain rather then eating it?" they asked one another angrily. A tax levied upon the process of distilling rather than upon the retailer or consumer, they declared, would greatly reduce the already small margin of profit on whiskey, which was nothing more than the product of their fields converted into portable—and potable—form. Soon they were calling for united resistance to the excise, and they took steps to discourage those inclined to accept the office of exciseman. Sentiment against the tax became general, and protests increased to clamorous proportions. Even the Pennsylvania House of Representatives felt called upon to denounce the excise as "subversive of peace, liberty and the rights of the citizens," declaring that it violated "those rights which are the basis of our government." W i t h the close of the Revolution, western Pennsylvania had been left with a number of grievances. Here the Federal Constitution as first presented was bitterly disapproved; seven out of nine citizens had voted against it. Farmers of the western counties felt that the Federal Government was usurping the power of the people, destroying those liberties they had fought for, which they had set forth in the Pittsburgh Resolutions and the Resolutions of Hannastown, and which had become a part of the Declaration of Independence. T h e present attitude of Secretary of the Treasury Hamilton and his adherents would end only in consolidating a new aristocracy. N o better soldiers had served in the Revolution than those from western Pennsylvania. None had fought better or undergone greater hardship. T a x records showed that the western counties were among the first to return their full quota. Yet the western farmers felt their share in the struggle had thus far gone unrecognized and unrewarded. T h e y believed that the moneyed classes of the East, the manufacturers and the merchants, were consolidating all gains for themselves, while the West was being left to shift for itself. T h e farmers in the Monongahela Valley knew what they wanted:

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protection against the Indians; open navigation of the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to transport their hides, grain, whiskey; good roads to the eastern markets; cheap land and easy clearing of titles so that all men, and not a few speculators, could hold land; circulation of greater amounts of money. They wanted simple government, not a complex and unwieldy machine, and they wanted representation in that government. Hatred of excise was not a new thing with the people west of the Alleghenies. These Irish and Scotch-Irish farmers had inherited a traditional hatred of the exciseman, a hatred voiced by Robert Burns, the national poet of many of them: T h e Deil came fiddlin' thro' the town And danc'd awa' wi' th' Exciseman. And ilka wife cries:—"Auld Mahoun, I wish you luck o' the prize, man! We'll mak our maut, and we'll brew our drink We'll laugh, sing, and rejoice, man, And monie braw thanks to the maikle black Deil T h a t danc'd awa' wi' the Exciseman.

Whether or not the farmers knew Samuel Johnson's definition of excise, they believed in its substance: "A hateful tax levied upon commodities, and adjudged not by the common judges of property, but wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid." T h e hatred of the farmers for the whiskey excise had economic foundations. Lumber, grain, and meat were too bulky for transportation to eastern markets, at reasonable cost, over steep, stony, mountain roads, and the rivers to the South were closed. A horse could carry only four bushels of rye; but if the rye were distilled into whiskey he could carry eight gallons, which amounted in value to twenty-four bushels of the grain. Every autumn from each community a packhorse train went east with fur, skins, and whiskey, returning with drygoods, groceries, hardware, and bar iron and copper for stills. "Monongahela Rye" was already famous in the East, where it brought twice as much as it did locally. Stills, therefore, became more and more a part of the agricultural machinery of western Pennsylvania. In the Monongahela counties, known as the fourth survey, there were between twelve hundred and thirteen

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h u n d r e d stills, or twenty-five p e r cent of all stills o p e r a t i n g in the U n i t e d States at that time; h e n c e the steady resistance set u p by these counties. A h u n d r e d - g a l l o n still, h o w e v e r , was w o r t h as m u c h as a two-hundred-acre f a r m . N e i g h b o r s h e l d t h e m in c o m m o n , or as m a n y as thirty or f o r t y f a r m e r s took g r a i n to a c o m m u n i t y distillery, just as to a g r i s t m i l l . C l e a r l y , they said, this excise was an a t t e m p t of the Federalists to tax whiskey a n d stills c o n t r a r y to p o p u l a r will. It was a t y r a n n i c a l scheme of H a m i l t o n ' s to e n f o r c e u p o n the p e o p l e a strong g o v e r n ment that w o u l d m a k e itself felt u p o n every person l i v i n g u n d e r it. H a d not H a m i l t o n said he h a d " l o n g since learned to h o l d p o p u l a r o p i n i o n of n o v a l u e " ? T h i s tax was, in their minds, a device o n the part of large p r o p e r t y h o l d e r s to shift the b u r d e n of g o v e r n m e n t a l debts to the s h o u l d e r s of the c o m m o n p e o p l e . A l l farmers of the M o n o n g a h e l a

c o u n t r y at first o p p o s e d

the

excise—well-to-do, large-scale f a r m e r s a n d distillers, as well as the poorer small-scale farmers. A s excisemen came into the district to enforce the law the small f a r m e r s g r e w m o r e bitter. It was they, chiefly, w h o r e f u s e d to register their stills a n d to p a y the excise. Some of the m o r e p r o s p e r o u s distillers s u b m i t t e d , b e i n g u n w i l l i n g to risk the d i s f a v o r of g o v e r n m e n t officials. W e a l t h y f a r m e r s a n d distillers c o u l d a f f o r d to s h i p their w h i s k e y d o w n river by

flatboat

to N e w O r l e a n s or by p a c k h o r s e train to the East. A s small f a r m e r s , i n t i m i d a t e d , o r u n a b l e t h r o u g h scarcity of cash to p a y the exciseman, d i s c o n t i n u e d d i s t i l l i n g , the trade fell m o r e a n d m o r e i n t o the hands of the well-to-do. T h e s e b e g a n to w i t h d r a w their o p p o s i t i o n and to s u p p o r t the excise, especially in the P i t t s b u r g h r e g i o n . B u t the three o u t l y i n g counties, W a s h i n g t o n in p a r t i c u l a r ,

increased

their resistance. " D e m o c r a t i c Societies" s p r a n g u p to direct the m o v e m e n t ,

and

g r o u p action thus p r o t e c t e d i n d i v i d u a l , isolated o p p o s i t i o n . Excisem e n c o u l d b e w a r n e d o u t of a r e g i o n by such associations w i t h o u t blame a t t a c h i n g to i n d i v i d u a l s . A s the farmers l e a r n e d this lesson, they p o s t e d w a r n i n g s against those w h o w e a k e n e d the resistance by c o m p l y i n g w i t h the excise. T o these w a r n i n g s was signed a n a m e that c o u l d n o t be a t t a c h e d to a n y i n d i v i d u a l a n d yet represented every resisting f a r m e r a n d distiller: " T o m the T i n k e r . " T o m the p e o p l e s p e a k i n g .

was

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T o all Good Citizens: You are hereby advised that it has been resolved to take all legal methods to obstruct the operation of the iniquitous and oppressive Excise Law. You are hereby warned to have no fellowship with such as accept offices under it, and to withdraw from them every assistance of whatever sort; to withhold the comforts of life; to refuse to sell or to buy the labor of, or to employ as laborers any and all persons who accept such offices. By Order of the Committee, Tom the Tinker On J u l y 27, 1 7 9 1 , angry farmers gathered in an outdoor meeting on the banks of the Monongahela at Redstone Old Fort, now Brownsville, near the center of the disaffected area. A liberty pole was erected, from which fluttered streamers bearing the legend "Liberty and no Excise." T h e purpose of the farmers was to consolidate resistance throughout the four insurgent counties. W i l l i a m Findley, representative in Congress from Westmoreland, led a delegation from his county and advised moderation. T h e Redstone assemblage planned a meeting at Pittsburgh in September to draft resolutions of protest and to ask advice of H u g h H . Brackenridge, a lawyer, and General J o h n Neville, the local excise inspector. A l l delegates were instructed to return to their districts and spread the slogan "Liberty and no Excise." Election districts were instructed to sound out local public opinion and send delegates to their county seats, in August, to choose delegates to the Pittsburgh meeting. A t Washington, Pa., August 23, delegates met and adopted resolutions branding excise officers as public enemies. All citizens were asked to treat such officers with contempt, to refuse all communications or intercourse with them, and "to withhold from them all aid, support, or comfort." T h e n , during the first week of September, eleven delegates from all four counties met at the Green T r e e T a v e r n in Pittsburgh. T h e y drafted resolutions declaring the excise subversive to liberty, discouraging to agriculture and manufacture, and declared that "our remonstrances shall roll like a tempest to the head of the government." T h e y concluded with: A N D W H E R E A S some men may be found amongst us, so far lost to every sense of virtue and feeling for the distresses of this country, as to accept offices for the collection of the duty:

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Resolved, Therefore, That in future we will consider such persons as unworthy of our friendship; have no intercourse or dealings with them, withdraw from them every assistance, and withhold all the comforts of life which depend upon those duties that as men and fellow citizens we owe to each other; and upon all occasions treat them with that contempt they deserve; and that it be, and it is hereby most earnestly recommended to the people at large to follow the same line of conduct towards them.

Month followed month, with the issue sharpening. Moderate opposers took action to curb these stormy protests, but the zealòus elements became more obstinate and determined. Some excise collectors were run out of the district, while others received more severe treatment. Robert Johnson, collector for Washington and Allegheny counties, was caught near Pigeon Creek in Washington County by sixteen men disguised in women's clothing; they cut off his hair and tarred and feathered him. Joseph Fox, deputy marshal, was so fearful of similar treatment that he served his processes through an unwitting cattle drover named J o h n Connor. Connor was caught, whipped, given the usual coat of tar and feathers, had his horse and money taken from him, and was left tied to a tree where he remained for hours. Robert Wilson, an unemployed schoolmaster who made the mistake of inquiring too pointedly about farmers' stills, was dragged from bed one night and hurried five miles to a blacksmith shop, where he was stripped and given a coat of tar and feathers. When William Faulkner of Washington, a captain in General Anthony Wayne's army, offered the use of his tavern as a revenue office, he was called a public enemy and threatened by the Democratic Society of five hundred members. Faulkner promised to withdraw permission for the use of his hotel, but he was too slow in carrying out the promise. A band of thirty farmers from the Mingo Creek settlements rode into Washington, their faces blackened, searched his place, and tore down the excise notice. T h e tavern displayed a sign of the President's head, which the raiders riddled with bullets because it was a likeness of the man who had signed the excise bill. When the clamor in western Pennsylvania reached President Washington, he issued a proclamation against "unlawful combinations . . . tending to obstruct the operation of the laws." He acted

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in g o o d f a i t h , but m a n y of the f a r m e r s resented his p r o c l a m a t i o n . M e a n w h i l e w o r d sped a r o u n d that Secretary H a m i l t o n i n t e n d e d to send an a r m y into the M o n o n g a h e l a c o u n t r y a n d to deputize citizens to assist civil officers in e n f o r c i n g the l a w . G e n e r a l W a y n e , stationed at P i t t s b u r g h , r e f u s e d to s u p p o r t the p l a n , d e c l a r i n g that " t h e a r m y was raised to p r o t e c t the p e o p l e a n d not to oppress them." H a m i l t o n , n o w realizing that a n e f f o r t s h o u l d be m a d e to p a c i f y the western counties, a p p o i n t e d G e n e r a l N e v i l l e as excise collector. T h e belief was strong a m o n g the p e o p l e , h o w e v e r , that N e v i l l e w o u l d refuse, h a v i n g himself b e e n o n e of the earliest objectors. B u t he accepted! O p e n , v i o l e n t a n g e r r a n f r o m county to county like wildfire. Peter's C r e e k , M i n g o , M o r t i m e r ' s R u n — d i s t r i c t s a n d settlements e v e r y w h e r e — r o s e in a n g e r . B u t G e n e r a l N e v i l l e , w h o e a r l i e r h a d d e n o u n c e d a collector as a "rascal," calmly went on w i t h his n e w duties. W h e n U n i t e d States M a r s h a l D a v i d L e n o x came w i t h the general to W i l l i a m Miller's f a r m in the Peter's C r e e k V a l l e y to serve the last of fifty writs, a g r o u p of harvesters d r o v e off the two at the points of their guns. It looked n o w as if n o t h i n g w o u l d stop the " W h i s k e y B o y s , " as they were termed. O n J u l y 1 5 , 1794, a muster was h e l d at M i n g o church. As the m e e t i n g was b r e a k i n g up, w o r d a r r i v e d of the M i l l e r ' s f a r m incident, f o l l o w e d by w o r d that " t h e F e d e r a l Sheriff w a s taking away p e o p l e to P h i l a d e l p h i a . " A n g e r d e v e l o p e d i n t o e x p l o s i v e rage. L e d by J o h n H o l c r o f t , a b a n d of fifty m e n set o u t o n an all-night m a r c h to B o w e r H i l l , home of G e n e r a l N e v i l l e , to seize L e n o x a n d d e m a n d the surrender of Neville's commission. A second p a r t y was dispatched to C o a l H i l l ( M o u n t W a s h i n g t o n ) to h e a d off L e n o x if he m a n a g e d to escape f r o m B o w e r H i l l . N e v i l l e was just getting u p w h e n H o l c r o f t a n d his party a r r i v e d , at d a y b r e a k . H e challenged the p a r t y a n d was told by H o l c r o f t they w e r e f r i e n d s come w i t h a g u a r d f o r h i m . T h e suspicious N e v i l l e o r d e r e d them to stand off, a n d w h e n his c o m m a n d was not o b e y e d i m m e d i a t e l y , he fired a shot that k i l l e d o n e of H o l c r o f t ' s m e n . Shots w e r e n o w e x c h a n g e d by both sides, a n d several of H o l c r o f t ' s m e n soon were w o u n d e d , b u t the besiegers stood their g r o u n d , concealed b e h i n d trees.

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l

75

Excitement spread that day all through the valley. Insurgent forces assembled at Couch's Fort, the old Indian blockhouse on the Brownsville Road. From Allegheny and Washington counties, five hundred men gathered and elected a committee that commanded Major James McFarlane to go to the aid of Holcroft. Late in the day McFarlane and his men arrived at General Neville's. A file of eleven United States Army regulars from the Pittsburgh garrison, with Major Abraham Kirkpatrick in command, had arrived previously to protect Neville and his property. McFarlane posted pickets around the house and advanced his men under cover of the woods. Once more they demanded the surrender of General Neville's commission. The general was not at home, Major Kirkpatrick told them. They demanded that a committee be allowed to search the house. T h e demand was refused. "Then we fire!" shouted the insurgents. "Women and children will be allowed safe conduct." Mrs. Neville, her granddaughter, and a woman visitor were taken to Colonel Presley Neville's home, a mile away. T h e guns of the insurgents flashed and cracked. From the windows came an answering volley. Major McFarlane fell dead from a bullet wound. This further enraged the insurgents, who resolved to avenge his death. Torches were set to the barns and the Negro quarters. As the flames spread to the house, Kirkpatrick and his men surrendered. General Neville and Lenox fled southward on the Ohio River. It was open insurgence now, and meeting after meeting was called. At the log Presbyterian church on the slope above Mingo Creek six hundred men met on July 23, with David Bradford as leader. But Presley Neville had induced Brackenridge and a Pittsburgh delegation to attend the meeting as moderators. When Bradford called for open resistance, Brackenridge argued that such a policy constituted high treason, and that it would give President Washington the power to call out the militia. He declared that as Pennsylvania and Maryland militia were certain not to respond, troops would be sent from the East; and as such a move would cause delay and expense, Washington would prefer to grant amnesty to all who submitted peaceably. Besides, Brackenridge said, this Mingo meeting was not representative of the western counties. Brackenridge

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succeeded in his purpose—to delay action—and a meeting was called for at Parkinson's Ferry on August 15. Bradford and the insurgents soon began to believe they were being betrayed by the men at Pittsburgh. It was said that the Nevilles, Brackenridge, James Brison the Prothonotary, and General John Gibson were betraying the westerners by sending news to Philadelphia. T o determine the truth, an attempt was made to stop the post from Washington to Pittsburgh. T h e attempt failed, but two men detailed to stop the carrier between Pittsburgh and the East succeeded in taking the mail sacks near Greensburg. Letters were found from prominent men of Pittsburgh to government officials: one from Presley Neville to his father-in-law, General Daniel Morgan; one from General Gibson to Governor Mifflin; one from Brison to the Governor; one from Major Thomas Butler to Secretary of War Knox; and one from Edward Day to Alexander Hamilton. T h e committee of insurgents, after reading the letters, determined to organize a march on Pittsburgh, arrest the principals, imprison them in the Washington jail, and arm themselves from the magazine at Fort Fayette. Through the district a call went for a gathering of the militia at Braddock's Field on the last of July. T h e farmer-soldiers came that day from the north, south, east, and west, on horseback and on foot, grim and determined. There were detachments and delegations from Greensburg and Brush Creek, from Rehoboth and Upper Buffalo, from Canonsburg and Washington, from Mingo and Cross Creek. Some of the men brought greatcoats to sleep under; others came with blankets over their shoulders; some were barefooted. Old and young, they carried rifles, muskets, old fowling pieces, and even sticks. As each new delegation arrived on the field it was greeted with cheers. Caps were thrown into the air and guns fired. A committee was sent to Pittsburgh to demand the exile of Kirkpatrick, Presley Neville, Gibson, Brison, Day, and Butler, and to ask that anti-excise sympathizers be permitted to join the main body at Braddock's Field. In return, the insurgents promised that the town and Fort Fayette would not be harmed, as they wanted only to demonstrate their strength, and this in orderly fashion. At last news spread that the Pittsburgh men were arriving, after having halted a mile from camp to collect all their forces. Presently

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the first of them, a committee of twenty-one unarmed men, appeared on the field, followed by the main contingent, which was armed! They moved across the field, and those already gathered there cheered loudly as they opened up a passageway through which the newcomers marched. T h e town dwellers had joined the farmers! Pittsburgh had sent comrades in arms! By evening each company had chosen a man to serve on a committee that was to meet the next morning. T h e insurgent forces bivouacked in the field that night. Next morning the Pittsburgh committee was instructed to ride ahead and acquaint the people that the insurgents were moving on the town, but peaceably. All stores and taverns were to be shut, but refreshments should be brought to the marchers on the bank of the Monongahela, where all available craft were to be collected to ferry the army across, after its march through town. Across the river on the hilltops, hundreds of women had gathered to watch the invasion. As the columns swung into Pittsburgh, cheers of the women carried down to the townspeople. In answer, the men waved their caps and hats on the tips of their rifles, shouting: "Down with the excise! Hurrah for Tom the Tinker!" At the Monongahela the ranks broke. T h e men dispersed for food, ravenous after their nine-mile march. They made their way to the ferries, and by evening the town was almost cleared of insurgents. Only a hundred or so lingered. Pittsburgh was safe, unmolested by the armed force, which had passed through the town in good order. But the insurgents had shown their strength. They had marched past the fort. Not a door or window in the town had been damaged. T h e townspeople settled back into their evening occupations. But over the river a light grew, grew and flared against the night. It was Major Kirkpatrick's barn burning. With the passage of the army through Pittsburgh, the rebellious ardor of the insurgents cooled. Some said that they had been betrayed, cajoled from their object. Others said that the revolt had been by office-seekers who deflected the insurgent strength of the farmers. Many of the men themselves said that they had been

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tricked into submission. A t any rate, the homespun army had disbanded. A week or two later, at Parkinson's Ferry, one more attempt was made to continue the revolt. T h e men still felt that their strength lay in unity of effort. Here on the brow of a hill above the Monongahela, at the mouth of Pigeon Creek, 226 delegates gathered, surrounded closely by hundreds of onlookers. Besides the usual four counties, Bedford C o u n t y sent delegates, as did O h i o County in Virginia. Colonel Edward Cook was chairman and Albert Gallatin secretary. It was at Parkinson's Ferry that the insurgent movement reached the crisis of proposing secession—the organizing of a new state consisting of the four Pennsylvania counties and two from Virginia! A liberty pole was erected from which fluttered a six-striped flag for the proposed state, each stripe representing a county. B e n j a m i n Parkinson nailed to the pole a board on which was painted: "Equal taxation and no excise. N o asylum for traitors and cowards." David Bradford submitted a plan for raising war supplies and appointing a committee of safety. T h e Washington C o u n t y militia had seventy-one barrels of powder and five hundred stands of arms. T h e r e were guns at Fort Fayette, and a fine detachment of cavalry could be organized. T h e O h i o and Kentucky regions were with the insurgents. Even the East was sympathetic, and troops sent in from eastern counties could not be relied on to take arms against their fellow citizens. T h e Democratic Society had control of the militia, which elected its own officers. But the eternal deflector, Brackenridge, was again at work. W i t h Gallatin, a sincere man, he had all resolutions referred to a committee. A n d when news arrived that Washington had ordered the army to march against the West and that commissioners were at hand to meet with the committee, to take the direction from popular will, all further plans, including the plan for arming, were referred to a drafting committee. N o w the revolt resolved itself into dickering with committees. T h r e e federal commissioners were appointed. T h e governor of the State appointed two. B u t n o rebellious farmers sat on the committees. Sympathetic demonstrations in distant parts of the state were held to express unity w i t h the western farmers. Chambersburg, Car-

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lisle, Harrisburg, and Northumberland voted their support of the West. But the western will was dying, and Hamilton now felt the time opportune for striking the last blow. An army of fifteen thousand infantry, cavalry, and artillery was ordered into the Monongahela country under command of General Henry Lee of Virginia. One wing of eastern Pennsylvania troops under Governor Mifflin and New Jersey troops under Governor Howell took the Pennsylvania Road and the Glade Road. Maryland and Virginia troops took the Braddock Road. President Washington accompanied the right wing as far as Carlisle. Secretary Hamilton and the Nevilles, father and son, traveled with the left wing. Judge Peters and District Attorney Rawle of the federal court also accompanied the army to conduct judiciary proceedings. So strong was hostility to the whole scheme of armed suppression that demonstrations broke out in eastern and central Pennsylvania and Maryland. When Washington arrived at Carlisle on October 4, 1794, to review the troops, he was greeted by salutes and the ringing of bells, but the crowds lining the street remained silent. Several days later, when Findley and Redick arrived at Carlisle as commissioners from the Parkinson's Ferry meeting, townspeople warned them they were in danger of assault from the soldiers. T h e two tried to convince Washington and Hamilton that order was restored in the Monongahela country and that troops were unnecessary. But the President and his Secretary answered that evidence of submission was not conclusive; the army must proceed. T h e right and the left wings of the army moved, then, to converge on the Youghiogheny near Budd's Ferry, upstream from West Newton. Ankle-deep mud, rocks overhanging dangerous mountain roads; lame, sick, and foundering horses; supperless, rainy nights in mud beds with no blankets; bad beef, no bread, weak whiskey; often rations apportioned too late to cook them before the order to march was given—these, and a persistent doubt as to the Tightness of their course, made danger of mutiny an ever present problem among the soldiers, so that when two men were punished for disobedience and mutiny, it was thought advisable to have a "loyal" brigade drawn up while sentence was executed. T h e New Jersey men, in particular, resented a note by T o m the T i n k e r in the Pittsburgh Gazette,

ι8ο

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which taunted them as a "watermelon army fit only for war with crabs and oysters." Of the thirteen thousand troops, the majority were on the return march home in less than three weeks. Camps had been set up at West Newton, Elizabeth, at the mouth of Mingo Creek, at Washington, and about five miles from Pittsburgh. Only fifteen hundred of the troops remained through the winter, under General Morgan. A detachment of Philadelphia cavalry escorted General Gibson into Pittsburgh; several squadrons of horse, with colors flying and bugles sounding, forded the Monongahela and accompanied General Morgan and Presley Neville to Fort Fayette. Hamilton, Judge Peters, and Attorney Rawle, assisted by General Neville and John Woods, the town surveyor, began a series of investigations, gathered witnesses, and heard testimony. Governor Henry Lee (he was Virginia's Chief Executive as well as one of its outstanding soldiers) came on from Laurel Hill and issued a proclamation to the people of the Monongahela country, directing all to take a new oath of allegiance before the magistrate. By the second week of November a concerted movement had been planned to round up quickly suspects and witnesses in all sections. In Pittsburgh, men were dragged from their beds at two in the morning and not given time even to put on their shoes. They were lined up in front of a troop of horse and conducted at a run over mud roads seven miles out of Pittsburgh, and back again several miles. Then they were herded into a pen to stand in snow and rain, jeered at by their guards; and when they drew up to the guards' bonfire, they were driven from it by bayonets. At Mingo Creek, General White and a detachment of cavalry dragged forty suspects from their beds, took them to the cellar of Benjamin Parkinson's newly built Buck Tavern, and tied them together in twos, back to back. Here, too, the prisoners were thrust away from the fire built for the guards. One man pleaded for permission to go to his dying child, and was refused. T h e child died, and only after great difficulty was he permitted to attend the funeral. In the dismal, biting days of November the prisoners under guard of Ensign McCleary and forty soldiers from the garrison at Fort

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Fayette set out for Philadelphia. A t Greensburg, General "Blackbeard" W h i t e and a troop of New Jersey cavalry took them in charge. T h e prisoners marched on foot, each one between two troopers with drawn swords. W h i t e warned them that anyone who attempted escape would have his head cut off and sent to Philadelphia. O n Christmas day, after a month's march through mud and snow, they entered Philadelphia. A t the ferry the bedraggled, unshaven men were compelled to stick in their hats a band of paper bearing the word "insurgent." Between cavalrymen in finest blue broadcloth uniforms, on bay horses with silver stirrups, drawn swords glittering in the Christmas sun, they were marched by a circuitous route through the streets lined with townspeople. A l l winter they were kept in jail. Bills of treason were found against them in May, but all except two were acquitted. O f these two, one was declared insane, and the other was admitted to be a simpleton. W i t h their eventual pardon by President Washington, the Whiskey Rebellion was officially ended. Although the revenue act remained on the statute books until repealed in 1802 by the Jefferson administration, it had undergone several modifications from the time of its inception in 1791 to the summer of 1794—each modification deliberately designed to lessen its severity. T h e farmer-distiller of western Pennsylvania, however, had held out for repeal, refusing to be mollified by compromises which did not eliminate the basic causes of the revolt. T h e n the very forces that had been sent to put down the insurrection became a factor more economic, in its broader aspects, than punitive, for the large army of occupation stimulated local trade and brought more money into the region than had ever been seen there before. A n d finally, General Wayne's conquest of the Indians at Fallen Timbers, August 20, 1794, was soon to have far-reaching effects. Wayne's victory and subsequent treaties were to open the Ohio and Mississippi rivers to western farmers, enabling them at last to transport their produce cheaply to southern markets. It was inevitable that the packhorse and whiskey keg should disappear from the mountain roads as keelboats and their bulky cargoes increased in number upon the western rivers.

THE HOT WATER REBELLION T H E H o t W a t e r R e b e l l i o n , a l i t t l e - k n o w n c h a p t e r in early

Penn-

sylvania history, had its b e g i n n i n g a n d its locale in the counties of Bucks, M o n t g o m e r y , a n d N o r t h a m p t o n , an area w h i c h

included

present L e h i g h C o u n t y . Because of v a r i o u s events a n d p a r t i c i p a n t s in separated localities, the insurrection was r e f e r r e d to by d i f f e r e n t names. It was termed the H o t W a t e r R e b e l l i o n in the N o r t h a m p t o n C o u n t y districts because the assessors, in a t t e m p t i n g to levy a tax, had s t e a m i n g hot water p o u r e d o n t h e m f r o m upper-story w i n d o w s . In M o n t g o m e r y C o u n t y it was k n o w n as the M i l f o r d R e b e l l i o n o n account of its origin in M i l f o r d T o w n s h i p , a n d the Fries R e b e l l i o n because J o h n Fries o r g a n i z e d the revolt against the tax. T h e t h r e e names all relate to a c h a i n of events that l u c k i l y h a d a bloodless dénouement. D u r i n g J o h n A d a m s ' a d m i n i s t r a t i o n , C o n g r e s s was f e a r f u l of a w a r w i t h France, and t h e r e f o r e e n d e a v o r e d to raise f u n d s f o r a defense army that Secretary of W a r M c H e n r y was raising. It passed, in 1798, an act p r o v i d i n g " f o r v a l u a t i o n of lands a n d

dwelling

houses a n d the e n u m e r a t i o n of slaves w i t h i n the U n i t e d States." A s Pennsylvania had f e w slaves, the b u l k of the tax fell o n land a n d 182

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dwellings, and because of misunderstandings, became known as a house tax. T h e State's share of this tax was $237,177.32, the rate being two-fifths of one per cent on houses occupying not more than two acres of land valued from $100 to $500. In the case of more pretentious houses, the rate increased gradually until it reached one per cent. T h u s the tax, an equitable one, was borne in proportion by rich and poor alike. T o determine the amount of tax to be paid, the Federal Government appointed district assessors who were to set a value on houses by counting and measuring the windows, and then fixing the tax rate by the number and size of the panes. T h e assessors had little trouble in sections of the State where the population was of English descent and, understanding the law, voiced no objections to it other than to term it "obnoxious." However, in the eastern sections, where the Germans, or "Pennsylvania Dutch," resided, things took a different turn. Here the people understood but little English, and this difficulty, coupled with a misinterpretation of the law and the appointment of assessors and collectors who were locally disliked, soon caused trouble. Many of these Germans had fled from their homeland in Europe to escape pernicious taxation, such as the hearth tax, and this new "house tax" in their adopted country raised the specter of persecution. Among the first to advocate nonpayment of the tax was J o h n Fries, of Milford Township. Fries, an auctioneer, had fought in the Continental Army during the Revolution, and had also served with the troops that had put down the Whiskey Rebellion in the western part of Pennsylvania. These actions proved his patriotism and his high regard for law and order, but, through a lack of understanding of the tax, he became ringleader of the revolt. Fries's honesty of purpose was never questioned by the people throughout the countryside, to whom he expounded his opinions concerning the house tax. He denounced it in taverns, stores, and public meetings, asking everyone to resist it. With the coming of the assessors into his own locality, he became more violent, threatening to shoot the local appointee, a Mr. Foulke, if he persisted in continuing to levy the tax. At a meeting in Millerstown, present-day Macungie in Lehigh County, Fries advocated the pouring of hot water on the assessors.

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Later, when the assessors came to the house of Jacob Miller to count and measure the windowpanes, the altercation between them and Miller became so loud that it aroused his wife, who that day had given birth to a child. Angered at the commotion, she got out of bed, went downstairs to the kitchen, and filled a pail with hot water. T h e n she laboriously climbed the stairs and tossed the scalding liquid from an upper window on to the assessors below. Housewives in other localities, hearing of the incident, followed Mrs. Miller's example. Many of the assessors, discouraged and discomfited as a result, discontinued further assessing and collecting. Rallying behind Fries, other men urged resistance to the measure. One of the most vitriolic was Jacob Eyerman, a German preacher, who declared that Congress made such laws only to rob the people, and that congressmen were nothing but a parcel of rogues or spitz bube, meaning highwaymen or thieves. After the insurrection had been suppressed he fled to New York, but later returned and was sentenced in Nazareth to one year in jail and a fine of $50. T h e first public meeting against the tax was held at the tavern of J o h n Kline or Klein, near Quakertown. Here Seth Chapman, the administrator for Bucks County, attempted to placate the citizenry, explaining that the tax amounted to only a few cents in most cases. He offered to read the law to them, as many did not believe it was a law. But they jeered at him and accused the assessors of pocketing the money. When he finally offered to let them appoint their own assessors, he was told: " W e don't want any of your laws, we have laws of our own. T h i s is our law (holding their muskets aloft) and we will let you know it." Fries, at this meeting, warned the officers not to start work, vowing to raise seven hundred men to resist them. T h e assessors nevertheless started their rounds, and Fries, with a band of a halfhundred men, chased them from township to township. When caught they were pulled from their horses and their credentials taken from them. Some of the assessors in that territory, fearing bodily injury, resigned; others stopped making their rounds. In order to assist the tax officers in their work, the United States marshal, a Mr. Nichols, was appealed to. He arrested the worst offenders in the Lehigh section of Northampton County. T h e pris-

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oners were taken to Bethlehem for safekeeping and quartered in the Sun T a v e r n , prior to their going to Philadelphia for trial. W h e n news of this reached their friends, feeling ran high; groups of men were organized to march on Bethlehem and effect a rescue. W o r d was also sent to Fries, who mustered a company and started for that town, with the same thought in mind. People by the hundred gathered along the roadside to watch this motley "army" doggedly following its l e a d e r — a man small in stature, sitting astride a limping horse and w a v i n g a large pistol. Some of Fries's men were armed with muskets and clothed in remnants of old uniforms; others, with knives and sidearms, had tricolored cocked hats perched at a jaunty angle on their heads; still others carried clubs and were in working clothes. M a n y of the onlookers joined the throng to view, at firsthand, the rescue to be undertaken in the staid old Moravian town of Bethlehem. T h e y met the Northampton County contingent on the south bank of the Lehigh River, where their combined force numbered one hundred and forty. W h i l e engaged in f o r m u l a t i n g a plan of action, they were met by several deputies sent out by the marshal at Bethlehem. T h e deputies pleaded with Fries to turn back before it was too late. T h e y tried to convince him that he and his followers were committing a treasonable act against their G o v e r n m e n t . However, the men were imbued with a spirit of righteousness; and, urged forward by their leader, w h o walked at their head now that his horse had gone altogether lame, they brushed the deputies aside and continued into town. Surrounding the Sun Tavern, they demanded the surrender of the prisoners, who were under lock and key on the second floor. W h e n the guards refused to give up the prisoners, it was decided to rush the building. Fries exhorted his men not to shoot unless they were fired upon, and, believing that he w o u l d be the first to fall, cautioned them to use their own discretion if that should happen. T w o attempts were made to rush the stairs, and then the marshal, realizing that continued resistance w o u l d provoke bloodshed, surrendered the prisoners. W i t h cheers of victory, Fries's men hurried from town, taking the rescued prisoners with them. T h e Federal Government, informed of this incident and of the other insurrectionary actions, requested G o v e r n o r Mifflin to issue

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a proclamation calling for law and order a n d to enforce it by sending troops to suppress the rebellion. T h e proclamation was issued on March 14, 1799, but seven days later, before State action was taken, the Secretary of W a r sent a troop of Federal cavalry under General MacPherson to arrest the ringleaders and members of the mob who had marched on Bethlehem. T h e s e troops, however, acted in a high-handed manner; many innocent citizens on the line of march were routed from their beds, some in the dead of night, and arrested. A t Millerstown, where the trouble started, some of the participants in the insurrection were arrested. A company sent from Lancaster to hunt them up was encamped for a time in a grove a d j o i n i n g the village. T h e guilty ones were arrested, tried, and fined heavily. A f t e r the Bethlehem escapade, Fries returned home to resume work as auctioneer. H a v i n g had time to meditate over his actions, he rued his hastiness and expressed a hope that the matter could be settled amicably. In A p r i l 1799, while on his way to a sale near Quakertown, accompanied by his dog Whiskey, he was informed that troops were searching for him. Disregarding the warning, he opened the sale, but, w h e n told that soldiers were coming down the road, jumped from the barrel upon which he was standing and fled to a near-by swamp, where he hid. T h e soldiers, unsuccessful in their search, finally noticed Fries's dog scenting around the swamp. T h e faithful animal soon came upon his master's trail and unwittingly led the soldiers to the auctioneer's h i d i n g place. Fries and the others arrested were taken to Philadelphia for trial, and the troops continued their march into Northampton County, through Allentown and Millerstown to Reading. In Reading, Jacob Schneider, editor of the Reading Adler, was taken forcibly from his home for an unknown reason and ordered publicly flogged. Before the lashing was completed, cooler heads prevailed, and he was released. Previously several others had been jailed in Philadelphia with Ringleader Fries but were transferred to Norristown at the outbreak of a yellow fever epidemic in Philadelphia. Here David Schaeffer and Michael Schmoyer of Millerstown were confined, and it is recorded that both died in prison. A t the trial in Philadelphia, Fries admitted his guilt, but his attorneys, Alex J. Dallas and Messrs. E w i n g and Lewis, argued that the charge should be that of riot and not treason. T h e United States

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District Attorneys, William Rawle and Samuel Sitgreaves, the latter a resident of Easton, maintained that the charge was treason as defined in the Constitution. Fries was convicted, but the verdict was overruled by the judges when it was found that a juryman during the trial had expressed the opinion that the defendant should be hanged. A second trial was held. After much argument the defense lawyers withdrew, and the trial continued without counsel for Fries, who was convicted once again and sentenced to be hanged. However, so much opposition to the verdict was raised, especially by newspapers throughout the State, that the affair became a political issue. Pressure for executive clemency was brought to bear upon President Adams, around whose administration storm clouds were gathering as a result of strained relations with France and the troubled domestic situation. There was also an election in the offing. On May 24, 1799, much to the displeasure of some of his Cabinet, Adams pardoned Fries as well as all others implicated in the Hot Water Rebellion.

THE CHRISTIANA RIOT THE attitude of Pennsylvanians toward slavery was generally one of open hostility. In fact, the first American protest, in documentary form, emanated from the peace and quiet of old Germantown in 1686, when a group of Mennonites, troubled at the growing traffic in human souls, drew up a caustic memorial for presentation to the Quakers, some of whom at that time owned slaves. T h e document, believed to have been penned by Francis Daniel Pastorius, founder of Germantown, was signed by himself, two O p de Graeff brothers, and Garret Henderich. T h e y were perturbed about the bad reputation America was getting abroad as a result of the slave traffic, causing "our good friends and acquaintances in our native country" to hesitate about emigrating. T h e memorial declared: T h e r e is a saying that we should d o to all men like as we will be d o n e ourselves; m a k i n g n o difference of what generation, descent, or colour they are. A n d those who steal or rob men, a n d those w h o buy or purchase them, are they not all alike? Here is liberty of conscience; here ought to be likewise liberty of the body. But to bring men hither, or to rob and sell them against their will, we stand against. A n d we w h o profess that it is not 188

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lawful to steal, must, likewise, avoid to purchase such things as are stolen, but rather help to stop this robbing and stealing.

T h e Quakers were nonplussed by such blunt questions as: "Have these Negers not as much right to fight for their freedom as you have to keep them Slaves? And who shall maintain this your cause, or plead for it?" When submitted to the Monthly Meeting at Dublin Township, the memorial was found so "weighty" that it was referred to the Quarterly Meeting in Philadelphia, and thence to the Yearly Meeting at Burlington, where it was quietly and discreetly shelved, but not forgotten. T h e Quakers, perhaps partly as a result of this sharp reproof from the Mennonites, were later to lead the movement for the abolition of slavery in Pennsylvania. Here, in the State which never legally recognized slavery, but on the contrary was first to pass a law (1780) for its abolition, occurred the Christiana Riot, the first armed skirmish growing out of the slave problem. This affair presaged the tremendous conflict to come, in which Pennsylvania provided the locale for one of the Civil War's most crucial battles—that of Gettysburg in 1863. Christiana, scene of the riot, lies about twenty miles southeast of Lancaster, home of Thaddeus Stevens, who fiercely championed the anti-slavery cause in Congress and served as chief of the defense counsel in the treason trials growing out of the Christiana Riot. James Buchanan, who became the Nation's chief executive before Lincoln, and who, by his own statement, was opposed to slavery as a "great political and great moral evil," also resided in Lancaster. Lancaster County, of which Lancaster is the seat, formed an important part of the slavery picture. At Columbia the Underground Railroad was born. Many of the Negroes still living there are the descendants of slaves who, thinking they had reached Canada, did not continue northward. T h e county became the gateway for the two main lines of the Railroad, which was not really that, but a series of stations wherein the runaways were fed and clothed while awaiting the protecting mantle of darkness under which to continue their flight. Within Lancaster County are the Welsh Mountains, whose isolation and inaccessibility provided an ideal natural hideaway for fugitive slaves.

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Slavery in its varied forms had been handed down from antiquity, and it was predestined that the Western Hemisphere should be assailed with its taint. A s early as 1444, Portugal had pioneered in the obnoxious trade, conveying helpless cargoes of human freight from the West Coast of A f r i c a — f i r s t to Europe, then to America. O n e by one the European powers espoused the degrading traffic, until finally the English Colonies of N o r t h America took u p the trade. Slaves were first brought to the Western Hemisphere in 1500, when Portuguese slave operations were extended to the Spanish West Indies. T h e y were imported into Virginia in 1619. Most of the Colonies, early in their history, recognized slavery as legal. Virginia led the way, adopting it lawfully in 1620. Massachusetts followed in 1641, Connecticut in 1650, N e w York in 1656, Maryland in 1663, and N e w Jersey in 1665. T h e first slave ship to be fitted u p in America sailed from Boston on its maiden voyage in 1644. ® u t n o t until 1703 were slaves brought directly to Pennsylvania, w h e n a Portuguese vessel docked in Philadelphia with a number of Negroes aboard. As time went on, the protests against slavery became more and more numerous, more and more vigorous. T h o m a s Jefferson was so opposed to the evil that his first draft of the Declaration of Independence contained the following words of denunciation: H e [ K i n g G e o r g e III] has waged warfare against Nature itself, violating the most sacred rights of life and liberty in the person of a distant people w h o never offended him, capturing and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur a miserable death in their transportation thither. T h i s piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian K i n g of Great Britain. Determined to keep an open market where men shall be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce.

T h u s spoke the great Jefferson, but this clause in the Declaration was e x p u n g e d before it came to a vote before the Congress. T h e early G e r m a n settlers of Pennsylvania seldom hired men to work u p o n their farms, and rarely did they have Negro servants or slaves. T h e comparative scarcity of slaves in Pennsylvania is therefore attributed to the great numbers of Germans, w h o preferred their own labor to that of the slaves. Of all the nationalities that

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helped to settle the New World, they and their descendants availed themselves least of the demoralizing traffic. In 1790 there were 697,897 slaves in the American Colonies. By 1826 there were 3,953,760. Statistics show that the population of Pennsylvania in 1790 was 473,073. Of this number only 10,377 w e r e Negroes, 3,737 being held as slaves. When the population of the Keystone State had risen in 1840 to 1,724,033, only sixty-four slaves remained. The census of a decade later indicated that slavery had been entirely obliterated. However, there was civil inequality for the Negro in Pennsylvania until 1780, when the act for the gradual abolishment of slavery became law, and political inferiority until 1870, when the right to vote was given to the Negro. Pennsylvania became a haven for the fleeing slaves soon after Samuel Wright founded Columbia in 1787. Wright, grandson of John Wright, pioneer operator of a ferry at this site, conceived the system known as the Underground Railroad in 1804, when Columbia became overpopulated with the Negroes, as well as too accessible to slave catchers. Sporadic fighting had also taken place between whites and Negroes because of the congestion. Ever since 1793 there had been a federal statute which affirmed the right of the master to follow and reclaim his slave, but it required action by the state courts to enforce this right. In construing that act in 1842 (Prigg vs. Pennsylvania, Peters 16, 539), Justice Story of the United States Supreme Court limited this action to one without breach of peace or legal violence. State magistrates could not be required by federal law to perform duties involving the recapture and return of escaped slaves. The decision enabled every State and community hostile to slavery to nullify the right of the slave owner to his property. The Pennsylvania Act of 1826 made the State courts the sole arbiters of claims to fugitives, forbidding justices from exercising these powers. It was made a felony to carry off a free Negro, to sell or detain him. In spite of this ruling, offenders were protected by legal technicalities and "friendly" jurisdiction both in the North and South. Maryland law, contrary to that of Pennsylvania, held that "the brood follows the dam," in contesting for offspring of escaped slaves born free under Pennsylvania law. Some Pennsylvanians voluntarily freed their slaves, and the As-

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sembly gave to the trend the authority of law. For this reason, the people of Pennsylvania entered u p o n a course that greatly offended the Slave States. W h e n the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 came into being, there was vehement opposition to it in Pennsylvania. Many p i t i f u l scenes were enacted within the next few years, w h e n slave owners and officers seized runaways. In 1853 more than fifty Pennsylvanians journeyed to Baltimore to testify for a N e g r o w h o had been kidnapped f r o m the northern State. In the period beginning with the formation of the U n d e r g r o u n d Railroad and ending with the W a r between the States, it became exceedingly hazardous to attempt to capture a slave in the small towns and rural areas of Pennsylvania. Small bands of armed Negroes patrolled certain parts of the State, and everywhere they were organized to form quickly into militant groups, to free and rescue slaves. In five of the years of the period 1847-61, federal authorities were denied the right to use state prisons. T h i s encouragement brought fugitive slaves in great numbers to Pennsylvania. Reactionary elements attempted to stigmatize antislavery workers by circulating* pro-Southern petitions, but such agitation was soon buried under the weight of public opinion. W i t h the increased influx of slaves came W i l l i a m Parker, fated to play a leading and dramatic rôle in the Negro's fight against serfdom. Parker had been born a slave in A n n e A r u n d e l County, Maryland. His mother died while he was yet a child. She was Louisa Simms, slave on the plantation of M a j o r W i l l i a m Brogdon. N o mention is made of the father. A f t e r the death of his master, Parker fell to the ownership of Brogdon's son, David, becoming a field hand on his estate. O n e morning the Negroes were informed that they need not start for the fields. Instead, they were to report to the "great house," as the master's residence was called, where a large group of slave traders had gathered. Parker and a friend, Levi, hid in a tree f r o m which they could hear all day the cries of men, women, and children being sold. Parker, about eleven at the time, resolved then and there to run a w a y — b u t six years later he was still laboring on the plantation!

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T h e day came when his master decided to beat him for not going into the rain to work. Parker, however, turned the tables by beating his master instead. T h e n bidding the plantation good-bye, he paused only long enough to get hold of his brother, who joined him in the flight northward. Reaching the outskirts of York, they were accosted by three men who had descriptions of them. Parker and his brother made a stand, resuming their journey after putting their would-be captors to flight. When they had reached the vicinity of Columbia, it was night. Hearing voices in the gloom of the road back of them, they threw themselves behind a farm fence, remaining undiscovered as the group of men went by in the darkness. T h e y recognized one of the voices as that of Parker's master. Soon afterλν-ard they reached the interior of Lancaster County, near Christiana, where they were not long in finding employment among the sympathetic farmers. T h e i r flight, and that of countless others, proved the correctness of the forecast made by Chief Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court, that if state officials under state laws could not arrest runaway slaves, Pennsylvania must soon become an open pathway for the fugitives escaping from other states. T h e State did become an open road for the slaves, as the two main arteries of the Underground Railroad ran through Lancaster County. One trail led through Columbia, where a freed Negro named Stephen Smith saw that the slaves were conducted safely to the home of Daniel Gibbons, who lived about four miles east of Lancaster. Gibbons, a Quaker, is said to have assisted more than a thousand fugitive slaves over a period of fifty-six years, until his death in 1853, and his son Joseph continued the work. Smith as an infant had been carried northward over the Mason and Dixon Line by his father, an escaping slave. T a k i n g refuge in Columbia, the two were finally purchased from their former master by General Thomas Bonde. When Stephen grew up he was given work in the General's lumber yard, and after Bonde's death he obtained control. He owned freight cars which transported lumber to Philadelphia, Baltimore, and other points. False partitions were built into these cars, behind which many an escaped slave rode to freedom. T h e Mason and Dixon Line still was the point of demarcation between opposing social philosophies. T h e Negro could be a

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slave in Maryland, and at the same time a freeman under Pennsylvania law. In addition to the Underground Railroad through Columbia, another branch crossed the border at Havre de Grace. Still another came by way of Wilmington through Gap. One of the surviving landmarks of the Underground Railroad is a Negro settlement in the Welsh Mountains, between the New Holland pike and the Lincoln Highway, fourteen miles east of Lancaster. Many of the ancestors of the present inhabitants were slaves who had worked in the local charcoal pits and forges, or at cutting timber. Eventually it became unprofitable to feed and clothe them, and they were left to shift for themselves. From such highly inflammable ingredients the devil's brew was being prepared for just such trouble as was to break out at Christiana, where Parker, the escaped slave, was beginning to emerge as a leader of the Negroes. On one occasion four men, apparently slave stealers, came to a home he was visiting and demanded to be admitted. When refused, they broke in the door and covered the inmates with pistols. Parker, however, was undaunted by the guns. Quick as a cat he seized a pair of heavy tongs and brought them down over the leader's head. This shook the morale of the interlopers, who picked up the unconscious form of their comrade and withdrew. Parker had previously resolved that no slaveholder would take a slave if he could prevent it. Lindley Coates, prominent abolitionist of the area, once said of Parker: "He was bold as a lion, the kindest of men, and the most steadfast of friends." Another time Parker, with a few friends, pursued some kidnappers who had made off with a Negro man. When they caught up with the thieves, a gun battle ensued. Parker fell with a bullet in his thigh but immediately got up to help vanquish the enemy, who were put to flight without their prisoner. When he returned home, Parker extracted the ball himself and said nothing to anyone about it. There are conflicting accounts of how Parker's comrades learned of the coming of Edward Gorsuch, slaveholder from Anne Arundel County who, with a United States deputy marshal, led the posse seeking to recover four of the Gorsuch slaves. One account states that suspicious-looking men were seen in the neighborhood a few

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days before the struggle. Another version says that an agent of the Underground Railroad in Philadelphia learned of the warrants and warned the Christiana Negroes before Gorsuch could arrive. Certain it is, however, that the Negroes were not caught napping. The Gorsuch slaves had escaped in November 1849, and the master was not to see them again until the bloody riot that took place in the early dawn of September 1 1 , 1851, at Parker's stronghold. At the time the slaves escaped, they went by the names of Nelson Ford, George Hammond, Noah Buhley, and Joshua Hammond, but in the Christiana area they had become known as John Beard, Thomas Wilson, Alexander Scott, and Edward Thompson. Gorsuch, in coming up from Maryland, acted upon reports made by an informer, William M. Padgett, who worked on a farm near Gap, and whose letter was found on Gorsuch's person after his death. T h e Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 gave the Marylander authority for such a mission. He was accompanied by his son, Dickerson, his two nephews—Dr. Thomas Pearce and Joshua Gorsuch— Nicholas Hutchings, and Nathan Nelson. On September 9 he procured four warrants from Edward D. Ingraham, United States Commissioner at Philadelphia, directed to Deputy Marshal Henry H. Kline. They traveled from Philadelphia to G a p by train, and from there on by horse and wagon. Padgett led the posse to within a quarter-mile of the Parker home, then withdrew. Proof that Noah Buhley and two others of the Gorsuch slaves were at the scene of the fray is said to be incontestable. As the posse reached the short lane leading to the Parker place, they saw Nelson Ford and Joshua Hammond, who were standing guard. T h e two ran into the house, followed by Kline and Gorsuch;. Kline stopped at the stairway leading to the second floor, to which the inmates apparently had fled, and read the warrants. Someone shouted from above that those named were not in the house. As Kline attempted to climb the stairs, someone hurled a pronged fish gig down at him. Someone else threw an axe. Both missed, bup Kline and Gorsuch beat a hasty retreat. A parley was held after Kline threatened to send to Lancaster for a hundred men. Friends of Parker pleaded with him not to resist, but he declared:

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"If the law protected colored people as it does white men, I would be non-resistant, but the laws for personal protection are not made for us, and we are not bound to obey them. If a fight occurs, I want my white friends to keep away. They have a country and may obey the laws, but we have no country." Gorsuch was an active member of a Methodist church congregation, a fact known to the Negroes. They began to taunt him with the shame of owning slaves. Gorsuch hung his head at that, while all the Negroes present chanted over and over again: Leader what do you say About the judgment day? I will die on the field of battle, Die on the field of battle, With glory in my soul.

Just about daybreak, Parker heeded his wife's plea to let her sound a horn from the upstairs window. It was a signal that had been previously agreed upon to warn the neighborhood of trouble. T h e blowing of the horn disconcerted the slave catchers. Orders were given to shoot the person responsible, whereupon two men climbed a tree and fired at the window from which the horn was blown. The stout stone masonry saved Mrs. Parker, and the call had its effect. Negroes began to arrive from all directions, armed with weapons that included ancient muskets, corn-cutters, and clubs. Meanwhile about twenty nondescript men emerged from a near-by woods and were immediately sworn in as deputies. Members of the notorious "Gap Gang" led by the unsavory William Baer, they spent their time robbing hen roosts and smokehouses, acting as guides to slave catchers, serving as "deputies," or becoming just plain slave stealers on their own initiative. Seeing these reinforcements, one of Parker's own men begged him to surrender, but Parker was adamant. He threatened to open fire if the posse did not leave at once. About that time two white men of the neighborhood, Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis, came upon the scene. The warrants were read to them and their aid requested. Both flatly refused to help. They urged the intruders to leave, while they still could do so, warning them that bloodshed would result from an attempt to seize anyone.

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Suddenly Parker appeared at the door of his house. Gorsuch, apparently thinking the Negroes were attempting to escape, drew his pistol and formed his men into line, guns in readiness to fire. Parker, however, stepped outside and walked up to Gorsuch. "I have seen guns before today," he remarked bitterly. Then, turning to Kline, with defiance blazing from his eyes, he said: "You said you would take me. Now you have your chancel" Dickerson begged his father to come away, but the latter swore that he would have his property. Parker again reminded the elder Gorsuch about his church activity and asked him if he were not ashamed of himself. This infuriated the son, who, but a moment before, had been in favor of leaving. "Father, I wouldn't take that insult from a nigger!" he shouted, firing a shot that tore through Parker's hat. T h e Negro flung himself bodily at Dickerson, knocking the weapon from his grasp, and the long-delayed battle was on. Dickerson fell wounded. He got up and was shot down again. This time he did not rise. T h e elder Gorsuch battled valiantly, sometimes struggling with two or three men at a time, and was finally killed. But the deputy vanished when the real shooting began. Soon the whole party of white men were in headlong flight, scattering in all directions, with the Negroes after them. It is said that one of the men became so frightened that he ran wildly across near-by fields, burst into the home of a Quaker farmer, crawled under the bed, begging for a razor to cut off his beard so the pursuing Negroes would not recognize him. All that night he lay trembling in fear, imagining he could hear the footsteps of intruders—which proved to be nothing more threatening than a leaky rain spout. Before he left his hideaway, he did cut off his beard. It is said that it had turned white from terror. Dickerson Gorsuch, already desperately wounded, was saved from certain death by Joseph F. Scarlett, a Quaker, just as one of the Negroes was on the point of finishing him. After the fight Parker offered the use of his house, and anything in it, for the comfort of the wounded—black and white alike. However, Dickerson Gorsuch was carried to the home of the Quaker, Levi Pownall, who lived a short distance from the scene of the riot. Here he stayed three weeks before returning home to Maryland, pleasantly surprised at the care taken of him by Quakers

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— p e o p l e he had been taught to regard as enemies. T h e two families became fast friends. Dr. Pearce and Joshua Gorsuch were both wounded, but they succeeded in escaping death. Eighty musket shots pierced Dickerson's body, but he was to live for thirty-one years, bearing the scars of that tragic encounter. T h e Negroes suffered only minor casualties in the affray. None was killed or seriously hurt. T h e night of the riot, while part of the Pownall home was crowded with lawyers, commissioners, and marshals, and a strong detail of policemen stood guard in the front yard and porch, Parker, with two men w h o had been in his house during the fight, were smuggled into another part of the Pownall home. Here they were given clothing and a pillow case filled with provisions. T h e n two of the Pownall sisters took them out past the guards, w h o did not recognize them in the darkness. A f t e r a hurried farewell the three Negroes disappeared into the night. T h e y ultimately reached Canada. D u r i n g the next few weeks, large numbers of rowdies from Philadelphia and Baltimore flooded the neighborhood, spending their time searching barns and houses, and generally behaving in a rude manner. A detachment of forty-five marines was dispatched from the Navy Yard at Philadelphia "to keep the peace." In addition there were about a hundred Philadelphia policemen and a number of sheriff's deputies. A l l patrolled the neighborhood, searching the homes of known abolitionists and arresting every man, white and black, whom they suspected of participation in the fight, or who might have encouraged it. A m o n g those taken were Joseph Scarlett, Castner Hanway, and Elijah Lewis. T h e y , with thirty-five Negroes, were lodged in Moyamensing Prison, Philadelphia, where they were confined ninetyseven days while awaiting trial. A l l were charged with treason under the provisions of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. A m o n g other things, the indictment accused them of "levying war against the United States." T h e Pennsylvania Freeman, in discussing the case, said: Deplorable as it is in its character, and many of its results, the calm and candid thinker cannot fail to see that it has grown l e g i t i m a t e l y — necessarily—from the passage and attempt to enforce the cruel and dis-

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graceful provisions of the National law. What right has the American Nation to expect anything else? Have they not proclaimed "Liberty or Death—Resistance to tyrants is duty to G o d i " as their national creed? Have they not honored the daring and exploits of the battle ground as true heroism? Rebellion or flight is the slave's only hope of freedom. T h e Government now lets loose its minions upon them, refuses them the shelter of the law, gives its law as an engine of cruelty into the hands of the man-hunters. What wonder that, outlawed as they are, they think it no crime to defend their liberties by the same means, for using which, the revolutionary heroes of our own and other countries are glorified.

T h e trial of the alleged traitors finally got under way on November 24, 1851. Judges Grier and Kane of the United States Circuit Court, Philadelphia, presided. The prosecuting attorneys were G. L. Ashmead, United States District Attorney; R . J . Brent, Attorney-General of Maryland; and W. B. Fordney. Thaddeus Stevens was chief counsel for the defense, with Joseph J . Lewis, Jr., John M. Reed, and Theodore C. Cuyler assisting. Selection of the jury took almost a week. So many of the potential jurors sought to be excused on the grounds of bad hearing that Presiding Judge Grier remarked sarcastically: "It seems as if the whole country is becoming deaf. An epidemic, I am afraid, is prevailing." T h e Judge further remarked that, while he did not wish to hurry them, he wanted to be in Washington within two weeks— causing Thaddeus Stevens to retort cuttingly: " U p in my county they hang a man in three days, and I trust that the gentlemen here will not ask for a longer time." It is said the prosecution had every advantage in the trial. Judge Grier expressed great prejudice against the abolitionists, denouncing the antislaverv orators Lucretia Mott, William Lloyd, and Charles Berleigh as "male and female vagrant lecturers, infuriated fanatics, and unprincipled demagogues" for "stimulating poor Negroes to the perpetration of offenses which they knew would bring them to the penitentiary or the gallows." However, victory for the defense was forecast in the Judge's charge to the jury, part of which follows: Previous to this transaction, so far as we are informed, no attempt has been made to arrest fugitives in the neighborhood under the new act of Congress by a public officer. Heretofore arrests have been made by the

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owner in person, or his agent properly authorized, or by any officer of the law. Individuals without any authority, but excited by cupidity, and in the hope of obtaining the reward offered for the return of a fugitive, had theretofore undertaken to seize them by force and violence, to invade the sanctity of private dwellings by night, and insult the feelings and prejudices of the people. It is not to be wondered at that a people subject to such inroads, should consider odious the perpetrators of such deeds and denominate them kidnappers—and that the subject of this treatment should have been encouraged in resisting such aggressions, where the rightful claimant could not be distinguished from the odious kidnapper, or the fact ascertained whether the person seized, stolen or deported in this manner, was a free man or slave. . . . T h a t the persons engaged in it [the riot] are guilty of riot and murder cannot be denied. But riot and murder are offenses against the State Government. It would be a dangerous precedent for the Court and jury in this case to extend the crime of treason by construction in doubtful cases. T h e jury was o u t only fifteen minutes, and returned with a verdict of n o t guilty. T h i s was received "in a becoming manner" by the spectators, prepared as they were by Judge Grier's charge. T h e prisoners were therefore released from the custody of the Federal Court, but were held for the grand jury in Lancaster County. T h i s tribunal ignored the indictments in every case, and the defendants were completely free at last. T h e r e were a few repercussions of the trial, such as the indictment of Henry H . Kline for perjury—which was noi pressed—and the attempts of the late defendants in the treason trials to compel the Government to pay their witnesses' fees. T h i s also came to naught. So the curtain fell on the final act of the drama which h a d gripped the country for months. It was soon to rise again, this time to take the lives of countless m e n .

OIL COMES IN AT TITUSVILLE THE Pennsylvania oil fields lacked a B r e t Harte, and the stirring sagas of the formative period of their history—the closing decades of the last century—remain unwritten except on the financial pages of the world's newspapers. T h e literature of the development of oil contains few, if any, hard-eyed gamblers, adventurous R o b i n Hoods, or seductive gals from Last Chance Saloons, who flourished, however, as luxuriantly and briefly in the mushroom oil towns of Pennsylvania as in the gold hamlets of the Far Western frontier. T h e development of petroleum ranks with that of electricity and steam in bringing about the tremendous industrial upsurge of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. It forced changes in the methods of production, and at the same time opened up new vistas for industry and commerce. It became the main source of light, heat, and energy. Oil appears early in man's history. It was used in religious rituals in the temples of J u p i t e r and as a building material in the construction of the T o w e r of Babel. J u d e a and ancient Persia established commerce with oil as a basis. Alexander the Great witnessed the burning lakes at Ectabana, believing the waters to be the fluid 201

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mentioned in the Medea legend. T h e daughter of K i n g Creon, according to the legend, gave her rival a crown of leaves sprinkled with a "magic fluid," and in the ensuing festival the unfortunate girl approached too close to the ceremonial fires; the wreath burst into flames, and she burned to death. Flaubert tells of a Greek militarist w h o defeated the Carthaginian elephant troops by dipping pigs into vats of oil, igniting them, and sending them into the ranks of the panic-stricken beasts. Beyond recorded time, the American Indians gathered the surface oil around the O i l Creek region of Venango County, in Pennsylvania. T h e y dipped blankets into scum-coated springs and streams, wrung them out in earthen containers, and used the oil for medicine and in the preparation of war paint. Early settlers in the northwestern section of Pennsylvania soon discovered the strange fluid emerging from rock crevices. Even France and England in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries were aware that a curious liquid could be found on the N e w World's frontiers. T h e y had heard of its curative powers, its free combustibility, but they did not advise it as a substitute for tallow candles, because of its strong odor. As Pittsburgh became more heavily populated, the demand for "Seneca Oil," named for Indians of the district, increased. Titusville residents often received as much for it as a dollar per gallon, though aside from its supposed medicinal properties the substance was considered valueless. Some O i l Creek settlers started to mix the product with flour to make axle grease for their wagons. A lumbering firm in Titusville tried crude petroleum on their machinery when their supply of lard oil was exhausted. T h e y discovered that the buzz-saw journal ran smoother and cooler and did not "gum up." Unable to secure sperm oil or tallow candles, a few settlers burned the fluid in primitive lamps, despite its heavy black smoke and disagreeable odor. It gradually began to gain local popularity because of its availability and economy. L u m b e r firms of Titusville were illuminating their mills with it as early as 1850, and visionaries talked of securing an adequate supply, and of eliminating its unpleasant odor and smoke. Salt-well operators in the T a r e n t u m district were elated to learn that the fluid, which for years had plagued them in their drilling, actually had some value. Lewis Peterson, Jr., who managed his

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father's salt wells near T a r e n t u m , hastened to the H y d e Cotton Factory in Pittsburgh and agreed to deliver two barrels a week as machine grease for a small fee. A b o u t 1850 Samuel M. Kier, who formerly owned canal boats plying between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, took over his father's salt well at T a r e n t u m , and soon Kier's R o c k Oil Medicine ("three spoonfuls three times a day for cholera morbus, liver complaint, bronchitis and consumption") was advertised on imitation greenbacks in the windows of drugstores in the East. It is said also that Kier, as early as 1849, shipped a sample of the fluid to a Philadelphia chemist, who advised distilling the substance and burning it like coal oil. M e a n w h i l e A . C. Ferris, a N e w York business man, returned East after a visit to the C a l i f o r n i a gold fields. H e visited the drugstore of Nevin, M c K e o w n & Company in Pittsburgh and became interested in the burning tin lamp he saw there. T h e petroleum had been a by-product of the T a r e n t u m salt wells and had gone through a slight process of distillation. Impressed by its possibilities, Ferris had K i e r send him 845 gallons in M a r c h 1858. H e attacked the offensive odor with a strong, scalding solution of caustic soda. T h i s deodorized the petroleum but gave it a bright orange color, which brought complaints from the few customers, largely N e w York business men, to whom Ferris succeeded in selling lamps and oil. B y a p p l y i n g sulphuric acid first, and then the caustic soda, Ferris produced an illuminant that was lemon in color, mild in odor, and generally acceptable to his increasing n u m b e r of customers. His problem now was to get enough crude oil. He purchased a land tract at T a r e n t u m and dug a well. T h o u g h the project cost $20,000, it resulted only in a huge salt well. T h e n George H. Bissell, a N e w Y o r k lawyer, became interested in T i t u s v i l l e oil while visiting his A l m a Mater, Dartmouth College. In the medical school laboratories of Dr. D i x i Crosby, he was shown a sample of petroleum that had been submitted by another alumnus, Dr. Francis Beattie Brewer, a physician in T i t u s v i l l e who was associated with his father's firm of B r e w e r , Watson Sc Company. Crosby's suggestion of its commercial possibilities impressed Bissell so much that he decided to send A l b e r t Crosby, the son of Dixi Crosby, to Titusville to see the oil springs. In the fall of 1854 Crosby arrived in T i t u s v i l l e , examined the

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springs, and found the prospects so good that, upon his return to N e w York, he recommended purchase of the land. Bissell and his law partner, J. G. Eveleth, agreed to pay $5,000 for a hundred-acre tract that had shown evidence of oil springs, and then set to work organizing the Pennsylvania Rock O i l Company. O n December 30, 1854, this original petroleum corporation was formed in N e w York, and a stock issue of $250,000 was floated. Nevertheless D r . Benjamin Silliman, Jr., of Yale University, a noted chemist of his day, delayed returning an analysis of petroleum samples found on the Bissell site, because his fee and expenses, amounting to $526.08, were not forthcoming. T h e Silliman report eventually came into the hands of Bissell & Eveleth. It asserted that the Bissell oil sample was comparable to any known illuminant and possessed important lubricating properties. T h e fluid might, the report continued, be easily developed into a variety of valuable commercial products. But the trenches the company hopefully dug were flooded regularly with salt water, threatening the success of the entire enterprise. In the summer of 1857 Bissell walked dejectedly through the streets of New York. His eye chanced to fall on a druggist's window where a picture of Kier's advertising greenback showed the T a r e n tum salt derricks. A n inspiration seized Bissell. W h y not bore for oil instead of digging? Previously it had been necessary to reorganize the Pennsylvania Rock O i l Company. Under the existing New York laws, the property of any stockholder was liable to seizure for corporation debts. Naturally this did not help attempts to float stock. T h e risky character of the venture was another handicap. Bissell's company was therefore reorganized under the laws of Connecticut, where stockholders were not liable and where Bissell and Eveleth had been promised financial support. T h i s was forthcoming, and the Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company of Connecticut was the result. A n attempt was now made to interest a New York group in leasing the land. W h e n this failed, Bissell took his great idea to James M. Townsend, president of a N e w Haven bank, through whose efforts the Seneca Oil Company was eventually formed. A t that time Townsend was living at the T o n t i n e Hotel in N e w Haven, where he had struck up friendship with a fellow guest,

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Edwin Laurentine Drake, thirty-eight-year-old conductor on the New York & New Haven Railroad. Drake has been pictured as a dashing soldier of fortune and jack of all trades who happily carried out Bissell's idea. A man of limited education, he had spent the early years of his life on New York and Vermont farms, and at twenty was a night clerk on a summer steamship operating between Buffalo and Detroit. Subsequently he clerked in a Michigan hotel, a New Haven drygoods store, and a New York notions store. While in New York he married and moved with his bride to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he secured employment as an express agent for the Boston 8c Albany Railroad. During 1849 he became conductor on the newly opened New York & New Haven Railroad and again moved to New Haven, where his wife died in 1854. After her death, Drake and his one child went to live at the Tontine Hotel. He was ill and temporarily idle in 1857. Townsend and Drake had developed a common enthusiasm for oil, and it was the ex-conductor whom Townsend sent on an inspection trip to Oil Creek in December 1857. With his railroad pass, Drake could ride for nothing. T o puff up the matter, Townsend mailed some papers to his agent at Titusville, addressing them to "Colonel" Edwin L . Drake. T h e village postmaster was impressed, and Drake has been "Colonel" ever since. His optimistic report to Townsend voiced the hope that he might take some part in the coming work. T h e New Haven stockholders of Pennsylvania Rock Oil now organized the Seneca Oil Company, with Townsend as president. Townsend read the report to his directors and suggested a plan that called for the leasing of the Titusville tract to Drake and E. B. Bowditch, a New Haven carpenter and another Townsend satellite, for a term of fifteen years and for one-eighth of all oil produced. T h e plan was approved but had to be slightly modified later to meet better terms Bissell had meanwhile negotiated in Wall Street. T h e contract in turn was transferred to the Seneca Oil Company. Drake at Titusville began the slow process of digging a well in the traditional manner. Cave-ins, delays, and water seepage discouraged him, and he decided to try the Bissell theory of drilling. He employed William ("Uncle Billy") Smith, an expert salt-well

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driller of the neighborhood, and his two sons, to assist. Using a cast-iron pipe and bit, the men started to drill in A u g u s t 1859. T o facilitate the work they obtained a six-horse-power engine and a stationary tubular boiler f r o m a salvaged O h i o River steamer. T h e proceedings caused a great deal of amusement in the countryside. T h e project was dubbed "Drake's Folly," but the drilling went on. A t thirty-six feet Uncle Billy Smith and his two boys struck rock and bored through it. O n A u g u s t 27, a Saturday, they were prepared to stop for the week end w h e n the drill dropped into a crevice. T h e y left it there. T h e next day Uncle Billy went down to the well, looked down the pipe, and saw oil I T h e world's first oil well had been struck at a depth of sixty-nine and one-half feet. T h e immediate event went unheralded in the Nation, though there was some excitement around O i l Creek. T h e stories of gold in California still held the attention of most people; the approaching Civil W a r and the i860 Presidential campaign, which p u t Lincoln in the W h i t e House, occupied the press. Drake lingered in the oil fields until 1863, then moved to N e w York, where he is said to have speculated in a small way. T e n years after the oil discovery, he stood by the wayside, aging, ill, and nearly penniless. W h e n news of his plight reached men active in the industry, funds were collected and forwarded to him. In 1873 the Pennsylvania State Legislature granted h i m an annual pension of $1,500. He died in a small house in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, on November 8, 1884. O n October 4, 1901, a monument to him was erected at Titusville by Henry Huddleston Rogers of the Standard O i l Company, pioneer in the oil fields. T h e shaft names Drake as the "Founder of the Petroleum Industry. . . . A t the threshold of his fame he retired to end his days in quieter pursuits." Some authorities believe the Civil W a r held back the progress of the industry at least twenty-five years. Even w i t h its development retarded, however, Pennsylvania oil began to trickle into the markets of the world. In a few brief years it ranked as one of the chief exports of the Nation, as well as the chief source of domestic light and lubrication. Most of the old w h a l i n g vessels f o u n d their last harbor, and candles tended to become merely ceremonial. T h e first flowing well was struck in i860 on the Buchanan farm near Rouseville, at a depth of slightly less than two hundred feet.

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T w o historic wells were uncovered on the Clapp farm. T h e Fountain well was drilled on the McElhenny farm and produced three hundred barrels daily for about six months, then suddenly stopped yielding. A careful inspection revealed that it had become clogged by the solidification of paraffin. In September 1861, the Empire well was drilled on the McElhenny tract and produced twenty-five hundred barrels daily until May 1862, when its flood abruptly ceased. After inspection and cleaning, it brought about three hundred barrels a day to the surface for the next nine months. One of the most famous wells of this period was the Maple Shade well, sunk on the Hyde and Egbert property of Petroleum Centre. It opened with a daily yield of one thousand barrels and is reputed to have brought one and one-half million dollars to its owners. T h e J . W. McClintock farm, numbering 207 acres, was pitted with more than one hundred and fifty wells. One hundred and ten of these showed a profit. On January 8, 1865, a strike by the United States Oil Company well on the Thomas Holmden land created the boom town that was Pithole City. By September it had a population of twenty thousand. At its peak, Pithole's postoffice was second only to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. In another year or so the wells ran dry, and the grass returned to claim its own. T h e more substantial buildings were moved bodily, others crumbled into the mud; hardly one remained. Recent reclamation methods indicate the possibility of something being done on the site of Pithole. But its glory has faded forever. While it is remembered chiefly for its short period of great productivity, the town did make a real contribution to the growth of the American oil industry. It was at Pithole that the first commercial pipe line was conceived and placed in operation. T h e early wells were near Oil Creek, navigable for flat barges loaded with barrels of oil until their decks were awash. As new wells opened in fields removed from waterways, it was necessary to find new methods of transport. With the supply steadily increasing and no markets to absorb it, the price of oil dropped to rock bottom. In 1862 it sold for as little as ten cents a barrel in some localities. Serpentine wagon trains, numbering hundreds of vehicles, appeared, each drawn by two horses and carrying from six to eight

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barrels of oil. Thousands of men were employed as teamsters at wages ranging from ten to twenty-five dollars a day. Convinced of their indispensability, the teamsters scoffed at pleas to adjust their rates. Many small oil miners went into bankruptcy. T h e inspiration for the construction of a line of pipes is said to have come from a man named Hutchings, who in February 1863 pumped oil through a pipe two and a half miles long, from the T a r r Farm to the Humbolt Refinery at Plumer, Pennsylvania. T h e teamsters organized a sabotage squad to cripple the system. They wrecked the first line, but Hutchings built a second. When this was destroyed he started work on a third. T h e result was the same, and this time, according to the teamsters, "Hutchings learned his lesson. He forgot about pipes." Samuel Van Syckel, a Titusville resident, is said to have constructed the first commercially successful pipe line from the boom town of Pithole City to the railroad station at Miller Farm, a distance of four miles. Backed by New York capital, Van Syckel opened the line in 1865. He sought and received aid from the State, but even his line often suffered the wrath of teamsters. T h e early refineries were simple affairs. T h e first was started at Titusville in October i860, by James Parker, William Barnsdall, and W. H. Abbott, who purchased all their equipment in Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. It had its six stills and the fixtures in one building. T h e first run of oil passed through in January 1861, with only a small percentage of the crude oil being reclaimed. Many by-products were then unknown. Perhaps the best-known refinery of the period was the one built at Corry in 1860-61 by Samuel Downer, a former kerosene merchant. Realizing the need for a distillation process to make the product acceptable to the market, Downer started work on the largest refinery in the section. He chose a site at the intersection of the Philadelphia & Erie and the Atlantic &: Great Western railroads and opened his plant in the fall of 1861 with the most modern equipment then available, including a fireproof arrangement of overhead, high-pressure steam pipes. T h e fundamentals of the distilling method have not changed for the primary products of petroleum. T h e discovery of uses for byproducts, now practically unlimited, resulted in elaboration and

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refinement of the basic principle, which depends on the varying vaporization points of crude oil's components. In the sixties, crude oil was run into containers under which roaring fires had been built. At about 700 0 F., evaporation occurred. T h e vapors escaped into a "worm," or spiral condensing tube, which passed through vats of cold water, returning the gases to liquid form. T h e first portion of the crude to boil off was the naphtha. The second distillate, illuminating oil, was then shunted to new tanks. T h e remainder of the product, estimated at about fifty per cent of the raw material, was destroyed. T h e cost of operating refineries was small, and the early operators accumulated fortunes from their plants. Stills, retorts, tanks, and chemicals could be purchased at low cost, and only a few men were needed to operate the first stills. T h e greatest expense was coal, necessary for the furnaces under the containers. As the years advanced, uses were found for many by-products, and the amount of waste was reduced to a small percentage of raw petroleum. T h e heating is now carried on until petroleum coke, a dry residue, is left in the tank. Gasoline, contrary to general opinion, is not a natural product of petroleum. T h e process of manufacturing the fuel is known as "cracking." T h e early stills were completely bricked, thus keeping the vapors heated until they passed through the worm and escaped into the tanks. In 1861 a still operator in Newark, New Jersey, built a roaring fire under his tank after more than half the container's original contents had been boiled off. Called away, he did not return for nearly three hours and then discovered a lightcolored distillate, of much lower density than he had formerly obtained, pouring from the condenser. T h e theory was advanced that some of the product had vaporized and had arisen to the top, or cooler portion of the still, and then dropped back. Here the temperature was high enough to break, it into products of reduced boiling point. "Cracking" is said to cause a decay of certain chemical elements in petroleum. T h e result is a product far removed from those yielded by the orthodox distillation systems. Several changes were made in refinery technique shortly after the automobile started its upward trend in 1912. With the laboratories playing no small rôle, the roster of by-products increased rapidly.

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Propane and butane, ethylene, propylene and butylene, ketones and butyl alcohol—with uses ranging from refrigerants to perfume — a r e products of the modern stills. T h e phenomenal utility of petroleum is shown by the present search of chemists for a formula that will convert it into edible food. T h e chemigenesis of petroleum is hydrocarbons, which, together with oxygen, form sugar. One chemist, filing a patent application recently, claimed to have perfected a method of making sugar by applying intense heat to formaldehyde mixed with alcohol. Nearly one billion barrels of oil have been taken from the Pennsylvania fields since Drake's time. T h o u g h oil men of the sixties boasted they would drink every drop of oil found west of the O h i o River, Pennsylvania's total output now trails eight or nine other States, all west of the Ohio. Its subterranean reserves are estimated at nearly three hundred million barrels, or nearly one-third the amount already removed. Even this quantity will be recoverable only by such rejuvenation methods as flooding, gas pressure, and mining. T h i s "artificial" stimulation was introduced soon after 1917-18, the relative and absolute low of Pennsylvania output, when only three million barrels were produced. T h e industry now employs about fifty thousand persons in all its branches.

THE THIRD DAY A T GETTYSBURG THE long shadow of the Confederacy fell upon Pennsylvania soil late in June of 1863, and by midnight of the last day a diadem of enemy campfires glowed upon the slopes of South M o u n t a i n , eight miles northwest of Gettysburg. General R o b e r t E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was massing at Cashtown, even as General George Gordon Meade's Army of the Potomac was preparing to dig in along Pipe Creek in Maryland. Neither Cashtown nor Pipe Creek, however, was destined to be the historic battlefield. Forces greater than the calculations of Lee and Meade determined otherwise. W h e n Brigadier General John Buford led his division of Union cavalry on a reconnaissance into Gettysburg, during the afternoon of June 30, and saw the excellent defensive positions offered by the diabase hills, he felt certain that an epic conflict would soon take place there. A n d , on the same day, when a brigade of Confederate infantry moved cautiously toward the quiet town to reconnoitre, it found B u f o r d ready and waiting. T h e Union cavalry bivouacked west of Gettysburg that night, with pickets of M a j o r General Ambrose P. Hill's T h i r d Corps a few miles beyond. As the stars wheeled overhead, fast dispatch 211

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riders galloped away behind each of the lines, carrying news to the rear. T h e night was taut as a fiddlestring. Early in the morning rifles began to crack as opposing pickets exchanged scattered shots. Confederate skirmishers came in over the Chambersburg turnpike, followed by some batteries. Presently one of these opened up from Herr's Ridge, and it was answered immediately by a Union battery planted on McPherson's Ridge. T h e Battle of Gettysburg had begunl Buford, an experienced fighter and regular, set about holding off the enemy. He dismounted his troops and deployed them as infantry. They held the enemy for two hours, even while the men of Hill's Corps poured along the turnpike and overflowed into the fields. T h e artillery on both sides grew increasingly active. Then the First Corps of the Union Army came on the field, followed a few hours later by the Eleventh Corps. But the Confederates were coming in also, and rapidly! Soon Ewell's Second Corps arrived, and the Federals, outnumbered, fell back to the Gettysburg streets, fighting a stubborn rear-guard action. By sundown the Gray forces had taken the town, and the Blue were frantically entrenching themselves on the hills around the cemetery, to the southeast. In the cool of the evening, townspeople came out of their houses to watch the gaunt, ragged Confederate troopers cook their suppers over little fires along the streets. T h a t night every road leading into Gettysburg resounded to the tramp of feet and the rumble of wheels. Troops swarmed in until more than a hundred and sixty thousand men had descended upon the environs of this courtry town, in which there lived barely two thousand persons. Thousands more were on the way. It was comparatively quiet the next morning and most of the afternoon. Sharpshooters and skirmishers fired now and then, ind an occasional big gun slammed, but there was as yet no sich tumult as on the first day. Shortly after three o'clock the din of battle was heard over toward the Round Tops where Longstieet had attacked the Union left; and then on the right, too, where Ewell had let loose before Culp's Hill and the high cemetery. T h e sun sank in a haze of smoke, and the moon rose to a strenade of big guns crashing. It was after nine o'clock when the noise

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diminished, and the U n i o n line, that now famous fishhook, was f o u n d misshapen and dented but still unbroken. T h e hook's eye was B i g R o u n d T o p . From there the line extended northward along Cemetery Ridge, then curved eastward at Cemetery H i l l and Culp's Hill, and finally pointed southward. O v e r on Seminary Ridge, a mile west, stretched the thinner Confederate line, twice the length of the Blue line which it had to cover. O n e end was in front of the R o u n d T o p s , the other around the U n i o n right, and the line came down from Seminary R i d g e to cut through the town. Meade had a natural defensive position and the advantage of numbers. He had eighty-eight thousand effectives to send against Lee's seventy-four thousand w h o occupied a line six miles long. T h e battles of the second day, though fought with furious determination, had decided nothing. Losses on both sides were enormous. Meade summoned his officers. He was worried, and to his mental turmoil was added the physical torment of dyspepsia. H e had not washed for days, not even his hands, and he had slept in his uniform. T h e conference began at ten o'clock in the log-house headquarters a few hundred yards south of Cemetery Hill, and the small east room was close and hot. Candles and lanterns cast the shadows of a dozen men on the walls. Flies buzzed. T h e night wind carried the smell of death from the battlefields into the room where Meade sat before a pine table on which a candle burned, surrounded by a litter of maps and papers. T h e r e were but few chairs. Some of the generals had to stand, while others lounged on the unmade bed in a corner of the room. General Warren stretched out upon the board floor. T h e r e were three questions Meade put to his commanders. First, under the circumstances, was it advisable for the army to remain in its present position or to retire to another nearer its base of supplies? Second, if remaining in its present position, should the army attack or wait the attack of the enemy? T h i r d , how long should they await attack? Meade himself did not say much, as the talk droned on, but listened intently to the discussion. It was finally agreed they should remain in the present strong position b u t to make no attack, at least for twenty-four hours, waiting to see what move the opposing force m i g h t make. Meade rose

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and said quietly: "Such then is the decision." As the men filed out the door, he detained General Gibbon, commander of the Second Division, and said to him: "If Lee attacks tomorrow, it will be on your front." The prediction was an accurate one, for within a few hours Lee, in his field headquarters west of Seminary Ridge, was to make the fateful decision to attack the Union center. At two o'clock the next morning, Ewell resumed his battle at Culp's Hill, and from dawn to eleven the uproar was continuous. Then came a two-hour lull as the sun poured down. It was the hottest day of the summer—eighty-seven degrees in the shade. Gibbon asked Hancock to lunch with him. The two generals sat upon stools with a mess-chest for a table. Meade came riding by and joined them, seating himself on an up-ended cracker box. There was toast, bread and butter, stewed chicken, potatoes, tea and coffee; a good hot meal. Meanwhile on Seminary Ridge, Longstreet sent word to Colonel Alexander to get ready for the cannonade. Alexander, the reserve artillery chief, was to determine the exact time for the infantry attack. Presently a courier galloped up with this message from Longstreet: If the artillery fire does not have the effect to drive off the enemy or gradually demoralize him so as to make our efforts pretty certain, I would prefer that you should not advise General Pickett to make the charge. I shall rely a great deal on your good judgment to determine the matter and shall expect you to let Pickett know when the moment offers.

Here was responsibility Alexander did not want to accept. He replied: I will only be able to judge of the effect of our fire on the enemy by his return fire, for his infantry is too little exposed to view, and the smoke will obscure the whole field. If, as I infer from your note, there is any alternative to this attack, it should be carefully considered before opening our fire, for it will take all the artillery ammunition we have left to test this one thoroughly, and if the result is unfavorable we will have none left for another effort. And if this is entirely successful, it can only be so at a very bloody cost.

Longstreet countered with orders to let Pickett know as soon as an opportune moment for attack had come, and Alexander re-

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signedly wrote back: "When our artillery is doing its best I shall advise General Pickett to advance." T h e cannonade started at one o'clock with two signal blasts from the New Orleans Washington Artillery, on the Confederate right flank. T h e waiting battalions let go all along the line, and from one end to the other flames blossomed where the black muzzles poked out from the trees. T h e opposing artillery on Cemetery Ridge, on Cemetery Hill, and Little Round T o p replied. As the gunners on either side found the range, they inflicted terrible punishment on each other. What happened at Meade's headquarters is thus graphically described by Wilkinson of the New York Tribune: In the shadow cast by the tiny farm house lay wearied staff officers and tired correspondents. T h e r e was not wanting to the peacefulness of the scene the singing of a bird, which had a nest in a peach tree in the yard. In the midst of its warbling a shell screamed over the house, instantly followed by another, and another, and in a moment the air was full of the most complete artillery prelude to battle that was ever exhibited. Every size and form of shell k n o w n to British and American gunnery shrieked, whirled, moaned, whistled, and wrathfully fluttered over our ground. As many as six in a second bursting and screaming over and around the house made a very hell of fire that amazed the oldest officers. T h e y burst in the yard, burst next to the fence on both sides, garnished as usual with hitched horses. T h e fastened animals reared and plunged with terror. T h e n one fell, then another, sixteen lay dead and mangled still fastened by their halters, which gave the expression of being wickedly tied u p to die p a i n f u l l y . T h e s e brute victims of a cruel war touched all hearts. T h r o u g h the midst of the storm of screaming and e x p l o d i n g shells an a m b u l a n c e driven by its frenzied conductor at full speed, presented to all of us the marvelous spectacle of a horse going rapidly on three legs. A hinder one had been shot off at the hock.

Captain H. T . Owen, of the 18th Virginia Infantry, thus described the scene behind the Confederate lines: N o sound of roaring waters, nor wind, nor thunder nor of these combined, ever equaled the tremendous uproar, and no command, no order, n o sound of voice, could be heard at all over the ceaseless din of thousands of shrieking shot and shell falling thick and fast on every side and bursting w i t h terrific explosions, while others by thousands came bounding, skipping, racing and chasing each other over the hill.

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Shortly before three o'clock the Union batteries slowed their fire, in order to cool the guns, save ammunition, and wait for some of the smoke to lift so that observations could be taken. It was expected that the assaulting troops would soon begin to move. Over in the Gray lines Alexander had seen the caissons blowing up among the Union batteries; he noted the slowing of their fire and calculated that his own stores of ammunition were being too rapidly depleted for comfort. If the attack failed, there might very well be a countercharge to meet, and this would require plenty of grape and canister. It was time to send in the infantry. He took a last look across the valley through his binoculars, then hastily wrote a note to Longstreet and handed it to a waiting courier. Meanwhile Pickett was writing a farewell letter on odd scraps of soiled paper to Miss LaSalle Corbell, the girl he was to marry in September. After finishing it, he stuffed the paper in an envelope and rode up to Longstreet, who was regarding the field somberly. Longstreet turned a troubled face to Pickett and said, almost in a whisper: "I am crucified at the thought of the sacrifice of life which this attack will make." At that moment the courier galloped up with Alexander's note. Pickett ran his eye over it, handed to Longstreet the message: "If you are coming, come at once or I cannot give you proper support, but the enemy's fire has not slackened at all. At least eighteen guns are still firing from the cemetery itself." Pickett now asked if he should go forward. Longstreet did not answer; he only dropped his head in reluctant assent. " T h e n I shall lead my division forward, sir," said Pickett. He pulled the letter from his pocket and wrote on the envelope: "If Old Peter's nod means death, good-by, and God bless you, little one!" He handed the letter to his commander for mailing and turned away. Longstreet must have written a letter himself almost immediately and sent the two off together. He said: "General Pickett has just entrusted to me the safe conveyance of the enclosed letter. If it should turn out to be his farewell the penciled note on the outside will show you that I could not speak the words which would send so gallant a soldier into the jaws of a useless death. . . ." Pickett's Division came up a ravine and through Spangler's

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Woods, with Kemper to the right and Garnett to the left in the first line. Back of them was Armistead. N e x t on the left was Archer's Brigade, from Hill's Corps, then Pettigrew's Brigade, Davis' Mississippians, and Brockenbrough's Brigade on the left of the line. At the south end, the brigades of W i l c o x and Perry were slightly back of Pickett and to his right. B e h i n d Pettigrew were Scales' and Lanes' Brigades. In all there were forty-two regiments from five States: Virginia nineteen, North Carolina fifteen, Alabama two, Tennessee three, and Mississippi three. Awaiting them, crowded near the U n i o n center, were twentyseven regiments: New York nine, Pennsylvania five, Vermont three, Massachusetts three, and one each from Delaware, Ohio, Minnesota, Maine, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Michigan. T h e s e , comprising about nine thousand men, directly faced the fifteen to eighteen thousand Confederates poised for the charge. M o r e Federals were up and down their lines and heavy reserves lay just back of them, a total usually estimated at forty thousand within the immediate area of the Federal center. Alexander rushed a final, urgent message up the line: "Come quick, eighteen guns are gone; unless you advance at once my ammunition won't let me support you properly." Pickett issued rapid commands, and the brigadiers galloped off. M e n raced out from the woods and fell into line quickly. Bugles sang and drums rattled. A shouted command was picked up by the officers and tossed over the three-quarter-mile front: "Forward. Guide center. M a r c h i " As the Gray lines began to advance, General W a r r e n from a lookout on Little R o u n d T o p signaled General H u n t , U n i o n artillery chief: " T h e y are moving out to attack!" T h e soldiers advanced, arms at right shoulder shift, bayonets gleaming in the sun. Above them the red battleflags waved and the regimental guidons snapped. T h e n the U n i o n batteries opened again and the ranks began to show gaps, but the men closed them up, still aligned. T h e y climbed over fences, some regiments encountering three or four such obstacles, but always the lines were quickly redressed and the advance resumed, still withholding fire. A skirmish line rippled ahead like a wave. It flushed the B l u e skirmishers, who fell back in a second undulating wave, spitting fire.

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T h e Confederate columns came on briskly until muzzles of the U n i o n guns were depressed and raked their front at closer r a n g e — then they wavered and reeled from the impact. Gaps were not so quickly closed. As the Gray lines neared the Emmittsburg Road, a hail of Union musketry fire swept the ranks, followed by showers of Minié balls. T w o fences hemmed the road, and the Union guns were being served rapidly now, many of them three times a minute from the hills four hundred feet beyond. Soon the U n i o n rifle pits could be seen just ahead, up at the e n d of the clover field, its border marked by a stone fence. T h e r e was a vibration in the air like the rush of wind through pine trees and the harsh whisper of great flocks of birds taking wing. T h i s was grape and canister—double charges that cut through the columns cruelly. Confederate batteries had fired over the heads of their advancing columns until that became too hazardous. Now their guns were silent and the B l u e artillery had free play, on the front and flanks, from the high point of the cemetery, and from Little R o u n d T o p . Again smoke was heavy all over the field. In the rolling clouds, Pickett's Division had drifted too far to one side, while the brigades of W i l c o x and Perry had continued ahead. T h u s a gap was opened, and Stannard's Vermont Brigade of the First Corps moved in upon Pickett's left and Wilcox's right. Over toward the cemetery, also, the Gray lines were being crowded on both sides and squeezed as though by pincers. From many points on the Union line, all that could be seen was a blank wall of smoke extending from near the ground almost to the red battle flags fluttering from their standards. T h e firing was directed into this screen of smoke, and the color-bearers fell one by one. At last the Confederates came out of the pall into the angle immediately east of an umbrella-shaped copse of red oaks—the place where the stone wall turned. Armistead was leading all that remained of the Gray host on this immediate front. H e leaped to the top of the low wall, holding his hat aloft on his sword's point as a guidon for the men. "Give them the cold steel, boys!" T h e challenge was answered by Cowan

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of the New York Battery who, as the Confederates poured over the wall, shrieked: "Give 'em double-canister at ten yardsl" All commands lost their identity. T h e men fought like animals, even taking one another by the throats, biting and kicking, slashing with sabers, using their muskets as clubs, beating one another with stones and cannon swabs. All the while the guns slammed and bucked as they poured out the bloody canister and grape. In the angle adjoining the Umbrella Grove on the east, all the guns of the Fourth U. S. Artillery had been silenced save one in Battery A. This was run down to the wall, and Lieutenant Alonzo H. Cushing pulled the lanyard, croaking, "I'll give them one more shot." He had been holding up his insides with one hand where he had been hit; now he slumped over his gun and the blackened gun-trail was painted red. Not far over to the left, Armistead was down, urging his men to hold fast even as he writhed with the agony of his death wound. Pickett stood on the slightly rising ground near the Codori farm buildings, along the Emmittsburg Road. He could see great masses of Blue infantry pouring down into the fields from the front and closing in from all sides. He saw there was no hope of holding on against such odds. He ordered the buglers to sound retreat. As the high notes rang against the hillside or splintered under the growl of cannon, the men in Gray retired—the veterans slowly, the unseasoned troops in headlong flight. T h e big guns raked the field, and the rifles of the Blue infantrymen crackled along the line. T h e Confederate guns again came into play as the opposing lines drew apart. But many men on both sides died here under the cross-fire of both their own and enemy guns. Five or six thousand Confederates at last got back to Seminary Ridge. Blackened, shaken, and bleeding, they waited for the countercharge that did not come, though the Union shells continued to burst around them. Pickett's courageous charge had failed utterly. On the trampled fields, in the dusty roads, and on the slopes of Cemetery Ridge lay the Confederate dead and dying. Major Abner R. Small, of the Sixteenth Maine Regiment, afterwards declared that on that fatal afternoon he had felt a consuming pity "for the victim of that ruined hope. Looking down on the scene of their defeat and of our

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victory, I could see only a square mile of T o p h e t . " T h e grandeur of that charge and the awfulness of its repulse inspired among U n i o n officers and men alike such a feeling of admiration and pity as partly to explain why no countercharge was ordered. T h e sun went down and the firing died away. Darkness came mercifully to the torn battlefield. C a l m reigned now except f o r cries of the wounded, who lay beyond the line of advance sentinels where they had fallen. T h e i r pleas for water went unanswered, as every attempt to enter this ghastly N o Man's L a n d drew fire f r o m enemy pickets. L a t e that night G e n e r a l J o h n D. Imboden, cavalryman of unattached command, answering a summons f r o m Lee, f o u n d him near midnight at Hill's headquarters. T h r o u g h the open flaps of Hill's tent, Imboden saw the generals seated on camp stools, a single guttering candle illuminating the maps spread out on their knees. T h e y were p l a n n i n g to send Confederate wounded home. I m b o d e n went on to general headquarters, a half-mile along the ridge. T h e r e were no staff officers about the headquarters tent, and no sentinels near by. T h e moon was three-quarters f u l l , and the ridge lay in silvery light; it was almost as bright as day. Imboden waited, listening to the stirrings of chipmunks along the stone fence. A b o u t o n e o'clock L e e rode u p on his iron-gray gelding, T r a v e l e r , his constant companion since the spring of 1862. T r a v e l e r was to carry h i m through the war, to remain with him after that, a n d finally to walk with empty saddle in his master's funeral procession. L e e had come alone f r o m Hill's tent. W h e n he saw Imboden standing there, he dismounted wearily and leaned against T r a v e l e r , his grief-stricken face showing plainly in the moonlight. T h e cavalrym a n was touched and embarrassed, feeling somehow like an intruder. H e ventured a suggestion that the General must be tired. L e e m u r m u r e d irrelevantly: " I t has been a sad, sad day for us." A f t e r w a r d , with an anguish that seemed w r u n g f r o m the depths of his soul, he whispered: " T o o bad, too bad. Oh, too b a d ! " O n Saturday evening, J u l y 4, the train of wounded was put into motion, and, as darkness came on, the storm that had swept up the valley at noon increased in f u r y . R a i n fell in sheets, meadows became lakes, a n d roads were flooded at every ford. Horses and mules,

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blinded by rain and lashing wind, became hard to manage. Shouted orders were lost in the tumult, and darkness added to the confusion and difficulties. While the effective fighting units were to cross the mountains through Monterey Gap above Fairfield, Imboden's train was sent over the same road by which the army had come in, through Cashtown. Thousands of wounded lay on the bare boards of the springless wagons, which crawled over roads that gradually filled knee-deep with mud. Most of the canvas covers were torn to ribbons by the gale, and the suffering soldiers lay exposed to the storm's full fury. T h e thin, worn horses did their best, literally straining their hearts to the last beat. Hundreds of them died in harness. Dawn found the head of the seventeen-mile wagon train still in Pennsylvania, but at nightfall the leaders were within sight of the Potomac. T h e last wagon reached that river on Tuesday morning, July 7. Behind it stretched the rutted, tortuous road, marked by hastily scratched graves, by bodies of men who had died as they staggered along and were never missed in the night, by dying men, abandoned horses, broken wagons, and discarded gear. Gettysburg was far behind the wagon trains now—Gettysburg, where the star of the Confederacy had begun its descent. By July 13 the whole of Lee's retreating army had crossed the Potomac and stood safely on Virginia soil. It was the end of a successful retreat, but the beginning of the end for the Confederacy. For two more years the "ruined hope" was to drag itself along the bitter road that led eventually to Appomattox.

T H E FISHING CREEK CONFEDERACY TUCKED among the hills of east central Pennsylvania, in that part extending f r o m Bloomsburg to C o l u m b i a County's northern boundary, lies a fertile valley about thirty miles long and a quarter-mile to three miles in width. From almost inaccessible swamps and gorges on the southern slope of North Mountain, a f a m e d trout stream gathers its forces f o r a m a d dash down steep inclines and picturesque falls. Fed by countless springs and runs, it becomes a silvery creek, dividing the valley, flowing swiftly through verdant groves and rich farmlands on its way to the Susquehanna R i v e r . Fishing Creek Valley in the late summer of 1864 basked peacef u l l y remote among its hills, while hundreds of miles to the south two American armies—one in blue, the other in gray—were locked in combat. T h e thunder of guns could not be heard in the quiet valley; the northward-blowing winds brought neither the roar of battle nor the groans of the dying. T h e valley was untroubled, save by the anxiety of its people f o r fathers and sons w h o had gone to w a r and by grief for those w h o had fallen. T h i s quietude, however, was the calm that precedes a storm. Suspicion and distrust, always exaggerated among noncombatants, 222

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were at work. Rumors came of conspiracy and defection in communities of the North. Descendants of German and Scotch-Irish pioneers whispered tales about the "Knights of the Golden Circle," an organization of Southern sympathizers that had sprung into existence in Ohio and was said to have spread into Pennsylvania. T o these alarms were added the enmities aroused by political controversy within the valley itself. Columbia County for the most part had been settled by hardy, honest, independent pioneers who had gone up the Susquehanna from lower Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey. They had cleared the land, tilled the soil, prospered and brought forth sons and daughters. Here among the rolling hills and winding valleys they had lived aloof from changing political trends. They worshipped the Lord as devout Christians and voted the Democratic ticket—because their fathers had voted that way. Gradually they formed clubs, argued among themselves, and developed differences of opinion, haranguing one another on such controversial subjects as the Missouri Compromise, the Crittenden Compromise, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the Dred Scott Decision. They read and heatedly discussed the debates between Lincoln and Douglas. They read and re-read the weekly newspapers—their main source of news—and hung them upon strings over the fireplace or in chimney corners, where they remained for constant reference until the pages no longer held together. Through it all they remained mainly Democrats in political faith. Others in the county might change, but not the folk of Fishing Creek Valley. They held fast to their traditional political beliefs. In their naïve honesty they proclaimed those opinions loudly and emphatically, and sometimes not too wisely. Their few Republican neighbors did not like that kind of talk, particularly after the election of a Republican President and the outbreak of the Civil War in 1861. T h e call to the colors was answered by Republicans and Democrats alike. These marched, fell, and died side by side, their differences forgotten, but in the Valley of Fishing Creek friendly debates developed into tirades, bitter prejudices were fostered into feuds, and malice poisoned the air. T h e entire State was overwrought,

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and the temper of Columbia County was not greatly different from that elsewhere, even in sections nearer the Mason and Dixon Line. On the night of August 1, 1864, a smali party of furloughed Luzerne County soldiers headed by Lieutenant J . Stewart Robinson rode on horseback into northern Columbia County. According to one account, they chanced upon a man traveling alone upon the road near Raven Creek, and ordered him to halt. When he failed to do this, one of the soldiers fired a shot at him. T h e man then wheeled and opened fire at the band of horsemen, wounding Robinson fatally and several of his companions slightly. According to another account, Robinson and his companions were fired upon from ambush, and by more than one assailant, before they themselves discharged their weapons. This unfortunate incident served to focus attention upon Columbia County and to magnify its political bickerings. From the hitherto secluded region came charges of draft dodging, countered by accusations of unfair enrollments. There were stories of Republicans terrorizing Democrats in some townships, of Democrats terrorizing Republicans in others. T o each charge of draft evasion or disaffection to the cause, Columbia County folk retorted that their county and other Democratic counties were compelled to provide more than the proportionate share of men. Soon the region, principally as a result of the shooting, was filled with wild reports that Confederate sympathizers, or Confederates themselves, had built a fort upon the rocky ramparts of North Mountain, with entrenchments, guns, and a garrison sufficient to resist any Union detachment that might attempt to seize it. It was said that part of the fort's armament was a big brass cannon that had been dragged up the rocky trails and precipices, after having been smuggled through the Union lines. Tales of this kind were carried from mouth to mouth until even some of the more sensible element began to credit them. Those living outside Columbia County began to believe that an investigation should be made. Perhaps it was this pressure of public sentiment that caused state and national authorities to take military action. T h e first detachment of soldiers arrived Saturday evening, August 13, 1864, in Bloomsburg, the county seat. Others came later, and within a few days the armed force numbered a thousand, with

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General Davis Nash Couch, commander of the Department of the Susquehanna, in command. T h e force encamped on the fairgrounds near Bloomsburg. It consisted of a company of mounted men, a section of the Keystone Battery of Philadelphia, and a battalion of infantry. After these had been reinforced by a battalion of the Veteran Reserve Corps, the army of occupation was complete. T h i s army, with all the panoply of war, was to march up Fishing Creek Valley through shocked and affrighted villages, past scattered homesteads, to capture non-existent rifle pits, to arrest deserters who never had deserted, and to storm an invisible fort manned by invisible rebels. T h e presence of the military force aroused excitement and created turmoil throughout the county, especially in the northern townships against which the expedition was known to be headed. O n August 14, the day after the first detachment of troops arrived in Bloomsburg, a meeting of Fishing Creek residents was held in a barn between Stillwater and Benton. T h i s was the locally famous "Rantz Meeting," sometimes mistaken as the cause of the invasion. Many of those present at the meeting had come armed—some with antique squirrel rifles that for years had been gathering dust on their hooks above the fireplaces. Indignation mingled with terror. Some spoke vehemently of resisting the invasion, as the Minute Men of 1775 had resisted the British at Lexington. However, the conservative element had its way. Older and wiser members of the community prevailed upon the hotheads to go home, surrender their arms, and attend to their affairs quietly. T h e y were told that if anything should happen to them, they would have the law to fall back upon. T h e troops remained encamped at Bloomsburg until Sunday, August 21, when the march up Fishing Creek Valley began with bands playing, banners waving, and the cavalry, infantry, and artillery in proper marching order. A throng of civilians followed the soldiers, for churches had been abandoned and the quiet propriety of the day was disregarded in the pomp and circumstance of war. T h e invaders halted for the night at Stoker's (now Zaner's) Bottom, below Stillwater, and on the following day they went on to Benton, where camp was made in Coleman's Grove. During the ensuing week, scouting parties were sent out to search for "enemy

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outposts." They directed their energies to robbing hen roosts, trampling down cornfields, and capturing "companies" of hogs. On August 28, Major General George Cadwalader of Philadelphia arrived to assume command. Squads of soldiers were posted at strategic points over the northern townships, and on August 31 at break of day a number of homes were surrounded and a hundred citizens arrested. They were taken to a meetinghouse near Benton, where an examination of their cases was held under the direction of Lieutenant Colonel Charles Stewart. No opportunity was offered for a defense, nor was any reason given for their arrests. Fifty-five, however, were discharged and sent home. T h e other forty-five were forced to walk from Benton to Bloomsburg—a distance of eighteen miles—whence they were sent to Philadelphia for internment in Fort Mifflin on the Delaware. There, at a later date, they were to learn that they had been arrested because they . . . did unite, confederate, and combine with others disloyal,

persons

whose names are unknown, and formed, or united with a society or organization commonly known and callcd by the name of the Knights of the G o l d e n Circle, the object of which society or organization was and is to resist execution of the draft and prevent persons w h o have been drafted u n d e r provisions of the said A c t of Congress, approved M a r . 3, 1 8 6 2 , a n d the several supplements thereto, from entering the military service of the U n i t e d States. T h i s was done at or near Benton T o w n s h i p ,

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C o u n t y , Penna., on or about A u g . 14, 1864, and at divers times a n d places before and after the said mentioned day.

T h e men arrested were neither riffraff nor scoundrels, and none of them had any connection with the Raven Creek shooting of August. One, Dyer L. Chapín, of New Columbus, was a justice of the peace and had served in the State Legislature. Another, Daniel McHenry, was treasurer of Columbia County; and James McHenry at the time of his arrest had his name on a note for two thousand dollars to be used for bounties to pay volunteers to fill the draft quota of his township. He was subsequently elected and reëlected to the legislature as a representative from Luzerne County. Elias Jackson McHenry, another victim, later was to serve two terms in the state senate. Then there was the Reverend A. R. Rutan, a scholarly, elderly man beloved and respected by all who knew him.

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T h o u g h one of those discharged at Benton, he was rearrested and imprisoned at Fort Mifflin. These wholesale arrests did not end the military invasion of Fishing Creek Valley. General Cadwalader marched his army to the head of the creek and encamped at the foot of the close-crowding mountains. From this base he launched upon an extensive search for the alleged fort, its two fieldpieces, its brass cannon, and its five hundred defenders. T h e soldiers, who had had an easy time of it down in the bottom lands, now were compelled to clamber laboriously up steep slopes, over rocks and windfalls, and through brier patches and huckleberry bushes. They scoured the region thoroughly. T h e y came upon startled berry pickers and occasionally stumbled over bear traps. But the fort remained invisible, the cannon silent. T h e brooding woods offered no sound save that of their own stumbling progress through brook or thicket, and the frightened call of bird or beast fleeing their advance. General Cadwalader, disgusted at the entire proceeding, returned to Bloomsburg. " T h e whole thing is a farce!" he declared angrily. O n September 7 he went back to Philadelphia, leaving the army in command of Colonel Stewart, who had conducted the hearings at Benton. Stewart himself was soon court-martialed and relieved of his command for extorting money from alleged deserters; and his successor, Colonel Albright, is said to have given much time to hunting up affidavits against the Fort Mifflin prisoners. In preparation for the state election in October, the entire county was put under military surveillance. Squads of soldiers were sent out night after night to arrest certain citizens who then were held under guard, confined in jail, or hurried unceremoniously out of the county. O n election day eleven soldiers stood at the polling places in Center Township. In Beaver Township a camp of about sixty soldiers was established a few rods from the polling place; during the day an armed party of between ten and fifteen constantly remained at the polls. T h e same condition existed at polling places in Mount Pleasant, Fishing Creek, Hemlock, and other townships. In Benton the soldiers, on the night before election, arrested the only remaining member of the election board, the others being in Fort Mifflin.

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In Jackson and Sugarloaf townships, at the election's close, soldiers stalked into polling places and demanded the returns. A t other points in the county they were posted on roads leading to the polling places, arresting voters as they came along. In Bloomsburg the sheriff and the clerk of the county commissioners were arrested and sent to the Dauphin County jail. T h i s act paralyzed county justice as well as county business, for among the men already incarcerated at Fort Mifflin were the county treasurer a n d one county commissioner. T h e sheriff and clerk, however, were released, after a detention of three days, through representation made by United States Senator Buckalew to the Governor and to the head of the Military Commission. Shortly thereafter, on November 5, there occurred the tragic incident still referred to as the "Cole Hanging." O n that day, a Saturday afternoon, three soldiers and a civilian guide came to the farm of Ezekiel J. Cole, in Jackson T o w n s h i p , to arrest Cole and possibly take a few sheep. Cole had gone hunting up West Creek G a p the Monday before, but his wife and a sixteen-year-old-son, Leonard, were at home. T h e soldiers searched the house and then went to the barn. In the meantime young Cole had stolen out to the near-by pasture; he was driving the sheep into the woods when one of the soldiers saw h i m and dragged him to the barn. T h e r e , in the feed entry, with the aid of two lengths of r o p e — o n e of which they had brought w i t h them, the other picked u p in the b a r n — t h e soldiers proceeded to "examine" young Cole while the civilian stood on lookout, at the corn crib outside. T h e "examination" was a grisly one. T h e soldiers made a noose at one end of the rope and put it around the boy's neck. T h e n , using a mowpole as an improvised gallows, they pulled at the other rope-end until the victim's heels were drawn off the floor. After a minute or two of this they eased up on the rope and questioned y o u n g Cole as to the whereabouts of his father. Half blinded and in pain, the boy told them that his father had gone u p to the old gap and would not be home for several days. T h e y would have to wait until he returned, or go u p after him. Several times the boy was subjected to alternate periods of torture and questioning. Finally his mother and a woman named

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Elizabeth Robbins, chancing to discover the drama being enacted in the barn, rushed upon the soldiers, flailing them with broomsticks. T h e soldiers ran away, and the two women tore the rope from around the suffocating boy's neck. He staggered out of the barn, gasping for air, his eyes half out of their sockets. T h e elder Cole was a respected citizen who had been arrested to prevent his voting at the state election and had then been released. It is presumed the soldiers had been ordered to arrest him again to keep him from voting at the approaching presidential election. N o other explanation has ever been offered, and the two soldiers were never punished, though the boy eventually died from the maltreatment. It was at this time that the Reverend Mr. Rutan, arrested in the August raids and released at Benton, was rearrested. T h e clergyman lived at N e w Columbus, Luzerne County, just over the line from C o l u m b i a County. He had broken no law, was not liable to military law or military jurisdiction—being an aged man unfit for service— and had done nothing more criminal than to declare that the men confined in Fort Mifflin were innocent of wrong. However, Rutan was dragged from his bed one n i g h t — j u s t before the November election—by six soldiers who took him to Benton. T h e r e he was held for several days before being sent to Harrisburg. He was released then, but shortly afterwards was arrested again. T h i s time he was tried before the Military Commission and sentenced to prison, where he remained until President Lincoln interposed on his behalf. In the meantime Senator Buckalew and Colonel Freeze went to Chambersburg and pointed out to General Couch that there never had been any actual resistance to a government officer in Columbia County. T h e y emphasized the fact that of the forty-four (one had been released the second day after their arrival) in Fort Mifflin, only one owed military service, and that man had been drafted while out of the State. T h e r e f o r e forty-three of those held in prison, having never been drafted, were not amenable to military jurisdiction. A n d even if they were, the General was told, an act of Congress expressly required that persons charged with resisting the draft, and arrested by the military, must be delivered forthwith to civil au-

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thorities for trial. It was now a month and a half since the mass arrests, and none of the confined men had had a trial. T h e General gave orders for an investigation of the case and promised a discharge of all but a few w h o were to be held for prompt trials. Five were immediately discharged because of sickness: J o h n Yorks, W i l l i a m Roberts, Joseph Coleman, R o h r McHenry, and Elias McHenry. R o h r McHenry and John Yorks were carried o u t on stretchers. W i l l i a m Roberts was taken home in a coffin—an innocent victim, dead before the military order of release arrived. Some time later sixteen others were discharged, but more than half were held for trial at Harrisburg before the Military Commission, which consisted of three army officers, with Captain Francis Wessels as judge advocate. T h e first case called was that of John Rantz, charged with being a conspirator and an organizer, or member, of an unlawful secret organization, and with making unlawful speeches. Counsel argued vehemently that the defendant was not triable by the Commission nor any other military tribunal whatever, but Rantz nevertheless was sentenced to pay a fine of one thousand dollars and to serve two years' imprisonment at Fort Mifflin. Six other trials followed, ending in convictions for Samuel Kline, W i l l i a m Appleman, John Lemons, Joseph Vansickle, Valentine Fell, and Benjamin Colley. T h e s e men were sentenced to imprisonment at Fort Mifflin for varying terms. T h e next to come up for trial was Daniel McHenry, treasurer of C o l u m b i a County and postmaster at Stillwater, who prepared to put up a vigorous fight against the difficulties that stood in the way of a full, fair, successful defense. Friends collected his witnesses with the advantage of experience gained in the previous trials. However, the Military Commission postponed his trial three times, each delay adding to the cost of the defense. Pending consideration of McHenry's case, Scott E. Colley was called u p for trial. Most of the witnesses on hand for the McHenry trial were used by the defense for Colley, w h o was acquitted. T h e articles of accusation were very nearly the same in all the cases tried, b u t only in the cases of Colley and McHenry was full defense made and records in all respects satisfactorily kept. T h e delayed trial of Daniel McHenry was finally called on December 14, at which time his case was fully heard. Evidence was

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presented that refuted all the general charges upon which the prior convictions of Columbia County prisoners had been based. Nothing was left of all the matter of general accusation against the prisoners, and the military occupation stood condemned before its own extraordinary and partial tribunal—the Military Commission—and before the people. Daniel McHenry was honorably acquitted, and it was recognized that, in procuring his own vindication, he had procured the same for his fellow prisoners. By the acquittal of Colley and McHenry, slander was silenced and the military raid upon Columbia County was placed beyond justification or excuse. W i t h the conclusion of the McHenry case the trials stopped and further efforts at prosecution died out. T h o s e still awaiting trial were released and sent home. Of the seven convicted men, one paid his fine, one was pardoned by President Lincoln, and five were pardoned by President Johnson. T h e Fishing Creek Confederacy is now an almost forgotten episode among the aged of Columbia County. T h e r e are only a few who can recall the sound of marching feet above the soft cadence of the stream, which chatters today as it did when a phantom garrison manned a phantom fort.

THE JOHNSTOWN FLOODS THE city of Johnstown, at the confluence of the Little Conemaugh and Stonycreek rivers, was founded in 1800 by Joseph (Schantz) Johns. T h e early settlers were farmers, and they enjoyed a moderate degree of happiness and contentment despite the constant threat of floods. T h e valleys of the Little Conemaugh coming in from the northeast, and Stonycreek, from the south, were fertile and productive, but they were also dangerously narrow. T h e first flood occurred in 1808, when the rivers overflowed their banks, causing the inhabitants to flee in terror to the near-by hills. W h e n the Stonycreek Dam, constructed on the Stonycreek River near the center of town, broke three years later and washed away the Cambria Forge, most settlers talked of moving to higher ground. But they had become so attached to their homes and the beautiful valley that they continued to live there. In 1816 a minor flood again sent the people scampering to the safety of the hills. In the fall of 1820, the Stonycreek River overflowed its banks and rollicked at will through the valley. It carried fences, barns, and a few houses downstream, and again flooded Johnstown. T h i s time, in addition to the usual débris deposited in the streets, the receding 232

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waters left behind them hundreds of pumpkins as a memento of their foray through valley farms. During the next dozen years Johnstown gradually developed from a rural community into a freighting center. In 1832 it became an important link in the chain of transportation facilities thrown across the State from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. T h e Pennsylvania Canal was completed in that year, and, in order to supply water for the canal bed during dry seasons, a reservoir was built on the South Fork branch of the Little Conemaugh, about sixteen miles above the point where the Little Conemaugh and Stonycreek rivers joined to form the Conemaugh. T h e South Fork Reservoir, when completed, was three miles long, from one-half to one mile wide, and seventy-two feet deep at the breast. Considerable damage was done to the canal and basin (the latter used for mooring boats and for loading and unloading) when a portion of the dam broke in 1847, inundating that part of the city where the Gautier Works of the Bethlehem Steel Corporation now stand. Although the floods of 1859, 1862, and 1868 were the causes of much inconvenience to householders, who had to clean out their cellars and first-floor rooms afterwards, the extent of the damage to property and livestock was small. In 1879 a group of wealthy men from Pittsburgh, desiring an exclusive summer resort, formed the South Fork Fishing and Hunting Club of Pittsburgh. They repaired the dam and enlarged the reservoir, renaming it Lake Conemaugh. T h e dam breast was poorly constructed, however, as it consisted of sand, leaves, loam, mud, and straw. And it was much lower in the middle than at the ends—a dangerous condition because the pressure was thereby directed against the middle. Following very heavy rainfalls in 1887 and 1888, the rivers overflowed their banks, causing a total damage amounting to a hundred thousand dollars. Citizens of Johnstown were now genuinely alarmed over the possibility of the dam breaking, but nothing was done to strengthen the breast and thus insure the safety of thousands living in the valley below. Meanwhile, with the development of the steel industry, Johnstown had grown rapidly. T h e surrounding hills were rich in bituminous coal deposits, which provided a cheap source of fuel for the

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steel mills. Attracted by the demand for labor, thousands of immigrants came to Johnstown. T h e city had a population of fifty thousand in 1889. During the last week of May 1889, the city and its environs experienced the worst rainfall in its history. On Friday morning, May 3 1 , the mills and stores were compelled to close, because the water was from two to ten feet deep in the streets. A semi-holiday spirit prevailed. When the Poplar Street Bridge and the Cambria City Bridge were swept away at noontime it was rumored that the South Fork Dam might break. Little attention was paid to these rumors, as the people had heard them many times in the past. "It is idle to speculate," the Johnstown Tribune said in an editorial that afternoon, "what would be the result if this tremendous body of water . . . should be thrown into the already submerged valley of the Conemaugh." At ten minutes after three in the afternoon the dam burst with a deafening roar. Among those to witness it was a youth named John Baker, who had ridden on horseback from the village of South Fork to take a look at the dam. Fortunately, Baker was still some distance away when the five-hundred-foot section gave way. Turning his horse about, he galloped toward the small mining community of South Fork, shouting: " T h e dam has brokenl R u n for your lives!" T h e flooding waters rolled down the valley. Trees were uprooted, houses crushed to kindling, big boulders swept along like straw, and many persons killed. T h e avalanche was checked momentarily where the valley narrowed. When it reached Johnstown an hour later, this seething mass of water—more than 4,500,000,000 gallons had been loosed—surged toward the Stone Bridge, which stood as firm as the Rock of Gibraltar. Stopped by this unexpected obstacle, the angry waters receded as far as the Eighth Ward one and a half miles southward, and then, like a tidal wave, retraced their path of destruction through the town. In the meantime a railroad car containing crude petroleum was derailed and damaged, covering the floating houses and driftwood with its inflammable contents. As the wreckage and débris piled high against the Stone Bridge, an overturned stove set fire to one of the houses, and the flaming mass at the bridge became a funeral

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pyre f o r three hundred persons. Many had escaped death by drowning only to perish in flames. It was a terrible night for the helpless survivors. In a cold rain they sat huddled on the hillsides, listening to the screams of the dying a n d awaiting dawn with dread in their hearts—dread at the horrible sights morning must reveal. A l t h o u g h the rivers were still swollen on Saturday, the work of finding and identifying the dead bodies began at once. One of every three f o u n d could not be identified. A corps of fifty-five undertakers worked day and night preparing the bodies for burial. It was eventually discovered that at least twenty-two hundred persons had lost their lives in this, the worst peacetime disaster in the Nation's history. A group of citizens formed a committee to preserve law and order, as there were many cases of robbery, looting, and pillage. Governor Beaver, at the request of Sheriff Burgess, sent the Fourteenth Regiment, Pennsylvania National G u a r d , to J o h n s t o w n to establish a virtual, if not official, state of martial law. Food supplies were shipped from Somerset, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Altoona, and other cities to take care of the thirty thousand persons faced with the threat of famine. Clara Barton, of the R e d Cross Society, directed the work of relief. T h e State B o a r d of Health worked hard to curb and prevent the spread of disease, some of which almost reached epidemic proportions. T o u c h e d by the misery and sorrow of the stricken people, a n d marveling at their tremendous courage, the outside world contributed more than three million dollars to be distributed by a commission according to the needs and losses of the survivors. T h e great task of rehabilitation began immediately, and in a remarkably short time a new and larger city arose from the ruins of the old. As a result of a flood on February 17, 1891, when both rivers overflowed their banks, causing the mills to shut down, the Conemaugh R i v e r (below the Point) was widened to two hundred and sixty feet. It was believed that this additional width would allow f o r a better run-off, thus preventing overflows after heavy rains. B u t floods came again in 1894, 1902, 1906, and 1907. T w o lives were lost in 1894 and one in 1907. For nineteen years, f r o m 1907 to 1936, the city was lulled into a

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false security by the absence of any floods. Meanwhile, Johnstown had become the largest industrial center between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, with a metropolitan population of a hundred and five thousand in 1930. T h e winter of 1935-36 was one of the most severe in the history of the city. Snowdrifts, thirty to forty feet high, lay in the highlands for months in sub-zero weather. O n March 15-16, heavy rains plus a rising temperature caused the snow to melt rapidly and soak the soil to the saturation point. Hills were furrowed with rivulets. Both rivers reached a flood stage on the morning of St. Patrick's Day, as the rain continued unabated. By mid-afternoon it was apparent to everyone that this was a second m a j o r flood. T h e water rose steadily. T o the thousands w h o became marooned in office buildings, stores, and homes, it seemed as though the rain would never stop. W a s h i n g machines, pianos, refrigerators, tanks, and all kinds of wreckage bobbed through the streets and alleys. A t twilight the city was completely submerged. Bridges were destroyed and carried away. Power plants failed to function, and communication with the outside world was cut off; the city was completely isolated and in complete darkness. T h e high-water mark of 12.37 ^ e e t ' a t Locust Street and Lee Place, was reached at 12:10 a.m., Wednesday, March 18. T e n minutes later the water began to recede at approximately the same rate it had risen. T h e flood had caused twenty-four deaths. T h e streets were covered with thick deposits of mud and muck. It required weeks of hard work to clean homes, furniture, and personal belongings. T h e forces of the Works Progress Administration in neighboring counties were mobilized to do the back-breaking work of cleaning cellars and streets before epidemics could break out. Property damage was estimated at more than forty million dollars. Scarcely had the people returned to their homes to begin the disagreeable task of making their houses habitable when a rumor was circulated that the Q u e m a h o n i n g Dam, about eighteen miles south of Johnstown, had broken! T h e panic that followed was pitiable to behold. T h e i r nerve shattered by the experiences of the previous day, Johnstown's citizens rushed in terror to the hills. A l l Wednesday afternoon thousands stood on the hillsides in a cold,

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drizzling rain, waiting for the deluge that would have destroyed Johnstown forever. But the dam had not broken, and after a while the grim crowds straggled down from the hills. When, on August 13, 1936, President Franklin D. Roosevelt came to Johnstown to see for himself the extent of the damage, he told the people: "We want to keep you . . . from facing those floods again. T h e Federal Government, if I have anything to do with it, will cooperate with your State and community to prevent further floods." T h a t same afternoon he signed a bill appropriating three hundred thousand dollars to be used in preliminary surveys for an adequate flood-control program. Although actual flood-control work had begun, the people of Johnstown were again visited by a flood on April 26, 1937. Thick sand bars and large deposits of mud in the rivers prevented a normal run-off, when two days of incessant rain had drenched the city. T h e temporary Franklin Street Bridge, erected by the W.P.A., was destroyed and swept away. T h e water was nearly five feet deep in some sections of the city. A $7,600,000 flood-control program was officially approved by the War Department on September 28, 1937. Construction on the first unit of the plan was begun on August 20, 1938. T h e entire project includes the enlarging and re-aligning of river channels; concrete pavement protection for the river banks; relocation of railroad tracks, highways, and public utilities; and alterations to sewers, drains, bridge piers, and other structures. T h e plan, consisting of six units, will give the city effective flood control.

THE HOMESTEAD STRIKE IN THE Horatio Alger career of Andrew Carnegie, the year 1892 was a p a i n f u l and embarrassing period. T o organized steel workers, it brought disaster. T o B e n j a m i n Harrison, it put an end to Presidential ambitions. T o Pittsburgh, it was the coronation year of K i n g Steel. In July 1892, at Homestead borough, steel town on the Monongahela River six miles above Pittsburgh, thirty-eight hundred employees of the Carnegie Steel Company struck or were locked out of the mills; and there followed one of the most bloody conflicts between labor and ownership in the industrial history of America. It stirred the United States Congress and the British Houses of Parliament; evoked editorials from nearly every newspaper in England and America; destroyed the organization of steelworkers for more than forty years; and contributed largely to the defeat of Benjamin Harrison by Grover Cleveland in the Presidential election. T h e town of Homestead was for a week ruled by the "army" and "navy" of the striking workers and then seized by eight thousand Pennsylvania militiamen, after three hundred strike-breaking guards of the Pinkerton Detective Agency had narrowly escaped annihilation 238

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at the hands of enraged millmen and their families. Charges and countercharges of murder, riot, conspiracy, and treason hung fire in Pennsylvania courts for months against high officials of the Carnegie Company and the leaders of the employees. H. C. Frick, Carnegie's second-in-command, was nearly assassinated by the anarchist Alexander Berkman, and a young state militiaman was hung up by the thumbs for openly approving the deed. Carnegie's sojourn in his Scotland castle during all this time was publicly attributed to lack of courage, and his long-standing reputation for philanthropy and progressivism suffered a serious blow. Such, in brief, was the tragedy of Homestead. It was the climax to a decade of awakening industrial strife in the coal fields, among the smoking coke ovens, and on the railroads where were staged the disastrous riots in Pittsburgh in 1877. Introduction of machinery, speed-up in production, exhausting working conditions, rising profits and falling wages, and the growth of labor organizations characterized the new industrialism. T h e frequent adjustments were painful, violent, and costly. T h e canny and philanthropic Carnegie adopted a policy of settling strikes simply by closing the mills and waiting for the men to return of their own accord (usually under Carnegie's terms). He called his foremen and superintendents by their first names and instigated among them, by little personal notes and gibes, a condition of unfriendly rivalry, which stepped up the tempo of production ever faster and faster. He reiterated his belief in the rights of labor and unionism, and, with the help of his many secretaries, wrote volumes of almost radical essays on social progress. And as the perpetual labor rows destroyed his rivals in the industry, their properties passed into his hands, labor troubles died, and great profits piled up. Both the Homestead and Duquesne mills had been acquired in practically this fashion. Carnegie was an insistent advocate of the highest protective tariff, but so was every American industrialist, and thus no particular criticism can be leveled at him on that score. Noteworthy, in the light of future events, was the fact that H. C. Frick, coke king, became chairman of Carnegie Brothers & Company in 188g by securing a practical monopoly on a product indispensable to Carnegie's steelmaking. In the same year the Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and

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T i n Workers had negotiated with the Carnegie Company a threeyear contract embodying primarily a sliding wage scale based on the price of steel billets, then selling at $26.50 per ton. Wages were to slide upward with the price, but not downward if the price fell below $25, the so-called "minimum base." This was much in harmony with Carnegie's own ideas on the subject. He disapproved of most profit-sharing schemes, declaring that steel was either "prince or pauper," and that working people could not afford to share its poverty. T h e contract was to terminate June 30, 1892. Lingering on the Carnegie horizons for a decade, the storm broke over Homestead early in 1892 when the company announced its intention, upon the termination in June of the 1889 contract, to cut tonnage wage rates and reduce the minimum base to $22. The price of steel had fluctuated widely, going as high as $36 in December 1889; by March 1892 it was to fall to $23. Moreover, when the scale was fixed in '89, ingots were rolled directly through a 119-inch plate mill, producing about 2,500 tons per month. But later, with the introduction of the 32-inch slabbing mill, ingots were first reduced to slabs and then rolled through the 119-inch mill, resulting in almost double the tonnage for the latter. T h e company declared that the men, in insisting upon the maintenance of the 1889 scale and minimum base, were demanding all of the benefit and profit that accrued from the investment in the million-dollar slabbing mill. T h e company also wanted contracts to terminate with the calendar year rather than in midsummer. This was opposed by the employees, who desired that, in the event a strike were ever necessary to obtain renewal of their contract, it should be in the summer rather than in January, when the rigors of midwinter weather constitute an added hardship. In February 1892, a series of fruitless conferences between the company and the Amalgamated Association began. June 24 was set as the deadline for the acceptance of a new agreement embodying wage reductions. And then, in April, a new note was injected into the trouble— doubtless the most significant of all. On April 4, Carnegie sent to Pittsburgh a notice to the effect that in the future the Homestead mill must be run on a non-union basis because of its consolidation with the non-union Duquesne and Braddock mills. For obvious tac-

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tical reasons Chairman Frick disapproved of the order, and it was never issued. Carnegie favored unionism, but the businesslike and unsentimental brand of unionism advanced by the big Amalgamated Association did not fit his idea of personal dealings with little organizations confined to his own mills. T h e trouble was fast reaching calamitous proportions. After dispatching his message of non-unionism, Carnegie departed for Scotland, and H. C. Frick was left in command. Now there had been much labor difficulty in the Connellsville coke district, which Frick practically controlled, and, deservedly or not, he was regarded as an enemy of organized labor. He had made a fortune out of the depression of 1873, when he bought up the coke ovens of timid owners who feared bankruptcy. With the return of business activity, he was the largest coking operator in the United States, and in 1882 the Carnegies, dependent on his coke to feed their mills, bought an interest in the business. In 188g Frick purchased the Carnegie interests of D. O. Stewart and became chairman of Carnegie Brothers & Company and, shortly, a power second only to Carnegie himself. In what was heralded as a stroke of industrial genius, he manipulated the acquisition of the Duquesne Steel Works simply by organizing a steel rail pool, which excluded the Duquesne company; whereupon, with his business at a standstill, W. G. Park sold the concern to Carnegie for one million dollars—in bonds, not cash. He also maneuvered the purchase of some of the largest ore mines in the Lake Superior region in a move to consolidate mines, railroads, lake steamers, and steel plants, and so assure Carnegie's supremacy in the East. He became the second largest stockholder in the company. It has been suggested that Carnegie deliberately left his "strong man" behind to deal with a situation that, from the beginning, promised to be nasty, and to do what he did not wish to do himself: namely, to break with the old era of persuasiveness, camaraderie, and friendly bargaining, and establish one of undisputed control. At any rate, on June 10, he wrote from Scotland advising Frick to hold no more conferences, but to make a stand and prepare for a struggle. A high board stockade, surmounted with barbed wire and loopholed every few feet, was erected fortress-like around the mill, con-

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vincing the employees that preparations were being made to enforce the contract revisions. T h e y watched "Frick's Fort" with daily increasing uneasiness. Nevertheless, contrary to Carnegie's advice, Frick did hold another conference with the Amalgamated on June 23, at which time a partial compromise was achieved on the minimum base price; but only heated and bitter argument resulted in the discussion of the wage cut and the date for contract termination. T h e next day, June 24, was the deadline for acceptance of the revised contract on a union basis. T h a t day passed, and on the next Frick wrote to Robert A . Pinkerton of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in New York, stating that on July 6 he would require the services of three hundred guards to prevent interference with reopening of the mill. T h e entire force of old employees was paid off and discharged on July 2, following the termination of the old contract. T h e r e was now but one issue—unionism. Could Frick open the mill with nonunion labor, or could the Amalgamated prevent him? Only about eight hundred of the employees really belonged to the Association, but the other three thousand had dropped their individual contracts with the company and had joined their demands with those of the unionists. Certainly, nine out of ten of the men believed the company was bluffing, and that the "Little Boss" (Carnegie) would never enter into such serious conflict with his men. Heretofore it had not been his policy to attempt to replace strikers. " T o expect," he had once written, "that one dependent upon his daily wage for the necessaries of life will stand by peaceably and see a new man employed in his stead is to expect much." So the derisive men hanged Frick and Superintendent Potter in effigy and waited for Carnegie to return. In the last few days of June the eight Homestead lodges of the Amalgamated, taking the Little Boss at his word, formed an advisory committee to organize picketing of the mill. H u g h O'Donnell was its chairman. Under the committee the force of four thousand men was organized into an "army" and "navy." T h e "army," in divisions and companies, held the town, the river front, railway stations, and highways, and kept a twenty-four-hour watch on the plant. T h e "navy" patrolled the Monongahela River with the steamboat Edna and a fleet of fifty rowboats. A code of signals was

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adopted, using flags, Roman candles, and a large steam whistle. Captains reported to commanders, and commanders to the advisory committee; so elaborate was the system that a force of thousands could be assembled within a few minutes to repel any attempted entrance to the plant. At night the waters of the Monongahela reflected the fires of the "army," bivouacked on the banks between it and the silent mills. T h e committee had virtually superseded the civil authorities, and entrance to the works was denied to would-be workers, Carnegie officials, and the sheriff of Allegheny County, to whom Frick had appealed. No smoke issued from its great stacks on July 6, or for many days thereafter. Shortly after midnight on the morning of the fatal July 6, a Homestead millworker lingering on the Smithfield Street Bridge in Pittsburgh observed two strange-looking barges in the tow of a steamboat coming up the Monongahela River. As they passed under the bridge, he saw they were loaded with hundreds of rifle-armed men. Such a cargo could have but one destination—Homestead. T h e rumored Pinkertons had arrived! Word was telegraphed immediately to O'Donnell, chairman of the advisory committee, and in a few minutes the scream of the steam whistle awoke the sleeping town and mobilized the "army" at the river. There the shouting, screaming thousands—men armed with rifles and revolvers, the women and children with fence pickets and stones —waited until the yellow lights of the steamer Little Bill and her barges appeared in the cold morning mist. T h e convoy, subjected to a fusillade of shots that took an early toll as it steamed past the town, finally poked its nose into the bank at the mill landing. But the mob had surged after it, tearing down the stockade and massing in the mill yard, to the water's edge, before the barges could be unloaded. When the gangplank was dropped, a young religious leader of the community threw himself flat upon it as though to prevent the passage of the detectives; from somewhere came a shot, followed by an exchange of fire from the boats and the massed crowd. Those on shore retreated behind the piles of metal, and a short conference ensued. T h e chief of the detectives called out that they had been sent to enter and guard the mill. He was told in reply that he and his men would do so only "over the dead bodies of three thousand workingmen." That was all. When a number of the

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Pinkertons stepped ashore a little later, they were again driven back by gunfire. T h e Little Bill now cut loose from her charges and ran on up the river with dead and wounded. She returned in an hour or so, intending to take away the beleaguered craft. T h e workmen, mistaking her purpose, fired upon her, and with one of her crew dead she was driven on down the river, leaving the Pinkertons marooned in their stranded craft. By this time the enraged mob, with scores of its own number already dead and wounded, was bent upon the complete destruction of the barges and their hated occupants, whose reputed strikebreaking activities in many other localities were likely to be held to account now. For the next ten hours, the detectives were subjected to every fantastic method of siege the experience and daring of these brawny millworkers could conceive. Any one of these methods, had it been successful, would have slaughtered the invaders to the last man. Dynamite was hurled upon them time and again, only to explode short of its mark. Oil was poured upon the river, and ignited, and sprayed at the barges with the borough fire hose. A flaming tank car was rolled down from an incline on the bank, but stopped short of its goal. Burning rafts were set afloat in the current. Natural gas from a near-by main was directed so as to envelop the barges, and then rockets were fired in an unsuccessful attempt to ignite it. A ten-pound cannon, dragged from the lawn of the G.A.R. Post in Homestead, occasionally added its roar to the bedlam as it sent charges of iron scraps smashing against the barges. A second piece brought into play from the opposite bank was silenced after it had killed one of the workmen across the river. A white flag, raised by the now thoroughly terrified Pinkertons, was greeted with shouts of "No quarter!" and a volley of rifle shots. Leaders of the advisory committee and the Amalgamated Association made several desperate efforts to persuade the men to desist and allow the detectives to land and depart. When a second time, about five o'clock that evening, a ragged white cloth was waved frantically from one of the boats, they were permitted to surrender with a promise of protection from mob violence. But the rage of the mob was not so easily abated, even on the entreaties of its leaders, and when the detectives emerged disarmed from the barges

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they were subjected to a fearful storm of abuse. T h e infuriated people—men, women, and children—formed a mile-long, yelling, threatening gauntlet reminiscent of the sport of Indians. Through this the detectives were forced to struggle—kicked, clubbed, and mauled almost every step of the way. When they reached the town hall, their place of confinement, not a man of them but was badly battered and bruised, in several cases fatally. T o their great relief, they were taken to Pittsburgh that night by special train in charge of the Allegheny County sheriff. One of them declared afterwards: " I went to Homestead for fifteen dollars a week, but would not go back for fifteen thousand a minute. It was the first naval battle I was ever in and I want it to be the last." T e n men had been killed that day, and sixty wounded. Of the dead, seven were millworkers. T h e Pinkerton men's marksmanship had been good even in their fright, and the battle had not been as one-sided as the more spectacular tactics of the strikers might imply. For five days more, the advisory committee held control of the town in a manner notably to its credit. Rioting and disturbances ceased, and persons and property, even company property, were scrupulously protected. When the Carnegie Company finally regained possession of the mill, it was found in perfect order, even the necessary maintenance work having been done. On J u l y 12 the Governor declared martial law in Homestead, and eight thousand militiamen marched in and ended the impromptu government. T h e strike was broken and officially called off November 21. But the repercussions proved in some ways even more tumultuous. On July 23, 1893, Alexander Berkman, a Russian anarchist, stranger in Pittsburgh and in no way associated with the Amalgamated Association, had walked into Frick's Pittsburgh office, shot him twice with a revolver, and then attacked him with a stiletto before being overpowered. Frick, though dangerously wounded, recovered, and Berkman was sent to prison for a long term. Militiaman W. L . lams, at the Homestead camp when news came of the attempted assassination, shouted out for all to hear: "Hurrah for the man who shot Frick!" for which temerity he was hung by his thumbs and then drummed out of camp. He had been thinking, he said, of the weeks he spent with the Guard at Frick's coke ovens.

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Carnegie was almost unanimously condemned by the press and public for his failure personally to mediate the strike, and there was open debate as to the propriety of accepting his endowments for libraries and museums. "Carnegie," said the conservative London Times, "has probably by this time seen cause to modify his praise of unionism and the sweet reasonableness of its leaders." Then it questioned boldly: "Or are we to assume that this doctrine is true in Glasgow but not in the United States, or ceases to be applicable the moment Mr. Carnegie's interests are touched?" O'Donnell and several others of the advisory committee were indicted for murder and treason, and countercharges were brought against Carnegie, Frick, Potter, and the Pinkertons. lams brought to court General Snowden and other officers of the militia, for his summary treatment at their command. The trials proved only added fuel for the blazing sensationalism of the moment, and no convictions were ever obtained. Both the United States Senate and House of Representatives instituted investigations of the affair. Turbulent committee meetings held in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington furnished the press with columns of conflicting testimony, but the voluminous reports duly filed with Senate and House were little more than a general condemnation of the use of private industrial police. However, 1892 was a Presidential year, and the strike, excellent political material, became a paramount issue in the campaign. The Republican, Benjamin Harrison, had defeated the Democrat, Grover Cleveland, in 1888. But in '92 with Homestead, Carnegie industrialism, and Republican high tariff popularly associated as cause and effect, the result was reversed. Harrison went down to defeat. Thus had a ripple on the pond become a wave that engulfed the high and the low. Nevertheless Frick had beaten the Amalgamated decisively, and not again for nearly half a century did unionism become a potent factor in the steel mills of the United States.

EXPERIMENTAL SETTLEMENTS

T H E E P H R A T A CLOISTER ON THE western fringe of Ephrata, in Lancaster County, two stark, gray, wooden structures loom over an old cemetery like specters out of medieval rural Germany. Clustered around them, on the west bank of Cocalico Creek, are six cottages, three other old buildings, and several barns and sheds. T h e y are the physical remains of the monastic cloister of the German Seventh-Day Baptists, a self-sufficient community founded by Johann Conrad Beissel, a pious mystic who had gone into the Conestoga wilderness in 1732 to search for solitude, only to find himself soon at the head of a community. As Father Friedsam Gottrecht he ruled the colony with an iron will, through many stormy periods, for thirty-six years. From Beissel's community grew the present borough of Ephrata, at the crossroads of US 222 and US 322, which at Downingtown connects with the historic old Lancaster-Philadelphia Turnpike, first macadam highway completed in America. T h e town, originally called Dunkerstown or Beisselstown, was finally given by Beissel the biblical name Ephrata, which means "fruitful." An improved road leads off the highway and around the now unused white academy building that housed the second high school 249

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in Pennsylvania. Just beyond it a private lane winds past a twohundred-year-old barn and two cottages, now occupied by descendants of members of the sect, to the entrance of Sharon (Schwester Haus) and the Saal (Meeting House). These heavy frame structures, like all the others of the cloister, were built by the Brethren themselves. Sharon and the Saal are four and five stories high respectively, with jutting floor joists pegged outside, and the walls broken by small, unevenly spaced windows not of uniform size. Only two of their stories are below the eaves; the others are in the narrowing space under the steep-gabled roofs, which extend beyond the walls to shed ice and snow. From the roof of Sharon, which sheltered the Virgin Sisters (Roses of Sharon), rises a bell tower surmounted by a weather vane. T o the rear of these large buildings are the low Almonry (almshouse), with an outside stairway leading to the second floor, and God's Acre (Gottes Ackre), burial ground of the faithful. T o the right of the Saal toward the creek is the bakehouse shed with its huge brick oven. Farther to the right, beyond the bakehouse, stands the cabin built for Beissel, where at midnight he would tug on a rope that rang bells in Bethania and Sharon, arousing the faithful and the surrounding countryside. Nothing remains now of Bethania, or Brother House, except foundation ruins, but a number of small cabins, tenanted by descendants of the original inhabitants, are scattered over one hundred and twenty-five acres. At its peak the settlement covered five hundred acres on both sides of the Cocalico. In the Saal, where the Sisters joined the Brethren each midnight in solemn worship, are the heavy tables and benches used at services. They stand at right angles to the reading table from which Beissel often preached steadily for two hours at a time. Doorways in both Saal and Sharon are low and the rooms are connected by narrow corridors, a reminder that "strait is the gate and narrow is the way." T h e small cell-like sleeping quarters were ingeniously warmed by plates heated from the huge wooden fireplaces in the larger rooms. Nearly everything was made of wood, and it is said the Brethren insured the building against conflagration by exorcising the fire demon in special rites. Weird tales are also inspired by the footprints on the ceiling of the Saal. T h e fact is the marks were made

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by the oiled bare feet of the Brethren, who chanced to walk upon boards that lay on the floor during construction of the building. Johann Conrad Beissel was born in Eberbach, Germany, in 1690, two months after the death of his father, a baker. His mother died eight months later. He learned to play the fiddle and managed to eke out a miserable living as an itinerant musician until he had mastered his father's trade. Then he met Michael Eckerlin, who helped to introduce him into the mystic mazes of the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross. Eckerlin was one of the leading Pietists—followers of a non-conformist movement within the Lutheran Church out of which the modern Moravian Church was born. T h e members shunned all worldly amusements. When Pietists and Moravians finally were proscribed by the authorities, Beissel was forced to flee from the land of his birth. He came to America in 1720 with the intention of joining the German mystic, Johann Kelpius, on the banks of the Wissahickon, but Kelpius had died long before and his followers had dispersed. One of the mystics helped Beissel find work as a weaver's apprentice in the shop of Peter Becker, the leader of the German Baptists in that vicinity. Becker tried to convert Beissel, but the latter was hesitant. Feeling the need of meditation, Beissel and a companion went up into the wilderness and built a cabin on the Muhlbach (Mill Creek), near what is now Bird in Hand, Lancaster County. Meanwhile, Peter Becker had established his German Baptist Brotherhood at Germantown, performing in Wissahickon Creek the rites of trine immersion for the first time in America, in December 1723, followed on the same day by the first Liebesmahl (Love feast) and foot-washing. Becker baptized Beissel in the Pequea Creek in 1724. A Conestoga congregation was organized, and Beissel was unanimously elected teacher. He went to live with a colony of his adherents on a farm in Earl Township, where Anna and Marie Eicher, who later figured prominently in Cloister life, joined him. While here, study of the Bible gradually convinced Beissel that Sunday worship was contrary to the Scriptures, and he began to advocate a Saturday Sabbath. A bitter quarrel ensued between the congregation on Mill Creek and the First-Day Baptists at Germantown, particularly when

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Beissel failed to convert the latter after a visit for that purpose. In 1728 there was a definite split w h e n Beissel published the Mysterion Anomias (Mystery of Lawlessness), sometimes k n o w n as Buchlein von Sabbath (Book on the Sabbath). A struggle followed for the allegiance of outlying groups of G e r m a n Baptists in Chester, Montgomery, and Berks counties. Beissel, however, felt that he did not now have the apostolic right to baptize others. T o rectify this he called a special service, was "unbaptized" by being immersed three times backward to nullify the previous rite, and then baptized three times forward. T h e sect of Seventh-Day Baptists was established. Constant bickering among the Baptists eventually disgusted Beissel, and he decided to become a recluse. O n c e more he plunged into the wilderness, settling along the Cocalico, which in Indian language is Hock-Halekung, meaning "Den of Serpents." Some say he lived in a cave, which, if it ever existed, is now lost, as also is a mysterious treasure presented to the Cloister, according to legend, by European royalty. T h e story more generally accepted is that Beissel found a hut already tenanted by another hermit, Emanuel Eckerlin, one of the four sons of the Michael he had known in Germany. Emanuel shared his cabin with Beissel, while helping him build one of his own, and later became Brother Elimelech of the Cloister. T h e wrangling at Mill Creek continued, and followers of Beissel's doctrines sought him out to get his counsel on p e r p l e x i n g problems. Some of them stayed, building cabins near him. T h u s the man who wanted solitude had leadership thrust upon him. T h e foundations of the Ephrata Society were laid. T r o u b l e came early, when the Eicher sisters insisted on joining the community. A f t e r heated controversy it was decided to let them stay. More and more disciples came and built cabins. Some were householders with families, and some were wives w h o had left their husbands in favor of a religious life. Beissel was subjected to verbal abuse and even physical assaults as a result. Something had to be done to maintain order, and in 1735 the Brethren built Kedar, on M o u n t Zion, for themselves. T h e settlement of individual solitaries became a monastic, socialistic community. As time passed, separate buildings were erected for the Brothers,

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Sisters and, later, the householders. A rigid routine was instituted. A schedule of labor, prayer, fasting, and resting was put into effect, assigning tasks to all and providing six hours of sleep every twentyf o u r hours, broken at midnight for a two-hour service of preaching, singing, and praying. Conventional garb was put aside for gowns a n d cowls, similar to those of the Capuchins. A n d the Sabbath was observed on Saturday with services interspersed with periods of rest and meditation. T h e hours of rest were spent on short, narrow planks in the small, one-windowed cells of the faithful. Blocks of wood served as pillows. Everything was plain and hard, and all was regulated by Beissel, w h o after a heated debate was given the title Father Friedsam (Peaceful) Gottrecht (Godright). T h e Sisters baked, cooked, and scrubbed; they also wove fabrics on hand-built looms and executed illuminated manuscripts (Fraktur-Schriften). O n e of the old hand looms still stands in a room of the Sharon, on the walls of which are displayed some faded examples of the Sisters' pen work. T h e r e are also some iron kitchen utensils, wooden dishes and spoons, pottery, bricks, and perhaps the earliest American tile—all made by the Brothers. T h e Sisters sang Beissel's hymns according to a system of harmony devised by L u d w i g B l u m and perfected by Beissel himself. In 1739, on Zion Hill, Ulrich Hoecker (Brother Obed) organized and taught one of the first Sunday schools in America. O n their fertile acres the Brethren and the cabin-dwelling householders raised all the crops needed by the Cloister. Under the supervision of Eckerlin and his three brothers—Gabriel, Samuel, and Israel—mills were erected to provide other needs in the quantity required by the growing settlement. A m o n g other things they made their own paper and ink. T h e r e were gristmills, sawmills, and a tannery. T h e Brothers in 1745 imported a printing press from Germany. It was the third in the Colonies and the first equipped with both G e r m a n and English type. Previously the printing for the Cloister had been done by B e n j a m i n Franklin in Philadelphia or Christopher Sauer in Germantown. B u t when Sauer's wife left her husband to join the Ephrata group, the Germantown printer's resentment flared in a bitter dispute with Beissel over a hymnal the latter had composed. It seemed to be Beissel's lot to quarrel with everyone.

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Conrad Weiser, the famous Indian interpreter and peacemaker, was no exception, and he quit Ephrata in a dispute occasioned by his frequent visits to his wife and family in T u l p e h o c k e n . But the Eckerlin brothers became Beissel's favorite objects of wrath. Israel (Brother Onesimus) was deposed as first prior in 1745 for buying a bell from L o n d o n without obtaining Beissel's consent. Beissel ordered the bell broken to bits, but was prevailed upon to dispose of it otherwise. It was sold to T r i n i t y Lutheran Church in Lancaster and now rests in the vestibule of Grace Lutheran Church. T h e bell episode was only one of a series of Beissel's displays of irritation over the Eckerlins. He was vexed by their materialism and jealous of the power their commercial genius gave them in the community. A b o u t the time of the quarrel over the bell, which Beissel used as an excuse to banish all four brothers from Ephrata, three mills were mysteriously destroyed by fire. Some believe they were burned by Beissel. A n d shortly after the Eckerlins were exiled, an orchard of a thousand trees they had planted was ripped up by Beissel's order. A f t e r the departure of the Eckerlins in 1745, Peter Miller, a clergyman w h o had left the R e f o r m e d Church ten years before, was installed as prior. He was reputedly the most learned scholar in the Colonies. Under the name of Agrippa, Miller collaborated with Brother Lamech in preparing the Chronicon Ephratense, most reliable record of the activities at the Cloister. It was submitted for criticism to Christopher Marshall in Lancaster; and it is believed that it was on Marshall's recommendation that the Ephrata press printed the paper money for the Continental Congress during the British occupation of Philadelphia. For a brief period the Cloister print shop and bindery became one of the foremost in the Colonies. T h e press is now on exhibition at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. A n outstanding achievement of the Cloister shop was the printing of the Martyrs' Mirror, a 1514-page recital of the persecutions of the Mennonites in Europe. Peter Miller worked three years to translate the work from the original Dutch into German, while his associates at the Cloister made the paper, set the type, printed the sheets, and finally bound the volume. T h e r e were many other products of the Ephrata press,

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a notable one being the first American edition, in German, of Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress. T o factional bickering and recriminations within the ranks were added criticism and scandal-mongering outside, making cloister life increasingly difficult. At one time six of the Brethren, including Peter Miller, were arrested for nonpayment of taxes. They were freed when it was decided to levy the assessment against the entire community, which was then exempted from payment because of its religious character. T h e Cloister people were frowned upon, too, because they worked on Sundays, when people outside the community were observing the Sabbath. An attempt was made to have the courts compel members of the colony to cease their Sunday labors, but the ruling favored them. Then began a whispering campaign against them, with misconduct as the issue. Tales of drunkenness and erotic orgies were bandied about both inside and outside the Cloister, and Brother Ezekiel Sangmeister recorded some lurid episodes in his diary (found between the walls of his cell years later). Authorities, however, discredit Sangmeister's accounts. According to the gossip outside the Cloister, the Solitary Brethren and Virgin Sisters were guilty of misconduct during midnight prayer sessions. Some say that Beissel, hurt and angry at the rumors, destroyed the Saal and the adjoining Kedar on Mount Zion. Wellfounded tradition has them destroyed for sanitary reasons, following a camp fever scourge that resulted from their occupation by soldiers. Beissel was a storm center from the beginning to the end of his life. He had a vaguely conceived ideal of the spiritual life, which he tried to realize in a crude, material world. T h i s effort, in which celibacy was a prominent feature, caused misrepresentation on the part of his enemies and misunderstanding among his friends. T h a t he himself held fast to his ideals in regard to sex is indicated by the continued loyalty and respect of Peter Miller; and by the statement of Morgan Edwards in his Materials Towards a History of the American Baptists (1770) that Beissel was "very strict in his morals and practiced self-denial and mortification to an uncommon degree." T h e founder of Ephrata pioneered in cultural fields. He devised and taught the first system of harmony singing in the Colonies and

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wrote the first volume of poetry printed in the New World. T h e Cloister became a seat of culture in the Colonies. Under the joint leadership of Beissel and Miller, its commercial activities declined, and the spiritual element came more and more to predominate. T h e new prior was a more intellectual man and better educated than Beissel, but it was the dynamic personality of the latter that influenced the institution. T o Beissel must be credited the hundreds of hymns, the poetry, the music, the Fraktur-Schriften and the many intangible values that perpetuate the memory of this small but devoted group which, under trying circumstances, strove for spiritual perfection in a new land. T h e twenty-three years from Miller's acceptance of the priorship until Beissel's death in 1768 were notable ones for the community and left a more favorable impress than the years preceding his elevation. In the west and north, Indian outrages and massacres were frequent, but the Ephrata settlement never suffered Indian raids. During the French and Indian War, families from the surrounding countryside found refuge here among the Brothers and Sisters on the Cocalico. In the next decade Beissel began to show signs of physical infirmity, although actively participating in all community affairs to the last; he breathed his last on J u l y 6, 1768, at the age of seventyseven years and four months. At the death of the Vorsteher, as he was called, much of the superstition of the early Pennsylvania Germans was revealed. Every hive of bees had to be notified of his death, to prevent them from swarming. T h e same ritual extended to the cellars and storage pits where every barrel, keg, crock— whether of wine, vinegar, pickles, sauerkraut, or preserves—had to be turned, to prevent spoilage. On the day of the funeral the floor of Beissel's cabin was swept; a bucket of water was poured over the doorsill, and three crosses chalked upon the door jamb—an ancient ritual to prevent the return of the spirit to its former abode. T h e funeral sermon was preached by Miller. Just before closing the rude coffin, he had the body turned slightly to the right and fixed in that position by a piece of sod. T h i s was to insure absolute rest for Father Friedsam throughout eternity. After the death of Beissel, the prior was regarded as the leader. He was a remarkable man—a scholar who was elected to member-

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ship in the exclusive American Philosophical Society—but he did not have the ability to capture the imagination of the people, inside as well as outside the community, as Beissel had. Still he inspired so much respect and confidence that when the Revolution broke out he was a potent force—one whom the government could rely upon in the predominantly German section of the Province. Legends grew up about Miller as they did about Beissel. In neither case do many of them survive critical study. One of the most persistent about Miller is that he translated the Declaration of Independence into seven European languages at the request of Congress. Competent scholars consider the story a local legend. Another Miller story is that he interceded with General Washington for the life of Michael Widman, a man who had reviled Miller at every opportunity and had on one occasion spat in his face. It is related that Miller, then nearly seventy, walked from Ephrata to Valley Forge to plead for W i d m a n , who was sentenced to be hanged for treason. Washington heard the old man's plea and told him that, while he regarded him highly, he was sorry that his friend's sentence could not be commuted. Miller impetuously exclaimed: "Friend? H e is my worst e n e m y — m y incessant revilerl For a friend I might not importune you, but W i d m a n being, and having been for years, my worst foe, my malignant persecuting enemy, my religion teaches me to pray for those w h o despitefully use me." Washington, according to legend, was so affected by this display of Christian piety that he immediately wrote out a commutation and handed it to Miller, telling him to deliver it in person to the jailer at West Chester. T h e old prior walked twenty miles to the blockhouse where W i d m a n was confined, and, arriving early in the morning, found the condemned man already on the gibbet with the noose around his neck. Calling to the officer to wait, Miller presented the reprieve and then in company with W i d m a n set out for the long walk back to Ephrata. It was while Washington was at Valley Forge that the army needed paper for gun wadding. T h r e e wagons were sent to Ephrata, and here, as little paper was to be had, the officer in charge confiscated all the remaining copies of the Martyrs' Mirror, on which Miller and his associates had labored three decades before. A f t e r the Battle on the Brandywine, September 11, 1777, five

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hundred of the wounded Continentals were sent to Ephrata to be cared for by the Solitary Brethren and Spiritual Virgins. The Convent of Zion and its adjoining Saal were turned into a hospital to accommodate the wounded. The Sisters, ministering without pay, became in effect the first Red Cross unit in America. An epidemic of camp fever or smallpox soon broke out, and despite all the doctors and devoted nurses could do, two hundred veterans, mostly Virginians, died and were buried on Mount Zion. The following year the community burned the hospital buildings as a sanitary measure. For more than a century the graves of these patriots were marked only by a plain board bearing the inscription "Hier ruhen die Gebeine von viel Soldaten" (Here repose the remains of many soldiers), but in 1902 a monument was erected here by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Through all the vicissitudes, Peter Miller proved faithful to his charge until he died on September 25, 1796. With his passing, the doom of the Cloister was sealed, although the Society actually incorporated in 1814. In 1837 a high school was established, but the animating spirits were gone; one by one the Solitary Brethren and Spiritual Virgins were laid to rest in God's Acre. The last was Sarah Bowman, who died about 1900. In ig2g the Pennsylvania Legislature made appropriations for the purchase, maintenance, and restoration of the Cloister buildings. Bethania and other, now nonexistent, structures were to be rebuilt and the site kept as a shrine. The eleven surviving descendants of the founders, however, refused to sell the property. In 1934 they were ousted as trustees, and the Society was disbanded by the Dauphin County courts. A receiver for the State was appointed, but the former trustees refused to yield. At the end of 1941 the State still had not acquired what remains of the Ephrata Cloister.

PARIS IN THE WILDERNESS along Roosevelt Highway (US 6) in Bradford County, about eight miles southeast of T o w a n d a , the motorist finds himself on top of Rummerfield Mountain. Below him flows the Susquehanna River in one of its characteristic U-shaped bends. His eye suddenly is caught by a bronze tablet beside the road, and drawing closer, he may be surprised to discover such names as "Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans" (later K i n g of the French); " T a l l e y r a n d Perigord" (Napoleon's minister-to-be) and "Louis de Noailles" (Lafayette's brother-in-law). W h y are the names of these French notables here? T h e area on the west side of the river is covered by fine farms and is known as Asylum Township. T h e r e is no town of Asylum, only a group of dwellings called Frenchtown. Across the river from the highway is another marker, of rough-hewn granite about six feet high and five feet wide. " T h i s monument," it reads, "is erected to commemorate and perpetuate the memory and deeds of the French Royalist Refugees, w h o escaping from France and the horrors of the Revolution in San Domingo, settled here in 1793 and located and laid out the town of Asylum. . . . In 1796," it conDRIVING

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tinues, "Louis Philippe . . . visited here, the Prince de Talleyrand, the Duke of Montpensier, and Count de Beaujolais and many other distinguished Frenchmen were visitors or residents for a short time." Near by are parallel rows of trees, crumbling stones, and sunken cellars. T h e y are the tangible mementos of a little-known incident in Pennsylvania history—and in the history of France as well—for here in the northernmost wilds of "Penn's Woods" a miniature city was laid out a century and a half ago for the use of none other than the ill-fated queen, Marie Antoinette, and other members of the royal family. Marie Antoinette in faraway Pennsylvania—that ravishing Austrian princess, Louis X V I ' s Queen, who turned the giddy heads of courtiers and who finally lost her own pretty head upon the block! She who had princes at her feet and whose slightest whim set the fashion for a world of gaiety and pleasure—would she indeed have come to hold court in a log house on this side of the grim Atlantic? Possibly so, if an illustrious citizen of Pennsylvania had had his way with the revolutionary leaders in Paris. But Thomas Paine's eloquent appeal in the Convention, that the royal couple be exiled to America instead of executed, fell on deaf ears. It sounds fantastic, yet here in the twentieth-century sunlight are the visible remains of that refugee settlement and the marker that commemorates what was to have been a Paris in the wilderness. Its promoters called it "Asylum," or "Azilum," but the elaborateness of their plans would seem to contradict the designation. True, it was to be a haven, but a luxurious one in which a brilliant social life could be maintained. Unfortunately for those who founded Asylum, events in France moved too rapidly. T h e ill-fated Queen was never to see the wild Pennsylvania hills; she followed her luckless spouse to the guillotine. T h e French Revolution got under way on July 14, 1789, with the storming of the Bastille. Within a short time the nobility of France, terrified at the daily executions of their peers, were fleeing in panic to Germany and England. T h e Revolution increased steadily in violence, and by September 1792 terror had gripped the land. Power passed from one party to another, each transfer marked by general tumult and wholesale executions. T h e waves of fugitives

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pouring over the borders into neighboring countries grew larger. Soon the harassed refugees were turning their eyes toward America, where French Huguenots long before had found a haven from oppression and had become part of the American social fabric. T h e French did not have an easy time of it in the American Colonies during the French and Indian War, when every French name was suspect, but prejudices waned in intensity after 1763 and disappeared altogether during the American Revolution, when French aid to the Continental forces tipped the balance against British might. W h e n the French Revolution broke out, most Americans may have regarded with abhorrence its most violent aspects, but their sympathies were definitely with the common people. W h e n the monarchy collapsed, certain circles in the new republic received the news with grim satisfaction. Royalist refugees in Europe, knowing this to be so, did not therefore expect a spontaneous welcome in the United States. T h e i r coming would have to be prepared for by negotiators. James Cuthbert, in a quaintly worded letter from London to the renowned Dr. Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia, dated February 19, 1794, asked him to aid . . . two unfortunate men now departing this country for P h i l a d e l p h i a — M . T a l l e y r a n d , the bearer of this and late Bishop of A u t u n in France, and M . Beaumet, both ex-members of the Constituent Assembly in '89. T h e y wish for letters solely to be countenanced in their asylum, and not to be regarded as strangers. Suspicion destroyed their welcome in this Country; they, I hope, will find quiet in your land and you may not a little contribute to it by your acquaintance.

Mirabeau and T a l o n , along with others, were involved in acts considered treasonable to the people. Some were compelled to flee and were seeking a New W o r l d refuge. It is possible that Americans, w h o had fought so bitterly against the tyranny of kings, would have looked with jaundiced eye upon these royalists and nobles from France if it had not been for men like General Louis de Noailles, himself a fugitive. Noailles and Antoine Omer T a l o n were the founders of Asylum, most important of the many French refugee colonies to be estab-

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lished in the United States. Both had been prominent in French public life, but Noailles, w h o arrived in Philadelphia early in the nineties, was also well known in America. As a young man he had fought in the Continental Army with General Lafayette, his brother-in-law. He conducted himself with such bravery that Washington several times cited him in general orders, and at Yorktown he was chosen to receive, with an American officer, the sword of C o r n wallis. A f t e r the war, Noailles returned to France and determined to h e l p his country obtain some of the liberties he had fought for in America. As member of the National Assembly in 1789, he championed a more equitable system of taxation and bitterly denounced feudalism. In 1791 he became field marshal under Lafayette; but a year later, disillusioned by treachery on every side, he resigned his commission and went to England, and from there to America. Whether or not he fell under the ban of Robespierre and the Jacobins is not known, but all his family except a son and daughter later perished by the guillotine. T a l o n , on the other hand, was more of a King's man. W h i l e still in his teens he was made advocate to the crown, and at the start of the French Revolution he was chief justice of the Criminal Court of France. Having always been identified with royal prerogative as against increased political power for the masses, he soon found himself in a position of danger that was made still more precarious by the ultimate flight and capture of the King. He was arrested and imprisoned for a month, and later, when incriminating letters were found at the King's palace, he was at once marked for the guillotine. T a l o n fled Paris. According to L. W . Murray, in The Story of Some French Refugees and Their 'Azilum,' he hurried to Marseilles, where he lay in hiding for several weeks, awaiting an opportunity to escape by sea. H e finally managed to reach England through the aid of a penniless countryman named Bartholomew Laporte, w h o had lost his wine business in Spain and now wanted to recoup his fortune in America. Laporte, according to tradition, had T a l o n secreted in an empty wine cask and carried aboard a ship sailing for England. Laporte's resourcefulness and daring made possible the escape from France; Talon's money made possible the journey from Eng-

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land to the United States, where they arrived in 1793 without mishap. In Philadelphia T a l o n soon was able to purchase a house, commodious enough to shelter some of his exiled compatriots w h o had arrived in the interim. He took the oath of allegiance which made him a citizen, and as soon as he was able he communicated with General de Noailles, whom he had known in France. Many others were arriving, as conditions in France and the West Indies grew worse: the Duke de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, historian-to-be of Asylum; Elie Moreau de Saint Méry, French printer and bookseller in Philadelphia; John Keating, a Frenchman of Irish stock, and thousands of others whose names have long since been forgotten. A m o n g the exiles were members of the National Assembly; soldiers and civilians; and slaveholders and plantation owners from Santo Domingo and Cape François. T h e r e were abbés without churches and officers without an army, as well as merchants and idealists. Perhaps the most destitute group came from the island of Santo Domingo. Toussaint l'Ouverture, believing that the Negroes of the West Indies had been betrayed by the Constituent Assembly, had led an insurrection against the French settlers, and many had to flee in such haste that few of their possessions could be brought along. T a l o n housed as many as possible, but what was to be done with the thousands constantly arriving? A committee of Philadelphia citizens was organized to aid the destitute, and the sum of $14,000 was raised. Noailles and T a l o n worked energetically to rehabilitate their countrymen, and out of their cooperative efforts emerged a warm friendship and plans for a colony to settle the French exiles. Noailles had considered the purchase of a large tract of Luzerne County land (now part of Bradford County) before the scheme was put to T a l o n ; and Robert Morris and John Nicholson had already provided a workable foundation for the plan by the time T a l o n entered on the scene. John Keating was appointed main agent in the enterprise. On his arrival in 1792, Keating had brought with him a letter of introduction from Rochambeau to Washington. His capital consisted of only $280, but his knowledge of English and French made him valuable to T a l o n and Noailles, neither of whom could speak English fluently.

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Charles Felix Boué Boulogne—lawyer, traveler, interpreter, and land promoter—was chosen to go on a tour of the upper Susquehanna lands that had been selected as a site for the colony. M a j o r A d a m Hoops, a veteran of the American Revolution, was to go with him as a guide. Hoops had covered the region fourteen years earlier while serving as a major on Sullivan's Expedition. Robert Morris provided the men with credentials that would enable them to procure provisions and necessities for the journey at WilkesBarre and T i o g a Point, not far from the intended site, where Matthias Hollenback conducted trading posts. Boulogne and Hoops arrived at Wilkes-Barre on August 27, 1793, halted for a while, and then continued the circuitous route u p the Susquehanna. T e n miles above Wilkes-Barre the river makes a right-angled turn, flowing from the northwest. From this point onward the Susquehanna's course is tortuous, extending in a series of irregular loops from West Pittston to the New York border. A b o u t eight miles below the site of T o w a n d a , in what is now Bradford County, the party came upon a heavy slab of rock projecting twenty feet from the water near the right bank. T h i s was the Indians' Ossenepachte, or "Standing Stone," and the region hereabouts was called " T h e Meadows" by the red men. Somewhat south of the rock, a sickle-shaped turn of the river encompassed flat, fertile land. T h e agents had arrived at their goal! A d a m Hoops immediately returned to Wilkes-Barre to start negotiations for the title. Matthias Hollenback was commissioned to approach the Connecticut interests, as settlers from that State were on the desired land, and Robert Morris negotiated with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which claimed title to the land by virtue of W i l l i a m Penn's original grant. After the necessary negotiations were concluded, Boulogne proceeded with the operations. His first task was to build satisfactory quarters for himself and the workmen. T h e result was the second largest house in the Colony, and one to last for some time. A miniature city had been projected. T h e first twenty-four hundred acres of land "beginning at a remarkable rock" were to include a town that covered three hundred acres, laid out in the form of a parallelogram. Its greatest length was north and south, with a market square

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in the center extending over a two-acre area. Five north and south streets were laid out, crossed by nine streets running east and west. Another hundred thousand acres of unbroken land along the Loyalsock Creek were purchased, of which twenty-five hundred were divided into town shares of four hundred acres each. Among the later purchasers was La Rochefoucauld, who acquired eight hundred acres. A friend of John Keating named Rosseau availed himself of two thousand acres at $2 an acre. Agents were selected to sell land abroad. T h e r e was much opportunity for speculation, and, judging from the sharp comments of Count de Moré on the Asylum enterprisers, speculation did take place at the expense of some of the refugees. "I have seen," wrote Moré, "a milliner who had, with the price of her merchandise, acquired lands at Asylum, so called capital of the imaginary colony; the poor dupe was obliged to abandon the property, after having contemplated the site on which they had sold her the right to build . . . and was reduced to return to Philadelphia to earn her living with her ten fingers as before." If Moré is to be believed, Asylum agents preyed on the newcomers, treated them with grace and then sold them, at six francs an acre, land they had purchased at fifteen cents, clearing a profit of more than five hundred per cent. However, this does not appear to have been generally true. W i t h the organization of the Asylum Company, April 22, 1794, the refugees were able to contract for land with Talon. Each share gave the holder an equivalent of two hundred acres, and the entire stock was to consist of some five thousand shares. Breaking the wilderness was now begun under the supervision of Boulogne. Land had to be cleared and homes built before winter set in. Supplies were requisitioned as quickly as possible from Wilkes-Barre and the near-by trading posts conducted by Hollenback. A man named Montullé was in charge of clearing the forests; another refugee, the indomitable, one-armed Dupetit-Thouars, worked as a lumberman; and as other refugees arrived they were assigned to various tasks. Masons and joiners were procured from surrounding communities and distant cities, but construction limped along, because building materials and supplies were delivered tardily and even communications were tediously slow. Winter set in, and before many houses had been erected it was necessary

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to suspend work. T a l o n arrived before Christmas to assume his duties, but the unpleasant weather, lack of quarters, and deferment of operations were discouraging. T h e coming of spring brought new arrivals. Artisans and craftsmen, necessary to the establishment of the colony, came in larger numbers. Houses were built quickly now, and T a l o n saw to it that roads were constructed, as well as a wharf for the ferryboats. T o insure regular communication with Philadelphia a weekly pony express route was established, making it unnecessary to route mail through the Wilkes-Barre post office. T h e speed with which the buildings were put up did not prevent their being well constructed; they certainly were superior to the log-cabin homes of the natives. T h e summer-house tradition was not forgotten, and the well-executed chimneys and sturdy staircases gave the appearance of permanence to the buildings. Approximately fifty dwellings were built, and there were taverns, shops, a bakery, chapel, and theatre. T h e outstanding architectural feat at Asylum was " L a Grande Maison." Projected by T a l o n , this house was fashioned of the same materials as the less pretentious ones: it was made of logs and had a shingled roof. T w o stories high, it had four chimneys for the sixteen fireplaces. Windows were built square, and the square panes of glass were protected by heavy wooden shutters. Surfaced boards became walls and ceilings, and dark walnut was used for rails and posts on the staircases. T h i s commodious house was intended for Q u e e n Marie Antoinette, w h o was guillotined in October 1793, but the drawn-out means of communication prevented the colony from learning the disheartening news until the following spring. As the lots of the colonists were cleared, and lawns bedecked flowers, their homes assumed an attractive appearance. More was now available for amusement. Concerts were arranged, the tre ran full swing, and interminable hours were spent at the tables.

with time theachess

T h e developing economics of the colony brought improvements, but the hardships continued. Constant reorganization, resulting from lack of experience of the well-meaning founders, left Asylum in a mismanaged state. In 1795 new articles of association were formed; by the spring of 1797 about two hundred and ten shares

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were in circulation a n d not secured by patents. I n 1 8 0 1 two thousand shares Avere taken, and once again the colony was reorganized. T h e new company acquired further lands in a d j o i n i n g

counties

and in turn resold the land to the settlers. T h e D u k e de la R o c h e f o u c a u l d - L i a n c o u r t toured through A s y l u m in 1 7 9 5 a n d in his journal gives us this economic picture of the colony in that year: T h e grain, which is not consumed in Asylum, finds a market in WilkesBarre and is transported thither on the R i v e r . In the same manner all kinds of merchandise are conveyed from Philadelphia to Asylum. T h e y are carried in wagons as far as Harrisburg, and thence sent in barges up the river. T h e freight amounts, in the whole, to $2.00 per cwt. T h e salt comes from the salt houses at Genessee, on the lake of Ontario [Onondaga], Flax is produced in the country about Asylum; and the soil is very fit for producing crops of that commodity. M a p l e sugar is made here in great abundance. Each tree is computed to yield upon an average from two pounds and a half to three a year. Molasses and vinegar are also prepared here. I have seen Messrs. De Vilaine and Dandelot make sugar in this place, which much surpasses any of the same kind that has hitherto come under my observation. A considerable quantity of tar is also made, and sold from $4.00 per barrel containing 32 gallons. Day laborers are paid at the rate of five shillings a day. M. de Montulé employs workmen f r o m the eastern branch of the river to clear his land; to these he pays half a dollar a day, besides allowing them their victuals; the overseer receives a dollar and a third per day; these people turn out to be very good workmen. T h e y are easily procured, when employment is ensured to them f o r any length of time; but otherwise it is very difficult to obtain them. T h e manufacture of potashes has also been commenced at Asylum, and it is in contemplation to attempt the brewing of malt liquor. A corn mill and a saw mill are building on the Loyalsock. In spite of all this, forlorn notes began to sound in the colony. T h e colonists themselves, unused to this new k i n d of life, soon began to despair. T h e foreign policy of the U n i t e d States, and later the passing of the A l i e n a n d Sedition laws, may have cast a shadow over the Susquehanna meadows. T h e n there was also the hostility of the Y a n k e e neighbors to embitter the colonists. L a

Rochefou-

cauld notes that many of the settlers both a m o n g the French and their N e w E n g l a n d neighbors were shiftless a n d given to drink, a n d that quarrels and friction were rife. Possibly for that reason some

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of the settlers jokingly called Asylum a refugium peccatorum, or refuge of sinners, as Alexander Graydon records in his memoirs. T h e above-mentioned Montullé in 1796 wrote of his unhappiness in the colony, contrasting his independent life before the revolution to life at Asylum. "Far from answering my expectation hard work has proved detrimental to my health, and the enormous price of labour as well as the difficult farming in new land has often reduced to a mere trifle the produce of my land," he declared. Montullé was writing to a friend, asking about the prospects of locating somewhere nearer the city, even if it would mean working only for his keep. Perhaps, he observed, the times would become more favorable, and he would regain his lost land in the West Indies, or he might even return to Paris. T h e ever helpful Matthias Hollenback, for a long time the axis of correspondence, prepared a banquet for some unusual guests who came through Wilkes-Barre to visit Asylum in 1796. Prince Louis Philippe, later to ascend the throne as King of the French, and his brothers, the Duke of Montpensier and the C o u n t de Beaujolais, were the esteemed visitors. Other notables made their way to the colony; and some visited out of sheer curiosity, for where else in America could one find a congregation of such noble birth? T h e theatre in Asylum served as a social center, as did the church under A b b é Colin. As the years went by, the hearts of the colonists yearned more and more for Paris. A feeling of resignation came over the colony, though some of the refugees still strove to make it self-sustaining. In 1797, four years after his arrival, T a l o n departed. His shares were sold, it is believed, to Laporte. Boulogne met a tragic death by drowning in the Loyalsock in 1796. T h e loss of two of its most energetic men was a heavy blow to the slowly disintegrating colony. T a l o n was perhaps the most prominent figure in the entire venture, and no man had worked harder than Boulogne. W h e n Napoleon was made Consul in 1802, amnesty in some form was extended to certain of the émigrés. Earlier, in 1799, some rehabilitation measures were instituted, and these edicts had been welcomed by homesick refugees. Records do not indicate any decided movement away from the colony at this time, but in all likelihood there were individual departures. Many were not financially

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able to go elsewhere. As late as 1805, when very few Frenchmen were any longer on Asylum grounds, a certain Dumenze wrote to Keating, asking him to intercede for him to some member of the company: O f all the Inhabitants of Asylum I am the only one having a contract and I must either pay or lose my little home. I am unable to pay. Last year I lost sixty piastres in animals and this causes a considerable set back in my business. I could get no oxen to work with, having lost nine last year. If I have to abandon or sell my place . . . I will be reduced to b e g for subsistence. . . . It would be heartbreaking for my family and myself to lose all we possess.

Keating did intercede, as a letter to the directors of the Asylum Company shows. Laporte and Charles Hornet carried on the land business, purchasing lands from those who left the colony, Laporte receiving power of attorney from the company. Any hope for the remaining settlers gradually dwindled away, as Asylum no longer offered the benefits suggested by its name. T h e r e were a number of reasons why this colony failed to endure. T h e refugees came here primarily to save their lives, and not all planned to settle in America permanently. T h e hope of returning to the land of their fathers was stronger than the desire to adopt a new homeland. Asylum seemed to serve as an excellent, although remote, vantage point to observe the meteor-like changes taking place in their native France. A n d as the few short years flew by, changing conditions in France enabled many colonists to return to their former homes. Without a unifying leadership and a determination to remain in the new land, the colonists could not possibly have made a success of Asylum. T a l o n left when the time was favorable to himself. Noailles profited on the enterprise, having received ample commission for all acres he sold. Noailles, in 1800, left to join General L e Clerc in a last effort to crush Toussaint l'Ouverture and save the colonies for France. In 1803, as a result of wounds, he died in Cuba, still faithful to France. Anti-French feeling was current in the late 1790's, as it was in the first two or three years of the nineteenth century. Newspapers were constantly warning of a Napoleonic invasion to control the Mississippi River. Land titles were jeopardized by disputes between

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Connecticut and Pennsylvania claimants. T h e notorious Alien and Sedition Acts, passed by Congress in 1798, further hampered the security of the French exiles as well as all other recent immigrants in the New World. So it was not surprising that the colony of Asylum began to disintegrate as the exiles forsook the uncertainty of life in their wilderness settlement. But not all of them returned to France or the West Indies; some went to New Orleans or Savannah, and still others remained in Philadelphia. Scattered groups continued to live in the vicinity of Asylum, at one of the adjoining villages also settled by the French. Of those w h o remained in Philadelphia, Keating was the most outstanding. A b b é Colin went to the West Indies as an army chaplain, but later took u p his residence in Charleston, South Carolina, where he spent the remainder of his days. In such a manner the colony gradually withered away. T h e deserted houses became prey to the elements and slowly decayed. Travelers passing through the upper Susquehanna would observe the Asylum ruins, while not far away one of the exiles still held out, conducting his inn. Active town life at the colony was not to be found after 1805. T o d a y , to commemorate this episode of colonization, there are fertile farms, the little village of Frenchtown with its fine frame houses, the markers, and the graves of those w h o remained in the vicinity—the Laportes, Hornets, and the innkeeper Lefévre—and, in a near-by town, established through the initiative of the family of a refugee, the institution known as T i o g a Point Museum, housing many Asylum papers. Untitled colonists who remained became the leading farmers and lumbermen of the region, their children the most prosperous in business, the professions, and politics. John Laporte, son of the refugee, served as speaker in the House of Representatives at Washington. Highways, canals, and railroads in their turn came through the efforts of these men of French stock.

GALLITZIN'S EXPERIMENT IN THE Allegheny Mountains about fifteen miles west of Altoona stands a picturesque little town of less than four hundred population. It is named Loretto, for the celebrated Italian religious shrine near the Adriatic Sea, and was founded in 1799 by Demetrius Augustine Gallitzin, a Russian prince w h o gave up wealth and luxury in the capitals of Europe for a life of religious devotion and frontier hardship in the mountain fastnesses of Pennsylvania. A half-dozen miles southeast of Loretto is a grimy coal town named for the prince-priest of the Alleghenies, but his bones rest in Loretto on the site of the crude log chapel he built for the scattered Catholics of the Allegheny hills. It was something new for the rough, undisciplined woodsmen, hunters, and traders to gather together in one community, built around the little church where they could worship G o d and meet their neighbors. T h e true center of the community was a devout and unassuming little priest in whose blue eyes shone a bright and steady light. He was merely "Father Smith" to his parishioners at first—the sometimes over-strict but always kindly guardian of their spiritual well-being. Not for a long time did they learn his roraan271

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tic history and the aristocratic background of which he was always loath to speak. There were tremendous odds to overcome in gathering and holding together the little flock. Many of them shied away from the restrictions and responsibilities of civilization and religious training, like unbroken colts from the harness. Their attitude was reflected in the words of one who, complaining of the increase in population, said petulantly: "It spoils the hunting, makes quarrels, and then they come and want to collect taxes." In order to trace the events that led a young prince to leave his country and a glamorous career, embrace the priesthood and establish the first Catholic settlement in the wilds of the Alleghenies, we must go back to November 22, 1770. On that date, at T h e Hague in Holland, Demetrius Gallitzin, first priest to receive his full theological training in the United States, was born. It is probable that his father, Prince Dimitrii Gallitzin, and his mother, the beautiful Countess Amalia, started almost at once to plan for him a brilliant career befitting the son of so illustrious a house. Prince Dimitrii's ancestors, whom he traced back to Gedimine, a noble of medieval Lithuania, had been rulers of Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia. He himself, an eminent scientist and former privy councilor to Catherine II, was the Russian ambassador to T h e Hague. His closest associates were the French rationalists and encyclopedists, particularly Voltaire. Countess Amalia, daughter of the Prussian field marshal von Schmettau and Baroness von Ruffert, presided over a salon where the intellectuals of T h e Hague were wont to gather. It was inevitable for such parents to expect their son to add another colorful chapter to the family history; they could not possibly foresee the austere but heroic chapter that he was to add. T h e first event that bore young Prince Demetrius toward his strange destiny was his mother's sudden desertion of society. Until then he and his sister, Maria Anna, had scarcely known her. Now, after arranging a friendly separation from Prince Dimitrii, she turned her entire attention to them and to their education. They remained at T h e Hague for a time, where Prince Demetrius' dearest friend and playmate was young Frederick William, in after years King of the Netherlands. Later the Countess took them to

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Münster where she once more drew about her an interesting circle of friends that included Goethe, Hamann, Franz Hemsterhuis, and a scholarly priest, Baron von Fürstenberg. The Baron undoubtedly influenced her life and, through hers, that of Demetrius. The Countess had been brought up a Roman Catholic and educated in a Breslau convent. She had, however, become estranged from her religion upon her marriage to Prince Dimitrii who, though rumored an atheist, belonged to the Greek Orthodox Church. The children had been reared in that faith, but again the young Prince was turned aside from his apparent course. In 1786, when he was sixteen, his mother became gravely ill, and upon her recovery returned to the Roman Catholic fold with her children. In a letter dated May 26, 1787, she tells how she intends taking "Mitri" and "Mimi" to Münster for their first communion. Upon completing his academic education, Demetrius was appointed aide-de-camp to the Austrian General von Lilien, who was opposing the French Revolutionists in Brabant. Shortly afterward the imperial government dismissed all foreigners from its military service and the Prince, left without occupation, decided to travel. Leaving the disrupted continent of Europe, he set out for the West Indies and the United States under the name of Augustine Schmet, a contraction of his mother's maiden name. This became Smith when he reached America on October 28, 1792. Among his letters of introduction was one to Bishop John Carroll, first Catholic prelate in the United States. He felt greatly drawn to the Bishop, and upon visiting the Seminary of St. Sulpice in Baltimore, recently established by Parisian exiles, extended his admiration to its priests. Their manner of life touched him deeply and he felt that their work was far preferable to a career in wartorn Europe. He determined to spend his life in the New World, in the service of the church. He entered the seminary as a student, and the final step was taken! Needless to say, his family objected strenuously. His father commanded and his mother entreated him to return home. His sister warned against a "false and sentimental call to the clerical life," accusing him of "vanity and self-conceit rather than any zeal for souls." But he remained firm in his resolve. He was an apt pupil, enthusiastic, already well educated, with fluency in Russian, Dutch,

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French, Polish, Italian, and some knowledge of English. On March 18, 1795, he was ordained. Gallitzin was slight in build, nervous, and sensitive. Because his constitution had been weakened by his confinement and intense study at the seminary, the young priest's first assignment to the settlement at Conewago was changed by Bishop Carroll to the easier one at Port Tobacco. But he soon went on to Conewago as first planned and before long was ministering to a large Maryland territory that included Taneytown, Pipe Creek, Hagerstown, and Cumberland in addition to Chambersburg, Path Valley, Shade Valley, and Huntingdon in Pennsylvania. In these communities he was known as Father Smith; few, if any, of his parishioners had heard of his noble background. It was a wild and uncouth country in which he took up his residence. Roads were narrow foot-paths through thick woods and swamps. After heavy rains the streams overflowed their banks, making it a hazard to cross them. Wolves and bears roamed the forest. Food was scarce and doctors few and poorly equipped. Gallitzin found settlers with crude dress and manners living in tiny cabins miles apart. They were neither religious nor progressive, and had a penchant for corn liquor. Nevertheless, Gallitzin gave no hint of regretting the world he had forsworn. Quite the contrary, for he wrote: " I can find no lasting satisfaction in anything except the labors of my vocation . . . from the path I have chosen I cannot retreat. . . ." In 1796 Gallitzin made his first trip to the Alleghenies, where he had been called to administer the last rites of the church to a dying woman. Finding twelve Catholic families in the neighborhood, he decided that it was a likely place for a Catholic settlement, and the town of Loretto was conceived. Three years before, in 1793, Captain Michael McGuire, of the Maryland Line Regiment in the Revolutionary War, who owned land on the site of Loretto, had left four hundred acres to Bishop Carroll for a church. Father Gallitzin invested his own private funds to purchase land adjoining the tract, and at the request of the Catholics of the surrounding villages he was appointed parish priest. With the help of his parishioners he set about clearing a space for a log chapel, which was completed on Christmas Day of

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1799. T h e chapel, in Gallitzin's words, was "about forty-four feet long by twenty-five, built of white pine logs, with a very good shingle roof." Of the first Christmas service he relates that the congregation "seemed much moved at a sight which they never beheld before." He describes a "house built for me, sixteen feet by fourteen, besides a little kitchen and stable. I have now, thanks to God, a little home of my own for the first time since I came to this coun* try, and God grant that I may be able to keep it." In an effort to gather together the scattered Catholic settlers so as to overcome the scarcity of priests, he accumulated, as agent for Henry Drinker of Philadelphia and on his own behalf, approximately twenty thousand forest acres in Cambria County, which he sold or rented to the settlers on easy terms. This effort constituted, in a sense, the keystone of his life's work. He constructed sawmills, gristmills, and a tannery, making an outlay over the years of about $150,000, for which he gave notes and mortgages, expecting in time to receive a fortune from his father's estates. He named the settlement Loretto and, as he considered himself a Pole, he established Polish customs in his church, although most of his parishioners were Irish or German. In 1802 Gallitzin became a naturalized citizen of the United States, and in the following year another tie with his old life was broken when his father died. He soon missed the sums of money his father had been sending him, for he was now $20,000 in debt, supporting several orphans and receiving, at his own request, no salary. H e had frequently made himself responsible for his settlers' payments on their homes; and as many of them had allowed the payments to lapse, he found himself financially distressed. His father's estates went to his mother, upon whose death in 1805 they should have come to him. But the Emperor Alexander had disapproved of Gallitzin's desertion of his native land and religion, and the entire property went to Maria Anna. She, however, sent Gallitzin sums of money until her marriage to the profligate Prince de Salm put a stop to them. W h e n the King of the Netherlands purchased Countess Amalia's library for $20,000, Gallitzin received only half the purchase price, as the money was paid to de Salm instead of to him directly. Gallitzin's letters at this time speak of "plots, infamous lies and

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hypocrisy." T h e r e were those who were suspicious of his past and others w h o resented his strictness. Certain Irish priests and colonists objected to a foreigner in their midst, especially one with such lavish resources, and Republicans disliked his Federalist sympathies. Bishop Carroll, his shield against some of the Irish settlers who, in the words of Gallitzin, were "as devoid of religion as . . . of honor," was elevated to the archbishopric in November 1808, and Gallitzin feared that the new bishop, the Most Reverend Michael Egan, himself an Irishman, would be set against him. T h e r e was considerable intrigue among the church people of the community, frequent dissension among the settlers and between them and the priests, much of it due to racial differences and to the chafing supervision of private lives by the priests. But "Father Smith's" community experiment was not destined to fail. W h e n his family name was legalized by an act of the Pennsylvania legislature, and his charges learned that he was really a prince who had left wealth and ease behind in order to work among them, they became much easier to handle. Gallitzin had not forgotten his military training, and in 1812 he helped train a company of soldiers. He was intensely patriotic and interested in political discussions. W h e n an article in the Intelligencer accused him of being unfriendly to democracy, he asserted, in the Lancaster Herald, his allegiance to the federal and Pennsylvania constitutions, and warned against putting in office men w h o were against them. In 1814 he was mentioned as a possible choice to succeed Bishop Egan, but it was feared that his debts would prove too serious a handicap. T h e first of his books, A Defense of Catholic Principles, appeared in 1816. An Appeal to the Protestant People followed in 1817, and in 1820 came A Letter to a Protestant on the Holy Scriptures. A l l of these were widely read, A Defense of Catholic Principles being the means of many conversions. His debts continued to harass his mind. In the summer of 1824 his sister died, and although she had promised to leave him all her property, she changed her will on her deathbed, directing that her husband's debts be paid first and that her brother be given an annuity equal to one-third the net revenue of the remaining estate.

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Gallitzin knew, however, that even the entire estate could not meet the Prince's debts, and lost all hope of satisfying his creditors. T h e Russian ambassador advised him to petition the Emperor. He did so the following year, explaining his self-exile by his "disgust" with the "horrors in Europe," but his eloquent appeal for justice was addressed to a man who was mentally deranged and on the point of death. There was no answer, of course, and the Emperor died in December of that year. W h e n the terms of his sister's will reached him, Gallitzin had been about to order a barrel of wine. H e canceled the order and resigned himself to drinking water for the rest of his life and to giving up, as well, everything else that was not an absolute necessity. Forced, in 1827, t o a P P e a l to the public for funds, he received donations from Pope Gregory X V I and Charles Carroll of Carrollton, Maryland, the wealthiest man in the country at the time. Before the end of his life he paid off most of his creditors, mostly amiable Quakers and Protestants of Baltimore and Philadelphia. A letter to a friend refers, however, to the humiliation felt by one "raised in splendor to have to beg for a living." Gallitzin and the Reverend Peter Henry Lemke were the only resident priests in Cambria County for several years. Father Lemke had run away from home when a boy to seek a higher education, and became in turn a Lutheran minister, a teacher, a Catholic convert, and a missionary. W h e n he came to America in 1834 he went to visit Prince Gallitzin. T h e hostess of an inn where he stopped overnight refused to accept payment for his lodging as soon as she learned where he was going. She gave him a horse and guide to take him on to Loretto, seven miles distant. O n the way they met Gallitzin on a sled, "an old, reverend gentleman with snow-white hair, wide-brimmed, badly worn hat, and a coat of homespun twill, but noble in bearing and mien." Father Lemke made a sketch of him which is said to be the best one still in existence. Father Lemke became Gallitzin's assistant and made his home in Ebensburg, where there was also a church. N o priest ever shared Gallitzin's home in Loretto. He insisted on living alone and under conditions that few could stand. One visitor recalled that he reached the priest's house in a blizzard after a six-mile ride, was received in his unheated bedroom and allowed to depart "without

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a bite" though it was near dinnertime. In contrast to this was Gallitzin's constant aid to widows, orphans, and needy, whom he refers to as "visits from our blessed Saviour." On June 4, 1839, he sent two hundred dollars to Bishop Kenrick for a seminary and apologized for the "trifling sum," although other parishes had sent nothing. His small leather memorandum book is still in existence, but many of its pages are lost. The lists of Easter communicants, purchases of paper, bank transactions, land sales, recipes for the cure of various ailments, inventories of household property, and lists of Mass obligations, deciphered and arranged, have been published as The Gallitzin Memorial Book by the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia. The aging "Apostle of the Alleghenies" became gravely ill in February 1840. In April he made his will, directing that his debts and funeral expenses be paid, and bequeathing to Bishop Kenrick the farm on which stood St. Michael's Church, a frame structure since 1817. He also left six lots in Loretto for the erection of a church. Father Lemke and Father Heyden, the latter a friend of Gallitzin for twenty-five years, were with him when he died on May 6. Many of his parishioners heard Father Heyden repeat the prayer for the dying. Father Lemke took charge of the funeral. Later Gallitzin's remains were moved to their final resting place in front of the present St. Michael's Church, and upon that occasion Father Heyden preached a second sermon. The new St. Michael's was erected by Charles M. Schwab, who spent his boyhood in Loretto. It is a beautiful, cuneiform edifice of gray stone, whose red-tile steeple stands out among tall, stately pines. Their evergreen boughs symbolize perfectly the undying devotion to the Catholic Church of the Prince-priest who sleeps in their shadow.

THE HARMONY SOCIETY IN THE heart of Ambridge, a steel town on the Ohio River eighteen miles north of Pittsburgh, stands a group of old red-brick buildings. T h i s is all that remains of Economy, a nineteenth-century religio-economic colony established here in 1825 by German Pietists who called themselves the Harmony Society. This experiment in communalism for a small group of people lasted exactly one hundred and one years. Although it had important economic ramifications, its equality-of-wealth doctrine was neither the result of economic theorizing nor the motive for founding the organization. Religious persecution in Europe and conscriptions for the Napoleonic wars brought the Harmony Society into being. T h e society had its inception in Germany at the beginning of the nineteenth century when, in the north central part of Württemberg, a number organized themselves into groups to resist the rational philosophy they thought was undermining Germany's religion. T h e y were dedicated to preservation of the older Pietism, similar to English Puritanism. An uncompromising leader of one of these groups, whose following grew in numbers and devotion, was George R a p p . 279

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R a p p , born in 1757, had not been trained in religion but had been a lay preacher since his thirtieth year. His great influence over his followers is explained by the fact that he came from peasant stock—he himself was a vinedresser—and partly from his sincerity and knowledge of the Bible. In 1800 his converts were so strongly attached to him that they were willing to endure persecution for their religious convictions. Finally the Rappites decided to leave Germany and settle in America, where they could enjoy religious tolerance. Shortly before the Louisiana Purchase they were considering an area in the southern part of Louisiana, but entrance of the United States into international affairs shifted their attention to the more developed northeast region. In 1803 R a p p sold his property in Iptingen, Württemberg, for about $800, and placed the guidance of his group in the hands of his young assistant, Frederick Reichert. With his son, John, and a devotee, Dr. Friedrich Haller, R a p p in the summer of that year sailed to Baltimore, bent on finding a suitable place to establish a colony for his followers. After considering parts of Ohio, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, he contracted for approximately five thousand acres at $3 an acre in the southwestern part of Butler County, twenty-five miles northeast of Pittsburgh. R a p p knew that cultivation of this unsettled area would be difficult. Trees and underbrush were dense; roads were few and poor; the county seat, only recently set up, was a struggling village, with Pittsburgh the nearest town at which supplies could be purchased. T h o u g h determined on a new start, R a p p did not want his followers in Germany to share the hardships confronting himself and his companions. He wrote to Reichert, telling him not to urge anyone to come. However, less than a year (July 4, 1804) after R a p p had landed in Baltimore, three hundred of his followers arrived on the Aurora. One month later, in Philadelphia, he greeted Reichert and 260 companions who had crossed on the Atlantic. Still another party came on a third vessel, the Margaretta, and settled with Dr. Haller in Lycoming County. T h e R a p p followers, in two hegiras, then moved to Butler County. On February 15, 1805, they formed a communal organization, calling themselves the Harmony Society. This decision arose from the

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necessity of working together under recognized leadership. After officers had been chosen, with George Rapp as head of the society and Reichert as financial agent, a formal agreement was signed by all adults of the community, which became known as Harmony. Its significant clauses stipulated: ι. T h a t all real and personal property be given voluntarily to, and placed at the disposal of, George R a p p and his associates " f o r the benefit and use" of the community. 2. T h a t the members of their families and their children submit to the rules and regulations of the community. 3. T h a t in case of a member's withdrawal from the community he renounce all claims to compensation, wages, or reward for his labor. 4. In consideration of the above premises, George R a p p and his associates agree to extend to each member of the community and his family the privilege of being present at every religious meeting and of receiving for himself and family "all such instruction in church and school as may be reasonably required." 5. T h a t George R a p p and his associates agree to supply the members and their families "with all the necessaries of life, as clothing, meat, drink, lodging, etc.," both for the well, the sick, the aged, or those otherwise unfit for labor, and for the children of those parents who should die. 6. T h a t if any member withdraw from the society, the value of the property he brought to the community be refunded to him without interest in one, two, or three annual installments, as George R a p p and his associates should determine; but if the withdrawing member shall have brought nothing to the community, he receive money in proportion to the length of his stay, his conduct, and the amount his necessities require.

Although some withdrew from the society, those who accepted the tenets worked industriously. By the end of the first year they had cleared 150 acres and had built fifty log houses, a church, a community barn, a gristmill, and several shops. The following year, 1806, they put under cultivation four hundred additional acres, four of these in vineyards, and were able to sell a surplus of six hundred bushels of grain at the end of the year. Rapid clearing and cultivation of the Butler County territory was not due entirely to diligence. T h e decreasing number of children brought a corresponding decline in responsibility and this materially advanced the work. John S. Duss, a member of the society, who bases his reasoning on the court testimony of Louis Pheil, wrote:

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L e t us also remember that as far back as 1807 a great number of the society had adopted the celibate life—whether this was superinduced through lack of food and the miseries and hardships endured during their first two years, or whatever way it came about; certain it is that it was not through any belief or dogma preached or talked of either in the old country or the new; for marriages occurred in the society—that of Rapp's only son, John, among them—and R a p p himself solemnized the marriages. Also, the advocates were the young people. Father R a p p , when the matter was first broached to him, regarded the step as a serious one and advised the community to go slow in the matter. However, the custom became prevalent and the birth rate almost nil.

Father Rapp's subsequent preaching, however, shows that he found scriptural approval for the practice of celibacy. He espoused the theory of the bipartite nature of Adam, and to support it he quoted Genesis 1:26-27. With the adoption of celibacy, the society was not only free from the expense of rearing children; the women had additional time for work, and the community rose to a high level of productivity and consequent wealth. Wants were simple, and almost everything used by members could be supplied from their own storehouse or fashioned by their own artisans. Important to the development of the community was the astute plan of Frederick R a p p (he had given up the name of Reichert), who procured high-grade craftsmen to become the village weavers, carpenters, coopers, blacksmiths, tailors, and wheelwrights. In addition to the practice of celibacy, the Harmonists (as they preferred to be called) abstained from smoking. Use of intoxicating liquor was never forbidden members of the community, but although for a period of fifty years they produced a considerable amount of whiskey, they drank little of it themselves. T h e body left its administrative affairs, for the most part, in the hands of Frederick Rapp, whose influence increased daily. He managed so ably that by 1810 the seven hundred-odd residents had three-fifths of their land under cultivation and a large crop surplus to sell. Moreover, the artisans, after attending to the wants of the colony, were able to serve other parts of the district. Many of the houses were built of brick, hand-made by the society's craftsmen. Frederick planned most of the construction, using the

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plain, close-to-the-street style common in Philadelphia, but his buildings generally were wider and not so high as those in that city, and were separated by gardens. Uniformity of style and typical German orderliness in both construction and preservation made the small community a model of neatness. Many of these plain houses still stand, and, on a hill overlooking the town, visitors are still shown the place where Father R a p p often went to sit and gaze down upon his busy little community. A small graveyard enclosed by a high stone wall lies a short distance outside the town. It is approached by a narrow dirt road and entered through a granite double gate, over which is carved a German inscription promising redemption after death, and numbering the dead at one hundred and six. There is nothing to be seen inside save a well-kept lawn; no mounds, no flowers, no monuments to indicate the names of those who died while the society existed in Butler County. Thus, in death as in life, the Harmonists treated all members alike. But, in spite of commendable management and the consequent affluence of the group, Frederick R a p p was not satisfied that Harmony should be solely an agricultural community. A business man and organizer at heart, he belonged among the local pioneers of the Industrial Revolution, and he wanted the colony to have diversified industries. Although Frederick's plan was accepted by the group, there was one drawback—that of location. Goods had to be hauled more than twelve miles to the Ohio River before they could be shipped. Twelve miles over the roughest of country roads for every bit of importing and exporting had been bad enough when crops alone were exported, but miles of travel for constant trading was out of the question. A site nearer a navigable waterway was highly desirable. While George R a p p and two other members of the society searched for a new location in the early part of 1814, Frederick stayed in Harmony carrying on the management. T h e three scouts went as far as Indiana, where in the southwestern part of the territory they selected more than twenty-five thousand acres on the Wabash. Level land, plenty of water, sufficient pasturage for cattle, forests with many species of trees suitable for buildings and furni-

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ture, and an abundance of wild life were the main attractions of the new location. A party of one hundred, led by George Rapp, left immediately for Indiana to establish the settlement, New Harmony, while Frederick and the other six hundred remained for a year in Harmony to wind up affairs. They sold their property to Abraham Zeigler for $100,000. The prevalence of malaria and the desire to be closer to the center of manufacturing and the supply sources of Pittsburgh and Philadelphia induced the Harmonists to return to Pennsylvania soil after a decade in Indiana. Most of them came back on the steamboat William Penn, built especially for them at Phillipsburg, now Monaca. Several trips were necessary to transport the colonists and their goods, the last arriving May 17, 1825, after a twelve-day voyage. The third settlement was named Economy from the Greek Oikonomia, or household management, later adopted into German usage with the significance of living as a family unit. Like its predecessors, Economy had a beautiful setting. From the crest of a long range of forest-covered hills on the western side of the Ohio opposite the village, the terrain descended sharply to the broad, deep river. From bluffs forming the east bank of the stream low foothills rose into the higher forests beyond. Progress was rapid from the beginning. By the time the last party had docked at the wharf below the new village, streets had been laid out, buildings erected, and cultivation of the three thousand acres begun. By 1832 all the buildings were completed, with most of the houses centering around the main buildings of the village. The church, completed after the other buildings, and known today as St. John's Lutheran, is still conspicuous because of its white belfry and tower balcony. The church bell, which during the existence of the society rang every quarter-hour, still faithfully tolls the time. Economy now approached that phase of its history known popularly as the Count de Leon Insurrection. In July 1829, George Rapp received from Germany a long letter written by John George Goentgen, telling of the intolerable conditions in Europe and asking that the followers of Count Maximilian de Leon be permitted to join the Harmony Society. Although it

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was promised that the group would not be a burden to the Harmonists, Leon (the name by which he came to be known) requested "a brotherly reception and philanthropic support." After an exchange of letters, Rapp decided to accept the request for admittance, and two years later the party arrived from Frankfort-on-Main. A great deal of pomp, foreign to the nature of the Harmony Society, surrounded the appearance of Leon. When he reached Pittsburgh he sent in advance two of his party to announce him. Then, attired in full uniform and wearing a sword and epaulets, he drove to the village in a coach drawn by four horses and attended by couriers in livery. He was first welcomed by the band, which played on the church-tower balcony. Father R a p p greeted him at the church. T h e newcomers then took up their life in the village, with quarters in the hotel and five houses assigned to Leon and his forty followers. For a month or so, meetings of the two groups were held several times weekly, when explanations of their philosophies were given by both sides. The Leon followers soon developed a dislike for the frugal, unexciting life of the Harmonists. They advocated matrimony and found quite a number of converts among their hosts. An open split in the old ranks resulted, frequently with relatives disagreeing among themselves. Leon finally drew up a paper setting himself forth as head of the society. He had it published in the newspaper, signed by 250 adherents. Father Rapp's counter petition retained for the Harmony Society five hundred members. T h e subsequent confusion imperiled the existence of the society, and Frederick R a p p recommended a compromise; this was accepted, and a breach between himself and his foster-father seemed inevitable. At length an agreement was reached on March 6, 1832. Leon and his original followers were to leave Economy within six weeks. His newer converts were to withdraw by the end of three months, and, with the relinquishing of all future claims of money or property, the seceders were to be paid $105,000 in three installments within the year. Selecting a spot on the Ohio River ten miles north of Economy— the present site of Monaca—Leon's disciples started another commune. They followed in some measure the old plan, laying out

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their streets, building their houses, and conducting their lives much as they had in Economy. They had no restrictions against marriage; neither did they have effective leadership. This latter defect quickly brought about dissolution of the Leonite group. Their money was spent unwisely, and Leon failed in his attempts to obtain further funds from the Harmony Society by process of law. Desperately in need of cash, he persuaded his adherents to send a delegation to Economy for the purpose of forcing the Rappites to pay over additional funds. T h e delegation of eighty came to the village on April 2, 1833, to confer with Rapp. Refused an audience both at the tavern and the Great House, the delegates repaired to the tavern, and, after spirituous fortification, again went to the Great House, which they threatened to set afire. T h e petitioners finally were driven out of town by the local militia. Failing thus to establish his claims, Leon, whose title of count turned out to be fraudulent, suddenly left for Alexandria, on the R e d River in Louisiana, where he died soon after. T h e Harmonists suffered less from the financial misfortunes brought about by the spurious count, whose real name was Bernhart Mueller, than from the human factors involved in the secession. Curiously enough, some of the religious ideas responsible for the society's birth and development ultimately contributed to its dissolution. A great deal of strength and vitality went with the young people who deserted Economy, leaving behind the older members. This weakness was intensified by the death in 1834 of Frederick Rapp, the Harmonists' dominant personality. It was Frederick who designed the houses, planned the village, ran the factories, and controlled all the finances. T h e prosperity of the society was largely brought about by him; he was an excellent trustee, but his business ability in the society won him enmity elsewhere. Because the production expenses of the group were low, the Harmonists, turning out better goods, could undersell their competitors. In a short time they controlled all trade west of the Alleghenies, and this resulted in bitter feeling against buying and selling at prices necessarily lowered to meet "Economy prices." Outside criticism increased so much that in 1829 a writer in the Allegheny Democrat asked the State Legislature to dissolve the society. But after Leon's insurrection and the death of Frederick, the

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industrial activity of the group declined. T h e cotton and woolen factories, backbone of the society's revenue, were operated intermittently for a time by hired labor and finally closed in the 1840's. Gertrude Rapp continued as superintendent of the silk factory. She started out by making only enough cloth for the society's needs, but the award of a gold medal at the Boston Fair in 1844 encouraged her to expand the business. Foreign competition, however, proved too great, and when the Pennsylvania Assembly was requested to recommend to Congress a high protective tariff to protect the society's industry, the committee considering the matter did nothing but suggest that the society send each member a large sample of the beautiful Economy material. When Congress in 1846 was appealed to directly, no action was taken. T h e decline of production, however, did not imply a serious decline of the Harmony Society's prosperity. George Rapp, elected financial agent after Frederick's death, appointed two sub-agents, R. L. Baker and Jacob Henrici, to take over the actual duties. Father Rapp's concern was the spiritual rather than the temporal welfare of his people. T h e two agents, later trustees, invested the funds in outside enterprises. They acquired considerable land in and around what is now Beaver Falls, a large town on the Beaver River about fifteen miles north of Economy, where they opened a bank and operated several manufacturing establishments. T h e most interesting of these ventures was a cutlery shop in which two hundred Chinese laborers were employed. Other money was invested in coal mines, sawmills, and oil wells. Trustee Henrici caused the first pipe line from the Economy oil wells to be laid under the Allegheny River. Excessive generosity partly contributed to the decrease in fortunes of the Harmony Society. But there were other, more important causes. T h e Beaver Falls works all operated at a loss, and many of the workmen could not meet the payments on their homes. T h e society assumed these losses. In Economy, hired laborers gradually replaced Harmonists in field and shop. These laborers, who were paid as well as fed and lodged, cost the society $100,000 annually. Then there was the matter of the Pittsburgh-Chartiers 8c Youghiogheny Railroad investment, which eventually lost for the

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society $500,000. Altogether, at the beginning of April 1892, the society was $1,474,958.58 in debt. T h e ironic part of the matter was that while only three persons— Trustee Duss, Judge Henry Hice, and James Dickson, an accountant—knew the precarious financial condition of the society, the public and members believed it to be wealthier than ever. From this situation arose a series of events which had repercussions lasting almost to the present day. In 1890 Duss began an investigation of the society's assets and liabilities. Quickly sensing the state of affairs but not daring to let the news become public, for fear of sending the organization into bankruptcy and the old members to the poorhouse, he began his difficult task of financial readjustment. His first step was to sell the railroad stock for $400,000. In an effort to reduce expenditures he paid the day laborers adequate wages and required them to maintain themselves. Then sales of other properties were put through, but still the condition of the Economy Savings Institution, the bank in Beaver, was precarious. Finally, in October 1882, he obtained through his friend J . T . Brooks, vice-president of the Pennsylvania Lines, a $400,000 loan on twenty-eight hundred acres of the Harmony site and a personal loan of $200,000. By manipulating these funds and selling much of the collateral, Duss was able to steady the wobbling legs of the society. But these financial affairs, involved as they were, may be considered of small importance compared to the avalanche of lawsuits that followed. Senior Trustee Henrici died on Christmas Day, 1892. In February 1893, a bill in equity was brought against the society in Beaver Court by Benjamin and Henry Feucht and several others. Lawsuit followed lawsuit in weary years of litigation. T h e society eventually enjoyed a breathing spell, during which the American Bridge Company was induced to buy a large tract of Economy land and locate on it a plant that quickly developed Ambridge (a contraction of the company name) into a large community. By 1905 there remained only two members to wind up affairs and dissolve the society. In 1916 the Great House, Music Hall, and other buildings came into the possession of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania by escheat and were turned over to the Historical Commission. In

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1937 Charles M. and Edward Stotz, Jr., began work of restoration under the commission's direction, with funds provided by the General State Authority. About forty per cent of building restoration had been completed by J u l y 1938, when funds for the purpose became exhausted. Plans for full restoration, however, were pushed ahead. In the meantime a Works Progress Administration museum project, launched in January 1939, devoted its activities to the cleaning and restoring of thousands of Harmony Society relics, given to the commission by Duss and his wife. Many of these relics, such as clothing, furnishings, tools, and equipment, represent the handcraft of the Harmonists themselves and therefore form an invaluable part of the general restoration. Among the household utensils alone are such interesting objects as three-legged iron cooking pots with heavy lids, large copper pans curved to fit around the stovepipe as humidifiers, copper tea kettles, tin ladles, pottery bowls, bone-handled cutlery, blue wooden water buckets with iron hoops, and blue wooden tubs used for holding sugar. Approximately three hundred pieces of furniture were found for the Great House and an ordinary small house, both set up as dwellings. Most of the furniture had been fashioned by the society's cabinetmakers and was fairly well preserved so far as the wood was concerned, but much had suffered abuses in the form of modern alterations. With careful patching, refinishing, or repainting, these articles were restored to their original condition. Economy was one of the great social experiments of the nineteenth century, and for a long time it enjoyed an amazing degree of success. When restoration of its physical remains is altogether complete, the visitor will be able to understand more clearly the spirit and purpose of the Rappite band. If he has sympathy and imagination, he will hear perhaps the subdued hum of industry and see a grave people going quietly about their communal tasks.

COLONY OF THE SYLVANIA SOCIETY IN THE first week of May 1843, two small groups of hopeful people from Albany and New York City came to the rugged, hilly wilderness of Pike County, Pennsylvania, to establish a colony along the lines laid down by the Utopian French Socialist, François Charles Marie Fourier. H e m m e d in by a rock-strewn wilderness and handicapped by an excess of ne'er-do-wells, children, and rattlesnakes, this optimistic band of city dwellers began to set u p the new social order, on a spot which a dreaming "landscape painter, an industrious cooper and a homeopathic physician" had selected for them while it lay blanketed in snow. François Charles Marie Fourier was born in the small French town of Besançon in 1772. T h e son of a well-to-do tradesman, he quickly lost his inheritance of eighty thousand francs through investments in Colonial products that were destroyed in the Siege of Lyons in 1793. H e became in turn, a soldier; a clerk in textile houses of Marseilles, Rouen, and Lyons; a commercial traveler; and commis de boutique, or shop assistant, in Paris. For a great part of his life he was in straitened circumstances, but during his leisure 290

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hours, which he spent in study and writing, he evolved a social system that required several volumes to propound. The principal volume was called The Theory of Universal Movement. Fourierism contemplated the redistribution of the peoples of the world into a number of units called phalanxes. Each of these was to consist of an industrially complete and self-supporting community of from fifteen hundred to eighteen hundred persons, to be housed in a common building (phalanstery) surrounded by a square league (5,760 acres) of land. Each worker was to receive a minimum wage in addition to room and board in the common residence. And the profits accruing from the project were to be distributed in a fixed ratio: five-twelfths to labor, four-twelfths to capital, and threetwelfths to that mysterious entity called "talent." Work was to be divided equally, with each individual engaging in the particular kind of activity he liked best, reserving the right to change to something else if circumstances warranted. Fourier, describing society as "organized rapacity," wished to make labor, "now repulsive," thoroughly attractive; and to increase efficiency "by the improvement of machinery and the extended use of natural forces," so that everyone could live in "elegant luxury." T h e community was to be financed on a joint-stock principle, each person being entitled to equable compensation for the amount he contributed. What pleased some of the prospective residents, while arousing the puritanical instincts of many Americans, was that under Fourier's theory of "natural optimism" the "free development of human nature" was linked to "the unrestricted indulgence of human passion" as "the only way to happiness and virtue," since vice sprang "from the unnatural restraints imposed by society." Fourier's chief hope was that some wealthy philanthropist would finance a colony based on his ideas. He announced publicly that he would be at home daily to receive such an angel, and for twelve years thereafter, punctually at noon each day, he waited patiently at his house for the expected arrival. He died in 1837. In 1840 there appeared in New York a young gentleman who had been educated abroad and had made exhaustive studies of the socialistic schools of Europe. He was Albert Brisbane, who was to become the American prophet of Fourier; he was then writing an

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exposition of his system, which he entitled The Social Destiny of Man. W h e n the manuscript was nearly finished, Brisbane asked Park Benjamin, a trained newspaper man, to read it, and in a discussion that followed, Benjamin suggested that the author get in touch with Horace Greeley. " W h o ' s Greeley?" asked Brisbane. " A young man upstairs editing the New Yorker, just damn fool enough to believe in such nonsense." Greeley read the manuscript and enlisted as the second godfather of Fourierism in America. T h e system was now rechristened Associationism, a name deemed more palatable to Americans. Brisbane was unknown, but the time, soon after the panic of 1837, was ripe for something revolutionary. In this sense his book had the timely effect of Uncle Tom's Cabin, of pre-Civil W a r days; Looking Backward, of the disturbed economic period after the 1873 depression; and of Common Sense, of the Revolutionary period. Its opening sentence declared that labor, "which is now monotonous, repugnant and degrading," could be "ennobled, elevated and made honorable." T h e New York Tribune, which Greeley started in the spring of 1841, assisted in bringing the new social panacea to the notice of the public, publishing, at $150 a column, long explanatory articles from the pens of Brisbane and some of his friends. T h o u g h Greeley thought it politic to disclaim responsibility for the articles in an attached caption, he praised it editorially on numerous occasions. In time he became sponsor of the Sylvania Society, which developed into one of his pet activities. T h e zeal of both Horace Greeley and Albert Brisbane was intense. Prominent people flocked to the cause. T h e unknown Albert Brisbane of 1840 had, by 1842—when he was thirty-two years of age— 1 become one of America's outstanding figures. A m o n g his converts were such men as Parke Godwin, associate editor of the Evening Post and son-in-law of W i l l i a m Cullen Bryant, its editor; the youthf u l Charles A. Dana; George Ripley, one of the founders of Brook Farm, which later became converted to Fourierism, and whose supporters included Nathaniel Hawthorne, R a l p h W a l d o Emerson,

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James Russell Lowell, Henry James, and other flaming lights in the literary skies of New England. T h e lunatic fringe of the movement was wide. Predictions were made of a "new social order" with "free love, ample education of children, not less than seven meals a day, and drama, opera, and music for all." Men would be seven feet tall and live one hundred and fifty years. Brisbane reported that the purchase of $1,000 worth of stock would fix a man "for life." He would be certain of a comfortable room and board for his interest, and in addition would have whatever he might produce by his labor. He would live in an "elegant edifice, surrounded by beautiful fields and gardens." Economical machinery and other facilities would produce four times as much as was then being done; age and misfortune would lose their terrors. For a family a $2,000 to $2,500 stock investment would be necessary. Popular enthusiasm soon outstripped the ideas of the leaders, who had in mind phalanxes of at least four hundred persons, each contributing $1,000. Thousands of persons were clamoring for the opening of colonies and would not wait until four hundred persons were gathered together, believing that similar success could be achieved with smaller numbers and less capital. T h e Sylvania Society, first to be organized, consisted originally of only forty persons, several of whom acquired their membership by buying a small quantity of stock. In the next eighteen months, fifty-four communities were established in New York, New Jersey, Michigan, Wisconsin, Indiana, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Illinois. Brisbane's magazine, the Phalanx, under date of October 3, 1843, five months after the establishment of the colony, gave a glowing résumé of what was then happening in the high hills of Pennsylvania. Operations, it reported, "have already . . . fulfilled the most sanguine hopes. . . ." It described a "deep loam soil calculated for tillage and grazing" and noted "few acres" that would not be "planted after clearing." T h e property on the "banks of the Delaware," the Phalanx said, was "well-watered undulating land, fifteen hundred feet above sea level, with brooks which were alive with trout." T h e Sylvanians discovered that to reach the property from New York or Albany it was necessary to take a train to Middletown, New

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Y o r k , then drive their horses over forty miles of hills. W h e n they arrived they f o u n d 2,374 acres of virtually uncultivated wilderness, meagerly covered w i t h second-growth yellow pine, ash, hemlock, a n d oak. T h e soil was limeless a n d sallow. It was a " m o u n t a i n desert; cold, rocky a n d remote f r o m the w o r l d of business." A n d for this, it is said, the sum of nine thousand dollars was to be paid, one thousand dollars in cash, another thousand in stock, and the balance in a n n u a l installments. Improvements consisted of a h u n d r e d acres of cleared land, thirty acres of w h i c h were p l a n t e d w i t h rye. T h e r e were three two-story f r a m e houses, a cowshed a n d barn, and a dilapidated gristmill. A b r a n c h of Shohola C r e e k ran t h r o u g h the property a n d d r o p p e d five h u n d r e d a n d fifty feet in its last five miles. T h e stock consisted of "several skeletons w h i c h h a d once been horses"; the place was alive with rattlesnakes. Nevertheless, the colony soon grew into a sizable community of several h u n d r e d persons, i n c l u d i n g fifty-one children. As the three houses were entirely inadequate to accommodate all, a n u m b e r of m e n f o u n d quarters in an u p p e r story of the gristmill. D u r i n g the first season the colonists cleared one h u n d r e d and fifty additional acres of l a n d a n d fenced it in. T h e y erected a phalanstery, three stories in height, containing rooms for the members, a large c o m m o n d i n i n g room, a social hall for dancing parties, a n d several workrooms, w h i c h somewhat relieved the congestion. I n a d d i t i o n they b u i l t a new w a g o n maker's shed, a two-story carpenter shop, a b u i l d i n g for the blacksmith, a shoe factory, and other buildings for the proposed m a n u f a c t u r i n g enterprises. T h e r e is little i n f o r m a t i o n regarding the attitude of the surroundi n g farmers towards the Fourieristic doctrines of c o m m u n a l life a n d the democracy of labor. B u t relations were apparently friendly, as m a n y of them j o i n e d in the community celebration of Independence D a y , July 4, 1843. N a t i o n a l salutes were fired at sunrise and breakfast (six o'clock); there was a cornerstone laying, a parade, and n i g h t display of fireworks. Lewis G . R y c k m a n , a native of B r o o k l y n a n d the colony's shoemaker, delivered the principal oration. His remarks won space in the N e w Y o r k Tribune. F o u r and a half acres of supposedly productive soil, carefully p l o w e d , cross-plowed, a n d sown with buckwheat, yielded only

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eleven and a quarter bushels. Undaunted by this failure, the Sylvanians cleared seventeen additional acres of stony ground, and picked up the rocks. This they plowed in three different directions and harrowed it with the greatest care. But the yield only equaled the quantity of seed that had been planted. The potato crop was also much smaller than had been anticipated. A year later, on August 10, 1844, the Phalanx, declaring prematurely and in contradiction to its former exaggerated optimism that the colony had "determined on dissolution," admitted that a mistake had been made in selecting the site. Fourier's plan, however, was in full operation, with a board of directors in control and the workers divided into series and groups. The farming series consisted of the cattle group, which saw to the feeding, grooming, and general care of horses, oxen, pigs, and other livestock; the milking group; and the plowing group. A nursery group took charge of young trees—grafting, budding, and other duties. The planting group in succession became the hoeing, weeding, or haying group and thus found employment for the entire season. Chiefs of groups had the duty of recording the quantity and type of labor so that, theoretically, at the end of each year it was possible to show exactly how much effort had been given to each occupation and how much had been contributed by each individual laborer. T h e various groups each had a chief and formed a series, the chiefs together selecting one from their number to be the head of all. In the mechanical series there were shoemakers, carpenters, wagon-builders, sash-and-blind-makers, and others. These, as a general rule, continued their own line of work throughout the year. If, however, a shoemaker became tired of his last, and could be spared, he might take to hoe and rake, and the hours so spent would be credited on the book of the group by which he was employed. Theoretically, no person was supposed to labor for more than a two-hour period at any specific task, but in practice this was not feasible. The domestic series had charge of the household division, which was divided into the consistory, dormitory, kitchen, and washing and ironing groups. The consistory and dormitory groups went from one building to another to clean house and attend to such daily

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chores as lamp-filling, bed-making, and water-and-towel provisioning. Very early in the experiment, industries other than farming were begun, those especially successful being bootmaking and wagon manufacture. The boots produced were of exceptional quality. They were purchased by the people of the surrounding region, who praised them highly. The wagon makers also brought in certain profits. A commercial agent made all the purchases and sales for the community. Little information is available as to how the colonists passed through the winter of 1843-44. That there was some hardship is evidenced by appeals in Greeley's New York Tribune, asking stockholders to subscribe to the colony's winter support. The spring of 1844 found the Sylvanians still alive and undiscouraged. During this year a number of dams were built, and the power obtained from the watercourses was used to run the grist and sawmills, which had been completed and equipped with machinery. Water was carried in lead pipes to the various buildings where needed. T h e sawmill became quite active, producing large quantities of lumber and shingles, while the gristmill was not only used by the colonists to grind their own grain, but was also doing similar work for farmers in the neighborhood, who paid for the work in a percentage of the finished product. The flour thus acquired was at once carefully stored for winter consumption. The second season's buckwheat crop was somewhat better than the first. That it was not "all work and no play" is shown by the fact that there were several independent groups in the organization. Thus there was a teachers' group that attended to the instruction of the children. Amusement groups, serving without compensation, arranged weekly dances, lectures, picnics, and similar social activities. The morality of the colonists seems never to have been questioned. On the contrary, they appear to have been highly religious. No exclusive denomination was permitted: any clergyman could be asked to speak or preach. Repugnant tasks were supposed to be undertaken by everyone in turn, whatever his or her status. There is grim humor in Fourier's contention that menial or degrading tasks could be rendered attractive by taking advantage of the characteristics of children, who

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"have a natural affinity for dirt and fondness for cleaning up" and would "accept with eagerness the functions of public scavengers." Several rich New York families utilized the colony as a sort of "reformatory for their wayward sons." T h e investment of a small amount in stjock gave them the opportunity to ship to the colony those boys, and in some instances girls, with whom they could do nothing, thus getting them off their own hands. These gilded youngsters, having never done heavy labor, developed a definite dislike for theories based on the glorification of work. In a community where labor was the watchword, this element was, to say the least, demoralizing. T h e young women also were trouble makers. Most of them had never worked before, and when expected to do duty at the dishpans or washtubs, they objected vehemently. It was hoped that these clashes and dissatisfactions might disappear when good crops were garnered. When it was found that even good crops were inadequate, the very foundation of the colony became jeopardized. A few colonists had already decided to leave at the end of the summer. When one of the members brought in seventeen rattlesnakes in a single day—one so large that the shoemaker made a pair of slippers for Horace Greeley from the tanned skin—a number of other frightened colonists determined to go also. Those who remained in the spring of 1845 started working with renewed energy and enthusiasm, attempting to plant an area nearly twice as large as that of the preceding years. Their shoes and wagons were selling as well as could be expected in the thinly populated section, but the personal capital of some of the colonists had to be further drawn upon. Success still seemed possible in the early months of the year. T h e crops, when summer began, appeared in excellent condition, far better than ever before; larger areas had been cleared and sown, many of the less useful members had departed, and hope ran high among the hard-working remainder. On July 4, 1845, 'he residents, looking forward to another celebration of Independence Day, woke in the morning to find their hopes blasted. A great frost had fallen, the heaviest in the region's history. Green fields, large vegetable patches, and blossoming orchards were held in an icy grip. In the face of starvation, the entire colony

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gathered their personal effects and scattered. Two days later not a single person remained. Greeley in his autobiography, published in 1872, says that the colony's "domain returned to the seller or his assigns, in satisfaction of his mortgage, and its movables nearly, or quite, paid its debts, leaving its stock a total loss." His support of the Associationists must have cost him a great deal. The circulation of his paper was seriously affected, and his many investments in the Phalanxes resulted in considerable pecuniary loss. After the debacle he stated somewhat apologetically that "Fourier had early foreseen the danger of hasty experiments in the development of Phalanxes." Among the Sylvania colonists there was little hard feeling against Greeley, who was not generally held responsible for the colony's failure. A Monroe County farmer named Kenzie, however, developed a personal grievance against the editor of the Tribune. Kenzie had sold all his property and put his entire fortune of $1,800 into Sylvania Society stock. After the community disintegrated, the angered farmer went to New York to give Greeley an idea of what "a good Monroe county democrat" thought of him. When he started to berate the editor, Greeley asked him how much he had lost and then "handed him a check for the full amount." Kenzie, as he said afterwards, "thereupon became a loyal Greeley Whig" and remained so until the day of his death. T h e exact amount of Sylvania's stock had been fixed at $10,000, with an expected membership of four hundred, and par value of $25 a share. How many shares were sold cannot be determined, as some who generously subscribed at the beginning withdrew their subscriptions later, while others bought more stock. One authority estimated that "$4,500 was subscribed, in money and useful articles for mechanical and other purposes, at Albany, and $6,000 in New York City." The total amount ventured was $14,000. When the colony failed there was a $3,000 mortgage on the property, which was foreclosed. It was then purchased by Reverend Thomas H. Taylor of New York, but it has since been sold many times for arrears of taxes. In 1886 "not a vestige of mill, shop or hall" of the Sylvania colony remained, and it was still an undetermined question whether "Pike county humanity, animated by Pike county whiskey, will ever conquer the den of rattlesnakes which was

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the Sylvania Society's land" and which has "now been reclaimed by the forest." Hunters even removed the lead pipes that carried water from the mountain streams, melting them down into bullets. These they have made use of in hunting the bear and deer that haunt this wild Pike County tract where lies buried another trial of man's recurring hope for economic brotherhood.

OLE BULL'S COLONY IN 1852, Olaus Borneman Bull, better known as Ole Bull, worldfamed Norwegian violinist, purchased a tract of land among the wooded hills of Potter County in the hope of founding "a New Norway protected by the Union's mighty flag." A l o n g State Highway 44, between Cross Fork and Oleona, a motorist may catch sight of the flags of the United States and Norway still flying from the moidering ruins of Bull's castle. Ole Bull was born in Bergen, Norway, on February 5, 1810, and from early childhood showed an absorbing interest in music. His father, a physician, apothecary, and dabbler in amateur theatricals, wanted the youth to become a clergyman, but at eighteen Ole rebelled, left the University of Christiania, and turned his full attention to the study of the violin. During the succeeding fifteen years the young virtuoso covered himself with honor. He appeared upon the concert stage with the child-genius Chopin as his accompanist. Paganini extended the weight of his personal encouragement. Royalty welcomed him with enthusiasm. In 1843 visited America, the first time a celebrated European violinist had set foot on these shores. His two-year concert tour, 300

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which carried him along the entire eastern and southern seaboard of the United States, and to points in the West Indies and Canada, was a phenomenal success. Perhaps the psychological temper of the era, just recovering from the 1837 economic crisis, explained the remarkable reception accorded Bull. Before he returned to Europe he had given two hundred concerts, added $80,000 to his personal fortune, donated $25,000 to charitable institutions through benefit performances, and paid an additional $15,000 to assisting musicians—a great achievement for that time. The Norway to which Ole Bull returned was an unhappy country in many respects. King Karl Johan of Sweden, having subjugated the Danes, had hit upon a plan of uniting the three Scandinavian countries under one sovereign, while allowing so-called independent parliaments in Norway and Sweden. Many Norwegians objected to this partial subjugation of Norway, and so did the intensely patriotic Bull, who was to become an international spokesman for the Norse, openly championing their cause throughout the nations of Europe. Having experienced the wide personal freedom granted in America, Bull found the restraint imposed upon his people intolerable. In 1850 he attempted to found a national Norse theatre at Bergen, seeking through the fostering of authentic Norwegian music and drama to lend strength and direction to those forces that sought to rid Norway of the yoke of the Swedish King. His hopes were soon dashed. The Norwegian Legislature refused to grant the theatre a yearly appropriation. Police officials, whom Bull refused to supply with complimentary theatre tickets, arrested the violinist for smoking a cigar in the streets of Bergen. He sailed again for America in January 1852. History affords no record of the precise time when Bull's idea of establishing a Norwegian colony in America was first conceived. The suggestion that the plan occurred to him after his first visit to America is weakened by the fact that Bull composed the music for anti-emigration songs in a play produced by the national Norse theatre group in 1850. More likely the humiliation heaped upon him by political opponents in Norway precipitated his desire to found a new homeland for himself and his persecuted compatriots in the more promising land across the sea. March 1852 found him

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in Washington, seeking to ascertain conditions for settlement in the western States. But stories of plague-ridden settlements in the upper Mississippi Valley caused him to abandon the search in that direction. Not long afterward, Bull made a concert tour of the South and decided to establish his colony there. He was on the point of purchasing a tract of land in Virginia when a group of his countrymen came to him and related dismal accounts of the hardships, privations, and failing health of Norwegian immigrants who had settled in the South. These, he was told, had been adversely affected by the climate and were rapidly sinking into the hopeless and miserable condition of Southern "poor whites." T h e musician abandoned his immediate plan, but he was still undaunted. Through the services of John Hopper, a New York real estate dealer, he was introduced to John F. Cowan of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, and Joseph T . Bailey, a Philadelphia lawyer. Knowing something of the type of ground the naïve artist sought to purchase, Cowan and Bailey persuaded Bull to investigate a section of their holdings along Little Kettle Creek. T h e deal was quickly closed. Not waiting to sign a deed, and so extending an invitation to future trouble, Bull made Cowan a preliminary payment of $10,000 and later paid Bailey an additional $15,000. A company was formed with Bull as president, Cowan as superintendent and manager, and Bailey as treasurer. T h e violinist was delighted with the arrangement, which, he thought, put him in possession of a vast tract of land, in surroundings not greatly different from the physical and climatic conditions of his native Norway. Not less important, he had apparently secured for the colony the services of two good American administrators, leaving him free to pursue his concert tours. Settlement began at once. On September 6, 1852, a group of thirty, chiefly Norwegians, with a sprinkling of Danes, moved on to the land. Ole Bull arrived on the following day, when dedicatory services were held. A magnificent pine was converted into a flagpole and the national banners of the United States and Norway were run up. T o this small group of colonists Bull spoke enthusiastically of his new community and of plans for its ultimate expansion. Settlers were to receive fifty cents a day with board, or one dollar

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a day without board. Skilled laborers were promised seventy-five cents to one dollar a day, and board. Steady employment was guaranteed. Moreover, each colonist was permitted to purchase from twenty-five to fifty acres of land, paying for the tract in monthly installments over a period of three years. During the first year, land was to be sold at three dollars an acre. Later the price was to be raised to five dollars an acre; still later to ten dollars. In the interim, the violinist agreed to provide each family with a house and necessary equipment, this also to be paid for in monthly installments. Bull fondly dreamed that every Norwegian in America would flock to Pennsylvania and join him in building the colony. On September 8, 1852, work was begun. Foundations for a hotel were laid and sites selected for Bull's personal mansion or "castle," a mill, a church, a school, and twenty-five dwellings. T h e little settlement was christened Oleona, or Oleana, in honor of its founder. Common usage later extended this title to several mushrooming settlements. When the ship Incognito docked at New York, three days later, Bull was on hand to welcome it. More than a hundred Norwegian immigrants returned with him to Oleona. They were impressed by this blond, blue-eyed giant whose fame had spread so far; whose ring-covered fingers, diamond shirt studs, and gold snuffbox spoke eloquently of prosperity. But they were unimpressed by Oleona's heavily forested, stony soil, in the midst of high mountains and narrow valleys. Knowing the feel and quality of land, the immigrant farmers realized that a homestead in this hemlock-covered earth would demand a generation's back-breaking toil before it would support a family. Nevertheless, hopes were high. Good friends of the violinist contributed fine cattle, farm implements, and other necessities. Henry Clay donated blooded Kentucky horses. As colonists poured in, other towns—New Bergen, New Norway, and Walhalla—were founded. Glowing tales of the opportunities awaiting immigrants to Oleona found their way as far as Europe. Newspapers in the western prairie states published accounts of Ole Bull's successes. Within a few months approximately eight hundred pioneers had come to settle in the wonder-colony in Pennsylvania's woods. The

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hotel and the church had been completed, and the number of finished houses had grown to three hundred. D u r i n g the first few weeks Bull shuttled between Philadelphia, New York, and Washington, busy with further colonization schemes and plans for concert arrangements. O n September 25, the Norwegian ex-patriot took out citizenship papers at Philadelphia, apparently severing forever all connections with his mother country. D u r i n g this period he f o u n d great delight in mingling with the immigrants and directing the work on his mansion, perched high on a hill overlooking Little Kettle Creek. Dusk often f o u n d him seated atop a wall of the uncompleted "castle," softly playing his violin while the large diamond in its bow flashed blood-red in the setting sun. T h e tremendous expense of developing the colony soon made itself felt. U p o n returning to the colony in the middle of October, accompanied by forty immigrants, Bull called a meeting of the colonists and asked them to consider a slight rearrangement, in view of his dwindling finances. W o u l d they, for instance, work for fifty cents per day without board? T h e poverty-ridden laborers demurred. W i t h such low wages they could not feed and clothe their families. Some of the founding settlers prepared to leave Oleona. T h e r e were negotiations, and Bull consented to continue under the original terms, providing work for them through winter and leaving them at liberty to purchase land for settlement in the spring. Bull's only hope of holding the colony intact rested on his ability to secure additional funds within the shortest time possible. He therefore embarked upon an extended concert tour with a group of entertainers, among them the eight-year-old Adelina Patti. T h e route lay through New Orleans, to Panama, across the Isthmus, and then to California. T h e beginning of a long series of misfortunes overtook the musician in Panama. W h i l e crossing the Isthmus on burro-back, his violin was stolen by a native guide. Distressed at the loss of the valuable instrument, B u l l stayed behind to search for it, and his party proceeded without him. W h i l e the authorities investigated, he was stricken with yellow fever and lay ill for weeks. A t length, the violin having been recovered and his health partially restored, he resumed his interrupted journey to California.

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Arriving at San Francisco, Bull found his worst fears realized. The advertised dates of his appearance had passed, and the season was late. A fickle audience had lost some of its interest in him, and, because of his weakened physical condition, he made a poor impression upon those who heard him. At last he set out for the East by the overland route. Travel was arduous, the West not yet having any railroads. Falling ill on the Illinois prairie, he was deserted by his manager, denied hospice by a Midwestern hotel owner who feared smallpox, and for weeks lay ill in a lonely farmhouse. In time he recovered enough strength to resume his slow journey toward Pennsylvania. A hard winter had settled over Oleona shortly after Bull started southward on his ill-starred tour. Hardship and deprivation laid a withering hand on the struggling colony. When spring came the discouraged settlers had one question uppermost in their minds. Where was Ole Bull? Christmas and New Year had passed without word from their patron, not even a letter telling of his whereabouts. More important, the workers had received little of the promised wages due them. The settlement had endured a disheartening situation that winter. In their impoverished condition the artisans found it impossible to purchase the necessary supplies with which to work, and without a quick turnover of products they faced destitution. Dissatisfaction bccame so rife that the laborers refused to procced with further clearing of the land. Late in February, Cowan came. He informed dismayed colonists that he, too, had received no word from Bull. With a show of good will, he agreed to advance the colonists something on their long-delayed wages. T o some he paid amounts of $15 or $25, to others as little as $5 or $10, probably the best he could do under the circumstances, as he was paying this out of his own pocket. T h e colony now began to show the first signs of decay. As the uncertainty of the whole project became more and more obvious, many began to turn their thoughts toward other prospects. Some packed their belongings and set out for Chicago and the Western prairies. Others traveled eastward to New York and Buffalo. A few moved to the near-by town of Coudersport. A steadfast few refused

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to believe that their benefactor had actually deserted them. C l i n g i n g to a slowly fading hope, they remained to wait for Bull. Hastening homeward as fast as his impaired health would permit, that unfortunate m a n was blissfully unaware of the situation awaiting him. In fact, he drafted an optimistic letter to his brother in Norway, describing the laying out of five towns and contracting with the government for the casting of some ten thousand cannon in Oleona. H e recorded his success . . . in g e t t i n g P h i l a d e l p h i a to subscribe two million dollars to the Sunbury a n d Erie R o a d , which will go near the colony on the South;

New

York has also subscribed two Millions to a branch of the Erie and

New

York Railroad, from Elmira to Oleona, to run through the northern part of the colony. . . . So m a n y applied for land that . . . nearby, to the west, 1 have b o u g h t 20,000 acres, and in the a d j o i n i n g C o u n t y , M c K e a n , I have negotiated for u s , 0 0 0 acres. . . .

I am contracting for an old

foundry

workshops,

with

forest, water-power,

and

dwellings,

deserted

and

I

am

taking out patents in W a s h i n g t o n for a new smelting furnace for cannon.

W i t h railroads leading into a new Oleona, Bull hoped to bring the colony near to the large metropolitan centers. T h e building of the railroad alone w o u l d afford lengthy employment for hundreds of Oleona's workers. T h e proposed casting of thousands of cannon for the government w o u l d lure hundreds of other Norwegians to the colony. Lastly, he planned the establishment of a great technical school. T h i s institution, to be staffed by European professors, w o u l d function as a civil and military school open to American youth. However, these things were not to be. A t that moment events were maturing that were to blast the dreams of the idealist beyond all hope of fulfillment. T h e news broke, with devastating suddenness, that Bull held no title whatever to the acres on which he had established his colony. A Philadelphia Q u a k e r by the name of Stewardson owned the land on which the settlers had erected their homes. T h e colonists and their patron were guilty of trespassing. T h e y could be prosecuted by law. W h e n the story became known in Europe, there was laughter on both sides of the Atlantic. T h e enemies of O l e Bull in both continents had at last f o u n d their hour. Fabulous tales had circulated

OLE BULL'S

COLONY

abroad concerning the almost unbelievable land of Oleona. Poor peasant families in Norway had spoken in awed whispers of this New World Utopia. Now the bubble burst, with hopeful credulity transformed into biting sarcasm. And as the laughter spread. Bull drained the last dregs of bitterness. It is not known when or where he first received the news of his undoing, although it has been said that he was entertaining guests at dinner when the word came. However, he acted quickly, setting out for Oleona posthaste, arriving at the settlement in time to observe the forlorn celebration of the anniversary of Norway's Independence Day. There were hollow music and speeches in the somber quiet of the small clearing. Shortly afterward he left for Philadelphia in search of Bailey. T h e latter, whom Bull suspected of willful deception, invited the violinist to dinner. In reply to Bull's insistence that the pair at once visit Stewardson to discuss the matter, Bailey clung to his claim that the rumors were unfounded. Overwrought and sickened at Bailey's attitude, the musician declined to eat or drink. Receiving no satisfaction from either Bailey or Cowan, B u l l took the matter to court. In return, the pair brought a countersuit charging they had not been paid for administering the affairs of the colony. B u l l faced arrest in town after town, and his violin was liable to seizure each time he appeared with it in public. T h e court proceedings revealed that Cowan and Bailey had owned only small and isolated parcels of the vast tract of land involved in the project, and the impractical violinist had not even received a deed in return for his $25,000. T h e deed he finally obtained on May 24, 1853, entitled him to but 1 1 , 1 4 0 acres, about onetenth of what he imagined he had bought originally. Stewardson sympathetically offered to sell the remainder of the Oleona tract at a reasonable figure, but Bull, without money or credit, had to decline the offer. T h e funds he had been able to earn on a recent tour of the West had been exhausted by the expense of the suit and the repeated security posted to release his violin from the attachments obtained by Bailey and Cowan. On September 23, 1853, Bull made the best of his ill-advised investment by selling back to Cowan the 1 1 , 1 4 0 acres, for which the violinist received the full amount he had paid to Cowan originally.

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This fact combats the widely held opinion that Cowan sought to take advantage of the violinist. T h e root of the trouble seems to have been Bull's lack of funds and business ability rather than the alleged sharp practices of his partners. T h e deed by which Cowan made conveyance to Bull had reservations on the greater part of the land, and, when shown to Bull's lawyer, that gentleman pointed them out. Without these reservations, Bull could not have raised the money to purchase all the land included in the deed. Whatever victory the violinist obtained in the courts was a moral one. T h e land business in Pennsylvania was confused, with conflicting titles to the same plots; the Connecticut claims had left their marks. There was a general feeling that Ole Bull had been bilked; that the whole duty of the seller included an assurance that the purchaser knew what he was purchasing; that the deed should have been submitted to Bull's lawyers before payment was accepted. A legend arose and, in accord with legends in mountain country, grew for many years; it was even suggested that a poison plot had failed through sheer luck to dispose of the Norwegian. Oleona collapsed. Settlers began to desert the colony when the fight between Bull and his partners started; by the time litigation came to an end, only a handful remained. Today, little more than the names of Oleona and New Bergen recall the original string of Potter County settlements. Oleona itself consists of two farmhouses: one of them in what is referred to as the "center of town," and the other a quarter-mile distant. An abandoned stone house erected for Dr. Karl Joerg, Ole Bull's private physician, is the only building remaining of the original settlement. Perched high on a bluff approximately one mile south of Oleona, where Bull Run threads its way into Little Kettle Creek, the remains of Ole Bull's unfinished castle lie open to the sky. T h e impressive baronial mansion was one of the first buildings upon which work had been halted when the despairing settlers struck against nonpayment of their wages in the spring of 1853· Neither windows nor doors were ever fitted into the house. It fell rapidly into decay, every timber of its structure disappearing. There is left only a section of the great retaining wall upon which the skeletal house was erected. T h e crumbling foundations, sixteen feet in height, surround the wind-littered excavation that had been dug for a cellar.

OLE BULL'S

COLONY

309

From this spot it was once possible for Ole Bull to gaze out over the hastily erected houses and raw clearings of his "New Norway." Today, three hundred feet below, the mountain-flanked Little Kettle Creek insinuates itself through scenes very like those witnessed by the violinist on his first visit with Cowan and Bailey. The failure of Bull's experiment neither set a permanent stamp of bitterness upon the virtuoso nor greatly damaged his prestige among his immigrant compatriots. It is doubtful if Bull was ever accorded more genuine and heartfelt receptions than on the occasions of his later visits to the huge Scandinavian settlements along the headwaters of the Mississippi. In 1857 he returned to Europe, and, during the following two decades, divided his time between the United States and Europe, spending his winters in this country and his summers abroad. In 1870 he married—his second marriage—an American woman, and seven years later established residence in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he wintered as the friend and neighbor of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Bidding this country a final farewell in 1880, Bull sailed for Europe, where he retired to the quiet isle of Lyso. There, off the Norwegian coast near Bergen, he died on August 17, 1880. The grandiose plan for the establishment of a Norwegian colony in America was doomed to failure at the outset. T h e violinist— haughty, artistic, volatile, something of a dandy—was hardly the man to prosecute such a task successfully. The establishment, maintenance, and expansion of the colony, as Bull visioned it, demanded the expenditure of vast sums of money. The task of holding together and inspiring several hundred poverty-stricken farmers, for the length of time necessary for them to coax independent existences from the soil, required constant care and supervision. Their benefactor, moreover, was rarely at Oleona for any appreciable length of time, as his financial situation made it necessary for him to keep up his concert tours. T o Oleona's immigrant peasantry the violinist was never the simple, unostentatious countryman with whom they could feel at ease. He was, outwardly at least, the foppishly attired lord of the manor, whose magnificent baronial castle was to perch aloof on a hilltop, commanding the upward-looking respect of the humble peasant cabins scattered apart in the valley below. These rude

3io

PENNSYLVANIA

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farmers regarded the bejeweled artist as their benefactor but not their friend. H e commanded their respect but not their love. Consequently, when the crash came, the immigrants had no sympathetic affection to bolster their faith, and Oleona disintegrated like a house of chaff in the wind.

GOD'S GREEN ACRES IN THE rugged mountains of northeastern Pennsylvania, several miles west of Laporte, is a twenty-five-hundred acre tract of land which for more than a quarter-century was legally owned by God. Discernible along the road to Eagles Mere are a few acres that still show signs of having once been cultivated. Remnants of stone foundations are also visible, together with decaying pear trees, and occasional lilac and rose bushes. These are the tangible remains of Celesta, or Celestia, a Second Adventist colony established during the Civil War by Peter E. Armstrong, a religious zealot who subsequently deeded the land to the Lord and "His Heirs in Jesus Messiah forever." Armstrong began his business life in Philadelphia as a rag peddler, a vocation common in his day. These peddlers traveled the countryside on wagons filled with dishpans, washbasins, pails, cups, and other types of tinware, which they exchanged for rags. T h e rags were then taken to the city and sold to paper manufacturers. During one of his trips into northeastern Pennsylvania, Armstrong selected this place in Sullivan County for the fulfillment of his dream of a mountain kingdom. With money earned from his 3"

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p e d d l i n g business, h e p u r c h a s e d f o u r s q u a r e m i l e s o f u n c l e a r e d l a n d a n d set h i m s e l f t o t h e task o f b u i l d i n g a city w h e r e h e a n d

his

followers would " a w a i t the e n d of the world a n d the second coining o f J e s u s . " W h y h e s e l e c t e d this p a r t i c u l a r site for his v e n t u r e is n o t k n o w n . P r o b a b l y its inaccessibility a n d t h e low v a l u e p l a c e d u p o n t h e l a n d w e r e i m p o r t a n t reasons. T h e d o c u m e n t t r a n s f e r r i n g it t o t h e L o r d is o n e o f the s t r a n g e s t l e g a l i n s t r u m e n t s o n r e c o r d . I t is said t o h a v e b e e n w r i t t e n

by

A r m s t r o n g himself, w h o a p p a r e n t l y possessed a k n o w l e d g e o f legal as well as s p i r i t u a l m a t t e r s . A c o p y o f t h e deed, as r e c o r d e d in t h e c o u r t h o u s e at

Laporte,

follows: THIS INDENTURE, made the fourteenth day of J u n e , in the year o f our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four. P E T E R E . ARMSTRONG AND W I F E TO A L M I G H T Y

GOD

K n o w all men by these presents, that I, Peter E. Armstrong and H a n n a h , my wife, of the County of Sullivan and State of Pennsylvania, having redeemed from the inhabitants of the earth, by lawful purchase, a certain tract of land within the boundaries herein described, and being fully improved and taught by the Inspired W o r d of God and His Holy Spirit that His children should not claim to own property of any kind as individuals, but that they bear and consecrate unto God all things that they possess for the common good of His people who are waiting for His Son from Heaven and who are willing to live together in Holy Fellowship, relying upon His word and bounty; and to the end that His Saints may be fully separated from the world and gathered together and enjoy that light and liberty which they did in the once faithful days of their theocracy, we do make and establish this deed of conveyance this fourteenth day of J u n e , in the year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four. WHEREAS: in consideration of the kind, protecting care of Almighty G o d in the past and present, which we do hereby acknowledge, and for the exceeding great and precious promise of unending life to those who in Holy Faith and patience wait for the coming of His anointed Son to judge the world, which promises we have received from H i m who is creator and original grantor of earth's territory to the children of men, we do, by these presents, deed, grant and convey to Almighty God, who inhabiteth eternity, and to His heirs in Jesus Messiah, to the intent that it shall be subject to bargain and sale by men's cupidity n o more forever.

GOD'S

GREEN

ACRES

all o u r right and title (by common law) interest and claim of any nature forever in or to, of that tract of land and improvements thereof lying and b e i n g in the C o u n t y of Sullivan and State of Pennsylvania, being part of a parcel of land within the following bounds: BEGINNING at a point in the wilderness three hundred and twenty rods due south of the southwest corner of town plot of Celestia (as recorded in Deed B o o k N o . 2, page 266, in the office for the recording of Deeds in and for the C o u n t y of Sullivan); and running due west three hundred and twenty perches to a corner; thence due east 600 and forty rods to a corner; thence due west 300 and 20 rods to the place of beginning. C o n t a i n i n g four square miles of land, of which we have redeemed about 600 acres, and we d o hereby set apart by boundary with the intent to redeem the balance of said tract at or before the redemption of the world, and as the purchased possession of Jesus Messiah, together with all and singular the rights, liberties, privileges, and appurtenances whatsoever thereunto belonging to us, we do grant, deed, and convey to the said Creator and G o d of H e a v e n and earth to His heirs in Jesus Messiah, for their proper use and behold forever. IN WITNESS WHEREOF: we have hereunto set our hand and seal this day and year above written. PETER

E.

HANNAH

ARMSTRONG ARMSTRONG

O n the tract is a small lake or pond, with the outlet, Pole Bridge Run, emptying into Loyalsock Creek. O n this stream Armstrong constructed a sawmill and manufactured lumber for the construction of a number of dwellings and a large two-story building. T h e ground floor of the latter was used as a general store and printing office, and the upper story as an auditorium for religious services. From a staff on the auditorium roof floated a triangular white pennant on which were inscribed in red the letters Y.A.V.A.H., a variation of the sacred tetragrammaton of the Hebrews for the ineffable name. A n important source of income for the colony was the manufacturing of maple sugar, as the tract contained a number of large maple trees. T h e maple sugar was molded into small cakes and sold in Philadelphia. T h e town plan shows that Celesta, as Armstrong preferred to call it, was to have been composed of nine square blocks, the center one a public square. In each of the surrounding blocks was also a square

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marked "public." Each block was divided into forty lots. T h e streets r u n n i n g east and west were named Front, Second, T h i r d , and Fourth, and the cross-streets were designated Pine, Chestnut, Laurel, a n d Beech. T h e plans also called for a temple large enough to seat several thousand persons. For this purpose a brick kiln was built, a n d a quantity of bricks had already been made when the project collapsed. T o promote the colony and publicize its activities, Armstrong started a four-page newspaper, The Day Star of Zion and Banner of Life, printed by Charles T . Baker, Sixth and Arch streets, Philadelphia. By means of this newspaper, Armstrong made known his desire to " b u i l d a House for G o d of Israel, not only of earthly materials—but as a place of refuge against impending judgments," and "to organize a bond of perfectness and thus hasten the coming of the world's redeemer." For some time the paper was circulated free, but later, as financial matters became stringent, there was a charge of fifty cents per issue. T h e periodical contained many sermons by Armstrong and other adherents to the faith. Most of the sermons were lengthy but well written, and they reflected a keen understanding of the Scriptures. Another part of the publication was devoted to an occasional poem and to correspondence. T h e paper, apparently widely circulated, sometimes contained letters from readers in California, Michigan, N e w York, Iowa, and Illinois. In March 1864, Armstrong petitioned the State to consider those of his faith as peaceful aliens and religious exiles from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. T h e petition, a lengthy document, was presented to the legislature by George B. Jackson, Representative from Sullivan County. It was referred to the Judicial Committee, where it died. In addition to Celesta, Armstrong founded another town, Glen Sharon, about one mile south of the village of Sonestown. Here he built several substantial dwellings and a general store. W h i l e this project, like Celesta, did not meet the expectation of its founder, the store was successfully operated by members of the Armstrong family for several years; a small hamlet still exists. In appearance Armstrong was medium-sized, stout, smooth-shaven, a n d very good-looking. He had a pleasant disposition and was an

GODS

GREEN

ACRES

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ardent student of Scriptures, often quoting from memory long passages from the Bible. His wife, Hannah, was a small, energetic woman with unusual business ability. They had seven children, six sons and a daughter. They also reared an orphaned girl, Eva Calm. None of the family was an enthusiastic believer in Armstrong's religious philosophy, however. Failure in the attempt to build a celestial city could hardly have been due to the absence of vision or a lack of zeal on the part of its founder. It was more probable that it was caused by insufficient funds. But because Armstrong failed, he has been stigmatized as a fanciful dreamer and a religious fanatic. Had he had the necessary money and been able to induce a great number of persons to settle here, he might have received a place in history along with Joseph Smith and Brigham Young. Peter Armstrong died suddenly in 1892 and was buried at Philadelphia. With the passing of its leader, the colony rapidly declined. A few families lingered on for a while, but it was not long until the settlement had faded completely out of existence. A few years after his death the tract was taken over by the county and sold for nonpayment of taxes. Alvah, one of the sons, purchased it. Today it is the undivided estate of Alvah's heirs, grandchildren of the founder.

TRANSPORTATION

AMERICA'S FIRST PAVED ROAD L E S S than two and a half centuries ago, the smooth, gleaming, sixty-one-mile highway between Philadelphia and Lancaster was a narrow trail traveled by Indians on their way from their inland homes to the sea. T o d a y it is the eastern link of the great transcontinental Lincoln H i g h w a y (US 30), whose termini are washed by the waters of the Atlantic and Pacific occans. H o w long the trail had served the Indians no one knows. T h e n , in the closing years of the seventeenth and early years of the eighteenth centuries, it was traversed by the invading white men, mostly hardy farmers w h o had come to America from the strife-torn regions of G e r m a n y and Switzerland at the invitation of W i l l i a m Penn. Over it they pushed their way westward into the rolling wilderness the Indians had named Conestoga, meaning " G r e a t M a g i c L a n d . " A l t h o u g h some came to trade with the red men, the majority came to establish homes and farms on the rich but forested limestone land. T h e s e early farmers had thirty or more generations of rugged agricultural experience behind them, a heritage that enabled them to cope with hardships and handicaps in order to establish prosperous farms in the wilderness.

319

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T h e pioneers were poor in worldly goods. T h e r e is an account of nine German farmers pooling their resources to buy a gray mare for common use. For some years the Indian trails were all they needed, but, as time passed and farms flourished, transportation became an ever more important factor. Every farmer now had his own horses with which to carry products to market, and some had enough teams to specialize in transport work. Commerce increased with production, and the necessity for better transportation facilities led to the evolution of the Conestoga wagon, the development of the Conestoga horse, and the improvement of the roads to accommodate them. T h e wagons and the horses—usually six to a team—were huge and sturdy: the former conspicuous for their wide iron tires and covered tops, the latter for their great size and strength. A p p e a r i n g early in the eighteenth century, the Conestoga horse and wagon doomed the old Indian trails, the packhorses, and eventually competed with the canals. T h e road builders, however, did not seem to sense the future importance of Lancaster. T h e first two highways from Philadelphia completely passed it by. T h e great Conestoga R o a d branched northwest at Downingtown (Chester County), and the Paxton Road passed through Ephrata and on to Harris' Ferry on the Susquehanna. T h e continuation of the main road itself turned southwest at the G a p and passed through Strasburg, south of what is now Lancaster. T h e s e were the highroads between Lancaster County and the Delaware River until 1733, when, three years after the borough of Lancaster was laid out, the Governor and the Provincial Council recognized a petition by the Conestoga farmers for a "King's Highway." T h e s e highways were the predecessors of today's State highways; they were laid out and maintained by the provincial government, while the local governments took care of the byways and private roads. Acting on the petition, the Province ordered that a dirt road thirty feet wide be laid from the courthouse in Center Square, Lancaster, "until it fell in with the highroad in the county of Chester," and so through to the High Street Ferry on the Schuylkill. Six years later the Paxton R o a d became a King's Highway, crossing the county for a distance of fifty miles. A third provincial highway, the Horseshoe Road, was laid out in 1738 to connect the farms

FIRST

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of Caernarvon Township, New Holland, Blue Ball, and Morgantown with the Coventry Iron Works on French Creek in Chester County; and a branch was to lead to the Reading Furnace. For more than sixty years—while Conestoga wagons rumbled over it, and teamsters won and lost their bells in muddy ditches, disputed the right of way with one another, foiled highwaymen, or rollicked and fought stagecoach drivers in the sixty taverns along the way— there were no major improvements on the first King's Highway. In the winter of 1761 Chief Justice Shippen wrote from Philadelphia to his father in Lancaster, complaining about the bad roads and lack of wagons that prevented him from sending "the things I mentioned to you in a former letter, among which is some citron from Miss Betsy Anderson." There is record that as late as 1773 travel was still made dangerous by tree stumps in the highway. When the Continental Congress and the Executive Council of the Province of Pennsylvania fled from Philadelphia over this highway, after the British victory on the Brandywine in 1777, it was little different from the old Indian trail except that it had been made wider. During much of the year it was almost impassable in places, and for a long time there were no bridges. Perhaps it was for that reason the British did not pursue the legislators. In those days it required two days to go from Philadelphia to Lancaster by coach, and Conestoga wagons covered only fifteen or twenty miles a day. T h e vicissitudes of the road are described by Charles Biddle, who made the journey in 1777 with a friend named Collison. Biddle left Philadelphia driving a sulky, while Collison jogged along on a horse. Before they reached Lancaster, writes Biddle, "Collison begged me to let him ride in the sulky as he was fatigued on horseback." They exchanged, and two days passed before Collison caught up with Biddle. " H e was so heartily tired," Biddle relates, "that he declared no consideration whatever would induce him to ride another day in it." Passengers riding the stagecoaches, which began to ply the highway about 1771, usually felt as tired as Biddle's friend before they reached their destination. T h e trip would have been unbearable without the inns along the way. T h e journey was made further unpleasant—but more exciting—if travelers attempted to rest and refresh themselves at one of the taverns adopted by the Conestoga

PENNSYLVANIA

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wagon teamsters as their own. Rivalry between the passengers and freight trade was intense, and the representative of one was not welcome at a hostelry patronized by the other. The teamsters despised the coach-line "dandies," and if the latter tried to enter one of the wagoners' taverns they were hooted and insulted. If insults did not accomplish the purpose, the intruders were simply thrown out bodily. These teamsters were a hardy, rough-and-tumble lot, vying mercilessly with one another for the business of the road and the right of way. When two of them met in their cumbersome wagons going in opposite directions, there would be a dispute for the high middle of the narrow highway, and, like as not, the matter could be settled only by flying fists. Sometimes bluff would work. Maybe the man most proficient in the art of profanity and verbal abuse would win. Sometimes an implied threat would do the trick. There is, for example, the classic instance related by the descendants of Jacob Kraybill, an old flour miller of Marietta. Kraybill, accompanied by a younger brother who was tending the brake, was en route to Philadelphia to sell his wares. He encountered another heavily laden wagon coming toward Lancaster; and the teamster showed no inclination to yield the right of way. Kraybill, a powerfully built man, sternly warned the other: "If you don't give me my share of the road I'll have to do something I don't like to do." T h e teamster sized him up, then meekly pulled aside, permitting Kraybill to pass. Farther along the road the brother could no longer check his curiosity. "What would you have done," he inquired, "that you didn't like to do, if that fellow had not pulled over?" " I would have pulled over," said Kraybill dryly. T h e story is told of another bluff that resulted in tragedy. The teamsters were as loud and boastful as they were rough, and on this occasion one of them boasted to a tavern keeper how he had frightened off a bandit by pointing the butt end of a candle at him. T h e highwayman himself overheard the story. Next day the teamster, resuming his trip, was confronted a short distance along the road by a man who stepped from behind some bushes and jeeringly invited him to "scare me off again with a candle." It was the highwayman's last hold-up. T h e tavern keeper, who knew his trade and

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was fond of teamsters, had lent the driver a loaded pistol that morning. Although sometimes bitter business rivals, the teamsters held strictly to a code of courtesy among themselves. When they stopped at a tavern for the night, they would sleep on the barroom floor on narrow mattresses they always carried. First comer got the choicest spot near the stove, and no other ever disputed his right to it. During the winter months, they would help one another place under the wheels of their wagons the planks which tavern landlords supplied, this to prevent their wagons from sinking into the mud or being frozen into the ground overnight. Often when a teamster had to yield the high crown of the road to another for passing, he would find himself mired in a ditch. No one ever offered to help him out unless he asked for help; then none ever refused. T h e request, however, always implied the condition that the distressed teamster withdraw his own stalled team, and the rescuing team be given complete charge. If the rescue were successful, the rescuer was rewarded with the bells from the team of the victim. This is believed to be the origin of the expression still used: "He was there with bells on." T h e humbled teamster lost the right to use bells until he, in turn, had rescued a team in trouble. T h e derisive epithet, "Old Stuck in the Mud," may have originated with these teamsters. In any case, they liked to jeer one another with it. So did Abraham Witmer, who in 1788 built a wooden toll bridge at Deering's Ford across the Conestoga River. Sometimes the wagon drivers, especially the young and inexperienced ones, would attempt to dodge the toll by fording their heavy vehicles below the span. Many lost their bells this way—and worse, won the ridicule of Witmer, who always watched their progress, or lack of it, from the bridge. "Don't you wish now you had paid toll, Old Stuck in the Mud?" he would shout. In time a great public demand arose for an artificial highway between Philadelphia and Lancaster, which had become the largest inland town in the Colonies. Commissioners were appointed to study the problem in 1786, and six years later they reported a bill to the State legislature for the construction of a highway of wood,

3*4

PENNSYLVANIA

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stone, and gravel. T h e bill was passed that year, and the Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company was chartered on April 9- !792· T o finance America's first hard-surfaced road, the company issued six-per-cent interest-bearing stock with a par value of $300 a share. T h e issue was speedily absorbed, and before the end of 1794 the macadam highway, complete with bridges and toll gates, was finished as far as the Conestoga River, one mile east of the Lancaster County Courthouse. It had cost $465,000, or $7,500 per mile, to build. Its route was virtually that of the King's Highway, which at some points it paralleled and at others it crossed. Nine toll gates were set up along the route to collect from wagons and stagecoaches a specified toll, based on the number of horses and width of tires. Traffic over the new highway was judiciously regulated, as evidenced by this notice in the Lancaster Journal of January 22, 1796, stipulating wheel width and load limits: Section 13: And be it further enacted . . . . that no wagon or other carriage with wheels the breadth of whose wheels shall not be four inches, shall be driven along said road between the first day of December and the first day of May following in any year or years, with a greater weight thereon than two and one-half tons, or with more than three tons during the rest of the year: that no carriage, the breadth of whose wheels shall not be seven inches, or being six inches or more shall roll at least 10 inches, shall be drawn along said road between the first day of December and May with more than tons or more than 4 tons during the rest of the year.

T h e new road eliminated much of the hardship of travel—and some of the color, too. Stagecoach time for the trip was halved, and routine schedules were established. Teamsters still sang their rollicking airs—soon, with the coming of the canals and railways, to become the doleful swan songs of an era. But the improved road reduced the need for swearing and fighting and vying for bells. Stagecoach drivers and passengers no longer had to be subjected to the abuse of the teamsters, as the new thoroughfare bred a better class of hotel for travelers. T h e stagecoach lines even built their own hostelries. Most famous of these was the Stage Tavern, between Lancaster and Gap, built by Amos Slaymaker, owner of a line of stages, shortly after completion of the turnpike. When Slaymaker retired from management of the hotel in 1807, he built a mansion

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called " W h i t e C h i m n e y s , " a handsome specimen of the architecture of the period and still a private residence of the Slaymaker family. I n 1798 steps were taken toward completion of the last mile of the new highway, w h e n the legislature authorized A b r a h a m W i t m e r to " b u i l d a n d maintain a permanent bridge on any u n o c c u p i e d part of the great road, immediately above and on the north side of his present bridge." T h e act provided that he should "remove the old bridge a n d leave a passage of twenty feet o n said road on the south side of the new bridge a n d at both ends thereof for the use of all those w h o might think proper to pass a n d repass the [Conestoga] creek w i t h o u t g o i n g over the bridge." W i t m e r decided o n a nine-arch limestone span, w i t h a three- or four-foot parapet o n each side. In the middle of the north parapet there was erected a marble tablet bearing this inscription: Erected by Abraham Witmer MDCCXCIX MDCCC A law of an enlightened Commonwealth Passed April 4, 1798 Thomas Mifflin, Governor Sanctioned this Monument of the public spirit of an Individual 61 M to Ρ T h e new bridge was opened to traffic N o v e m b e r 12, 1800. It rem a i n e d the property of the W i t m e r s until 1827, w h e n David, executor to A b r a h a m , sold it to the county for $26,000, plus a p u b l i c subscription of $2,585.81. It served its purpose u n t i l 1933, w h e n it was replaced by a concrete structure adapted to a modern age and a different type of vehicle. M e a n w h i l e , in 1802, the l o n g hard p u l l f r o m the bridge to the Lancaster C o u r t h o u s e — t h e last mile a n d a half of the old King's H i g h w a y , still k n o w n as East K i n g S t r e e t — was macadamized, finishing the stretch of road prophetically described in 1807 by A l b e r t Gallatin, then Secretary of the T r e a s u r y , as " t h e first link of the great western communication from Philadelphia." T h e n e w highway made faster travel possible, a factor that had

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become increasingly important. Lighter vehicles came into popularity, foreshadowing the doom of the massive Conestoga wagon. In the middle of the century a new threat appeared in the form of canals—a method of transportation the wagoners resented as a peril to their existence. They thus expressed their feeling in song: Bad luck to the man Who invented the plan For he ruined us wagoners And every other man.

T h e final blow came with the building of the first railroad between Philadelphia and Lancaster, and on more than one occasion teamsters gave violent expression to their resentment of this encroachment upon their domain. A typical fight started when an Irish railroad laborer contemptuously tossed a teamster's mattress from its selected spot to a far corner of a tavern barroom. T h e fight became a battle royal that was continued the following morning, when a crowd of Irish laborers, armed with pick handles, attacked the drivers of two Conestoga wagons on the highway. The teamsters put them to flight with their adept swinging of fence rails. But fence rails could not hold back the march of modern progress, which reduced the time between Philadelphia and Lancaster from two days to two hours. Huge trucks and speedy motorcars now speed along the route over which once lumbered the Conestoga sixbell teams and the rocking stagecoaches. These have been relegated to museums and the pages of the history they made.

THE SCHUYLKILL CANAL F R O M early Colonial times u p to the Canal Era, the Schuylkill River was used as a highway of commerce only during periods of high water. Craft such as arks, flatboats, and rafts transported the lumber and other products down river to Philadelphia from the upper counties. A f t e r reaching their destination, these crude conveyances were broken up, as it was not feasible to try propelling them back upstream. Early river transportation was therefore slow and costly, but there were few good roads then, and even the better highways were almost impassable during the months when river transportation was at its best. T h e need for better transportation facilities had been felt for years throughout the Schuylkill R i v e r country, but it was not until the hard-coal industry was born that important steps were taken in that direction.

T h e great period of canal building began after the W a r of 1812, when coal-mining operations sprang u p in various parts of the anthracite regions. T h e coal industry, with ever widening markets, demanded better facilities of transportation than those provided by makeshift roads and the seasonal flow of rivers. In 1815, therefore, a group of enterprising men formed the Schuylkill Navigation 327

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Company (incorporated March 8), their purpose being to make the Schuylkill River navigable in all kinds of weather. T h e great anthracite coal fields are in the northeastern section of the Commonwealth. T h e y contain a workable area of 484 square miles extending over parts of Lackawanna, Wayne, Dauphin, Susquehanna, Luzerne, Carbon, Northumberland, Columbia, and Schuylkill counties. T h e physical features of this section a century and a half ago were wild and forbidding. T h e territory was covered with dense forests. T h e r e were broad expanses of mountain and valleys; there were rocky glens and deep morasses. T h e occasional paths were fit only for the moccasined feet of Indians. In the depths of the wilderness lay a black combustible stone that was destined to become the source of never ending controversy between mine operator and laborer. Coal was to mean strikes, cave-ins, gas explosions, and other calamities, but it was to become a keystone product of a great State. T h e actual date of the discovery of hard coal is not recorded. It is said that Indians in the Wyoming Valley first encountered the "black stones" on Kingston Mountain early in the Colonial period and used them in their campfires. J o h n Jenkins, a surveyor employed by the Susquehanna Company of Connecticut, reported finding two outcroppings of coal in the Wyoming Valley in 1763. T h e company forthwith voted "to reserve for use of the company all beds and mines of coal that may be within the towns then or ordered for settlement" in that territory. In Pennsylvania records, the earliest known reference to anthracite is in the original draft of the survey of Sunbury Manor, opposite Wilkes-Barre, made by Charles Stewart in 1768. T h e following year Daniel and Obadiah Gore, Jr., brothers, first burned American anthracite in a Wyoming Valley blacksmith forge. Apparently the first recorded evidence of coal in Schuylkill County is Scull's 1770 map of that county. Necho Allen, a pioneer for whom Pottsville's leading hotel was named, is usually credited with discovering coal on Broad Mountain in 1790. But, as a matter of fact, many people knew of the presence of coal in the locality before that time. T h e r e was actually a coal mine within what is now Pottsville in 1784. Anthracite's early start was a poor one, due to lack of understanding on the part of the public of how to burn coal. In due time,

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however, it gradually came into use as a fuel. T h e Pottsville Journal reported in a "chronology of anthracite coal," published in 1925, that, as early as 1822, nearly fifteen hundred tons of Schuylkill anthracite had been shipped down the Schuylkill Canal as far as it had been completed at that time. The very earliest coal-mining plants were small holes sunk into the ground, the coal being hoisted by windlasses in a manner similar to present-day bootleg operations. Later, because of the accumulation of water in these holes, drifts or tunnels were driven into the hillsides and the coal was removed in wheelbarrows. The first coal mined in the Schuylkill Region was, of course, by the local inhabitants, mostly Pennsylvania Germans who had previously been farmers and woodsmen. Increase in the production of coal caused a corresponding demand for labor. Immigrants to America were directed to the anthracite fields where work was plentiful. Among these were thousands of Englishmen, Welshmen, Germans, and Irishmen. Later came the Slavs of central and eastern Europe and the Italians from southern Europe. This influx of people soon gave the region the appearance of a boom area, similar in many respects to that of California during the Gold Rush of 1849 and Texas during later oil booms. Articles of incorporation for the Schuylkill Navigation Company provided for the construction of a lock navigation canal from the Lancaster Schuylkill bridge in Philadelphia to the mouth of Mill Creek in Schuylkill County, a distance of 108.23 miles, with one division extending from Philadelphia to Reading and the second from Reading to Mill Creek. There were to be about forty-six miles of slackwater created by dams, and about sixty-two miles of connecting canals. From Dam No. 1 at Port Carbon to tidewater at Philadelphia the lockage was to be 618 feet. Actual work probably began late in 1816. As the legislature required that construction begin on both divisions simultaneously, a certain amount of difficulty arose. T h e divisions were so far removed from each other that proper superintendence could not be given to both at the same time. T h e work, nevertheless, was carried on. In 1818 the section between Mount Carbon and Schuylkill Haven in Schuylkill County was well under way. A setback was encountered that year when freshets destroyed a large part of the work

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completed, but construction was resumed immediately. T o w a r d the end of 1820, work was completed from the vicinity of the coal mines to Kern's Mill, about a mile north of Hamburg, with the exception of a tunnel, a short canal, and three locks. In 1821, when these were finished, coal and other products could be brought as far south as Hamburg. T h e northern division was complete then save for portions between Hamburg and Reading, and the southern division except for some incomplete sections below Reading. T h r o u g h transportation from Mount Carbon to Philadelphia was not possible until late in 1824 or early in 1825, when all sections of the canal were completed. For a short time the boats were towed by men, and then in 1826 the towpath was made serviceable for horses and mules. T h e task of navigating a boat through the canal was arduous, especially without an experienced navigator or without proper directions. T h e most hazardous part was below Reading, where rocks, points, and bars obstructed passages. Captains leaving Philadelphia were instructed as follows: T o w the whole way to M a n a y u n k . Let the horses go at a slow walk. A t t e n d to the line. Keep a lookout for stumps and rocks. Keep out about ten or fifteen feet, according to the situation of the place, till you pass through the Little Canal, then keep out about thirty feet till you come to Young's Landing. T h e n keep the towpath channel at the falls about ten or twelve feet from the shore, and so continue till you have passed the rocks.

Although all canal boats on the Schuylkill followed the same general pattern of construction, there were three distinct types of men employed in the trade: company men, individual owners, and "river boatmen." T h e skilled boatmen would make a trip down river in spring and not return until autumn. During the summer months they found employment on the rivers about Philadelphia, in New York City, or on the Erie Canal. Company men worked on boats owned by the company. They were hired for specific tasks, but the captain of a company boat had the right to select his bowsman. T h e third class comprised those who owned their own boats and were, to a certain extent, competitors of the company. However, since they operated on the company's canal, the company exercised a degree of supervision over them. A canal boat's crew had living quarters in the stern, just under

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the tiller—a small compartment with four bunks and a table and, in the winter, a stove. T h e bunks were narrow and scarcely long enough even for a man of average size. Often a box was used for a table. T w o small windows at the stern admitted light and air. A ladder led up to the deck. On a privately owned boat the captain and his bowsman always remained on the deck when the boat was moving, the former at the tiller and the latter at the bow. Besides taking personal charge of the steering, the captain would also blow the horn to signal the lock-tender upon approaching a lock. It was the bowsman's task to take care of the towline and protect the bow with rope fenders while passing through a lock. This required quick thinking and agility, as a man could easily be crushed to death between the boat's hull and the lock walls. Meanwhile, the driver aided the lock-tender with the wickets in opening and closing the locks. Although the Schuylkill Canal was designed primarily for trade, pleasure cruises were run between Reading and Philadelphia from 1825 to 1832. Day-long trips at two and a half dollars per person were made three times a week, and the packets were well patronized. However, increase of commercial traffic on the canal made it necessary to discontinue passenger service. Twenty years later, in 1846, steam packets were introduced, but they did not operate long. From Port Carbon the Canal ran in a southerly course for about five miles to Schuylkill Haven, whence it meandered by a southeasterly course for about fourteen miles to Port Clinton, on the south side of the Blue Mountains. Then, resuming a southerly course, it passed the towns of Hamburg, Reading, Pottstown, Norristown, and Manayunk to the City of Philadelphia. One of its interesting features was a tunnel about a mile south of Landingville, on the northern division. This tunnel, the first of its kind in the United States, extended four hundred feet through a hill. It was regarded as an unusual curiosity, and people traveled long distances to see it. From time to time it was shortened by removing parts of the roof, and about 1857 it was made an open cut throughout its length. T h e success of the canal went beyond expectations. T h e rapid growth of the coal trade made it necessary to build an extension from Mount Carbon to Port Carbon. In 1829 the total traffic was

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134,524 tons, and in ten years the volume had increased to 686,716 tons. Dividends of nineteen per cent were being paid. T h e Union Canal, connecting the Schuylkill near Reading with the Susquehanna, helped greatly to increase traffic on the Schuylkill. Organizers of the Schuylkill Canal Company, not anticipating such rapid growth of the coal trade, had built the canal for boats of eighteen to twenty-three tons capacity. These were seventy-five feet long, eight feet wide, and drew only three feet of water. In order to accommodate larger boats and speed up transportation, the depth of water in the canal was increased to four feet, and a double line of locks was constructed. These, placed side by side, permitted boats to pass in both directions at the same time. Then storage dams, from which water could be drawn in times of drought, had to be built. In 1834 the Lower Tumbling Run Reservoir, with a capacity of 180 million gallons, was completed. In 1836 the Upper Tumbling Run Dam, with a capacity of 225 million gallons, was constructed. Likewise, in the vicinity of Reading, a number of dams were built. T h e Tumbling Run Valley dams still exist; they are used as storage dams of the Silver Creek Water Company. After the Philadelphia & Reading Railroad was opened for business in 1842, the canal suffered severe losses. T o meet this serious competition it was decided to enlarge and modernize the canal. This was started in 1845 and completed the following year, but by that time the company, for the first time, found itself in financial difficulties. Various reasons were given, among them the loss of business during the years of 1845-46 and the expense of building new and larger boats. In this emergency Frederick Fraley was elected president. He remained in this post for twenty-three years, and under his able guidance the canal company continued. From 1855 to 1867 approximately fifteen million tons of coal, more than a million a year, were transported over the canal. T h e highest tonnage ever reached in one year was in 1859, when 1,699,101 tons of merchandise were transported; of this total, 1,372,109 tons consisted of coal. There were now about fourteen hundred boats on the canal, each having a capacity of 180 tons. About one-half the amount of coal carried in 1859 was destined for New York and its vicinity. T h e New York-bound boats were towed by tugs from the mouth of the Schuyl-

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kill River up the Delaware River to Bordentown, New Jersey. Here they proceeded through the Delaware and Raritan Canal to New Brunswick, to enter the Raritan River and Bay. For purposes of towing, a number of boats were often lashed together so as to be handled more easily by tugs. Despite enlargement of the Schuylkill Canal and modernization of its equipment in 1846, the canal company never afterward attained a satisfactory financial standing. T h e works were greatly damaged by several disastrous floods that caused long suspensions of traffic. A flood on July 19, 1850, necessitated the suspension of traffic until August 26; and on September 2, 1850, another flood, the greatest in the history of the Schuylkill Valley, caused much damage to the Lower Tumbling Run Reservoir, to canal banks, lock houses, and dams. Twenty-three dams in all were impaired to some extent, and the Schuylkill Valley was strewn with the wrecks of boats, lumber, furniture, and fragments of buildings. Following this flood, navigation was not resumed above Reading until the next spring. In J u n e 1862 a flood delayed navigation for three weeks, and in October 1869 another flood stopped traffic for a month. In 1870 the navigation company, embarrassed by financial reverses, leased the canal to the Philadelphia 8c Reading Railroad Company for a period of 999 years. T h e annual rental fee was $655,000, but methods were provided whereby this fee could be reduced from time to time. Rapid expansion of the railroad soon doomed the canal, which had begun to decline as early as 1853, when Dam No. 1 at Port Carbon was abandoned. T h e reason for closing this was because a sufficient depth of water for boats could not be maintained because of coal dirt washing into the canal. In 1888 the section of canal between Schuylkill Haven and Port Clinton was closed, although shipping from Port Clinton to Philadelphia was continued until the end of 1915, with about thirty boats in service. Navigation was continued throughout the greater part of each boating season, and coal was shipped to Philadelphia and towns along the line. However, great difficulty was eventually encountered even here, because coal dirt from the mines was being washed farther and farther southward. There was some barge traffic from Philadelphia to Manayunk as

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late as 1925. Motorboats, rowboats, and canoes also were in use in the vicinity of R e a d i n g and in the lower sections of the canal. Notwithstanding the fact that commercial traffic had all but ceased, the locks and dams for a time were kept in repair, the grass was kept cut on the towpath, and lock-tenders remained on duty. T o d a y only twenty-eight miles of the 108-mile Schuylkill Canal still exist, along with remnants of locks, dams, and rotting boats. T h e canal is still owned by the Schuylkill Navigation Company, a subsidiary of what is now the Reading Company. But the history of the Schuylkill Canal is merely a c h a p t e r — though an important o n e — i n the saga of Pennsylvania canals. As early as 1700, W i l l i a m Penn had recommended a plan to connect the Susquehanna, at what is now Middletown, with Philadelphia by uniting the waters of the Schuylkill River at Reading with those of T u l p e h o c k e n Creek and the Quittapahilla, which flowed into the Swatara ten miles westward, and finally into the Susquehanna at Middletown. T h e earliest survey for a canal, in 1762, was the result of Penn's foresight, but because of the lack of financial resources no construction work was undertaken at that time. A t the close of the W a r of 1812, many prominent citizens of the United States attempted to persuade the Federal Government to establish a general system of canals throughout the various states. Congress did not comply, but the appeals of these canal advocates stimulated action on the part of individuals and corporations, and this resulted in the building of artificial water routes in several states. Pennsylvania was a pioneer in canal construction. And, in Pennsylvania, there were many canals proposed and actually constructed a decade before the legislature determined, by an act of February 25, 1826, to enter into actual building of an extended system of internal improvements and to continue the annual expenditure of large sums of money for canals until 1841. O n e of the canals projected and carried into successful operation before this act was the Schuylkill Canal. T h e first canal in Pennsylvania was built around Conewago Falls, in York County. O n l y one and a quarter miles long, it was built to overcome an obstruction in the Susquehanna River; the dangerous rapids at the Falls had made passage of boats very difficult. T h e

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canal was opened in 1797, with Governor Thomas Mifflin, one of the projectors, in attendance. Another famous Pennsylvania canal was the Union Canal, which connected the Susquehanna River at Middletown with the Schuylkill River near Reading, a distance of eighty-two miles. The Union Canal Company was formed in 1 8 1 1 , but continuous construction work was not begun until 1821. When the canal was opened in the spring of 1828, the first boat, Fair Trader, went through from Philadelphia to Middletown in about five days. There were few boats in service during the first season—only seventeen in July, because the locks of the Union Canal were too small for the Schuylkill Canal's boats to pass through. Special ones had to be built; nearly two hundred of them were ready by the end of the year. Although the original intention was only to connect the Schuylkill with the Susquehanna, the discovery of anthracite coal in the Lorberry region induced Union Canal directors to build an extension to Pine Grove. This feeder canal was started in the fall of 1828 and opened in 1830. As with the Schuylkill Canal, costly improvements, together with the advent of railroad competition, spelled doom for the Union Canal. T h e opening of the Lebanon Valley Railroad from Reading to Harrisburg in 1857 caused such financial distress to the already ailing canal company that when, on June 3, 1862, a disastrous flood destroyed the Pine Grove Branch, it was completely abandoned. Boats continued to run between Middletown and Reading until 1884, when the canal, leaky, worn out, and profitless, had its property and franchise sold at a sheriff's sale in Philadelphia. About the beginning of the 1820's, some far-sighted Pennsylvanians began to realize that more direct communication between Philadelphia and the West was necessary. T h e building of the Erie Canal, started in July 1817, was threatening Pennsylvania's security by its promise of extensive aid to New York City in her battle for the commerce of the great West. Baltimore, by way of the New National Road, was ninety miles nearer the Ohio River than Philadelphia. Moreover, the possibilities of constructing a canal, running up the Potomac and thence to the Ohio, were being widely discussed. Something had to be done, most Pennsylvanians believed, to enable the Keystone State to retain "her present station in the

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system of the Confederacy." In February 1825, after no little bickering caused principally by those interested in turnpikes and railroads, a canal from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh was decided to be "perfectly practicable." Early in 1825 a board of five canal commissioners was instructed to prepare for "the establishment of communication between the eastern and western waters of the State and Lake Erie." T o them was given power to employ engineers and draftsmen. Finally, a bill to provide for the construction of the waterway passed both houses of the State legislature in February 1828. Ground for the Pennsylvania Canal was broken at Harrisburg on J u l y 4, 1826. One of the original intentions was to employ the Schuylkill and Union canals as the eastern section of the great eastand-west waterway and to construct a new system for the western part. But the Union Canal was deemed too narrow and too small to provide adequate service for the great canal, and the State was forced to build its own route from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River. As a canal would be impracticable through the hilly terrain, a railroad 81.6 miles long was built from Columbia on the Susquehanna to Philadelphia. This railroad, using horse-drawn vehicles of the period, was authorized in 1828 and completed in 1834. Meanwhile progress was being made on the western portion of the canal. T h e extreme western section, 104 miles of waterway from Johnstown to Pittsburgh, was ready for use by 1830. Work on the Juniata Division, 172 miles of canal from Columbia almost to Hollidaysburg, at the foot of the Allegheny divide, was completed in 1832. Another railroad line, the Allegheny Portage Railroad, begun in 1831 and finished in 1834, was the connection between Hollidaysburg and Johnstown. This railroad, about thirty-six and one-half miles long, crossed a mountain ridge approximately fourteen hundred feet above Hollidaysburg. In conjunction with the main Pennsylvania Canal, the State constructed several branch lines. T h e digging of these was not long delayed after construction of the main line was under way. As soon as work on the principal canal began, the northern and northwestern portions of Pennsylvania started a clamor for canals. Philadelphia and the central counties argued that the main canal should

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be completed before incurring more expense, but advocates of secondary canals were powerful enough to frustrate the passage of any main canal appropriation bills that did not provide for branch lines also. Because such funds had already been expended on the Pennsylvania Canal, legislators were forced to vote for secondary canals in order to continue work on the main project. T h e branch canals were surveyed in 1827, and excavation started in 1828. There were four principal ones. T h e Susquehanna Division left the main waterway at the junction of the Juniata and Susquehanna rivers and continued up the Susquehanna to Northumberland, a distance of forty miles. At Northumberland the canal forked. One part followed the North Branch of the Susquehanna past Bloomsburg and Wilkes-Barre, heading for the New York line, where it was expected to connect with the Chemung and Chenango canals of the New York system and to tap the business of that state. T h e other fork followed the West Branch of the Susquehanna from Northumberland up past Lewisburg and Williamsport. T h e Delaware Division followed the Delaware River from Easton, at the mouth of the Lehigh River, down to tidewater at Bristol, a distance of sixty miles; this line was in reality the continuation of a canal built at great expense by the Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company along the Lehigh River. A small line named the Wiconisco Canal, twelve miles long, was built at a cost of one and a half million dollars. By the year 1834 a total of 673 miles had been built. These had not been constructed economically, nor were they managed efficiently. As a result, the State was twenty-three million dollars in debt by 1834. Within seven years the debt had mounted to fortytwo million and all work ceased. T h e proposed extension of the Pennsylvania Canal, to connect Pittsburgh with Lake Erie, was one of the last begun.

KEELBOAT DAYS AT PITTSBURGH L O N G before the arrival of the first white adventurer in the Western country, the Indians used water craft for travel, for fishing, and for pleasure. T h e y appreciated the value of the rivers and taught each stripling brave the arts and crafts of river life, chief of which was canoe-making. T h e youth was taken into the forest and shown how to select a choice tree to be used for his canoe. He then began the arduous work of fashioning craft that would pass inspection among the old men of the council, as this was one of many tests to prove himself worthy of the term "brave" or "warrior." First, he had to fell the towering giant. T h e n , under the supervision of an elder, he cut the bole to just the right length and began the backbreaking j o b of burning, hacking, hollowing out, and scraping. W h e n finished, the canoe had a flat bottom and either squared or slightly tapered sides, and ran to a sharp nose at the bow. W h e n the Indian boy had finished work on the canoe he proudly launched it and paddled gleefully about. T h e craft was by no means as light and graceful as the birch-bark canoe, which was not adapted to the stony, snag-filled streams of the region. It was sturdy but difficult to handle; often, to the embarrassment and sometimes to the disgrace of its handler, it capsized.

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Indians used the dugout for moving their families, household effects, and foodstuffs. Later, when the whites came into the territory, they built and sold them to the traders and pioneers and taught them the intricacies of construction. Such boats, propelled with oars or long poles, were a common sight on the rivers for fifty years after the whites began their infiltration into the western watershed of the Allegheny Mountains. Pittsburgh is graced with three great rivers—the Allegheny, the Monongahela, and the Ohio—which lay in the colonizing path of westward-moving pioneers. They were great factors, these rivers, in hastening the early development of the New World. T h e early homeseekers found them a quick, easy means of travel and transportation. Pioneers, who adopted the crude canoes of the Indians for travel, enlarged these dugouts, combining two or more treetrunks to make one vessel. This type of canoe was referred to by Lewis Evans in his Analysis (of the Ohio headwaters country), published in 1750, as a "perogue." T h e pirogue, as it is properly spelled, was a practical boat, useful for carrying the increased loads demanded by the greater needs of the developing pioneer settlements —big enough to carry fifteen barrels of the much-prized salt. Next came the bateau. It was really only an enlargement of the pirogue, but it had more width, as several such logs were bound together. T h e bateau, squared at each end and planked over its entire tree-trunk bottom, was often referred to as an Indian log raft. It was propelled with long poles and, if the distance to be traveled was great, it often had a shelter erected on the after part of the deck. It accommodated several persons with their possessions and a limited amount of merchandise. But it, too, was hard to handle; when improperly loaded, or when negotiating the "riffles," it was easily capsized. Such a boat answered the needs of early trappers and traders, who used them for transporting furs and trade goods up and down the rivers. T h e bateau was useful also in the movement of soldiers and military stores as early as the French occupation. J o h n McKinney, an English settler who had been captured by the Indians in February 1756 and turned over to the French at Fort Duquesne, mentions in his accounts of life at the fort that "about 30 batteaux and about 150 men came up the Ohio from the Mississippi, loadened with pork, flour, brandy, peas and Indian corn.

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They were three months in coming to Fort Duquesne, and came all the way u p the falls without unloading." As the number of trappers and homeseeking colonists increased, there was a greater need for food, furs, arms, shot, powder, clothing, tools, and other necessities. T h e r e was also the problem of transportation for the new settlers and their families, with their rude furniture, equipment, and stock. T h e bateau proved entirely satisfactory for a while, but growing necessity soon called for a more spacious craft. T h e n came the flatboat, a larger scow-shaped vessel with deck either partly or entirely covered. This provided transportation for larger groups of pioneers and for heavier cargoes of merchandise. Twenty or more settlers banded together to build one of these flatboats. Some supplied lumber, some the nails and tools, still others contributed money or labor. When completed, the boat was launched with much ceremony and then loaded with salt, flour, cornmeal, furs, and other salable products. A captain, selected from among their number, gathered a crew of about twenty adventurous men for the thousand-mile trip down to New Orleans, where the cargo was avidly bid for by the Louisiana settlers. T h e heavy, unwieldy boat could not be brought back to Pittsburgh against the current; it was broken up and the timber sold at an immense profit to newly arrived settlers, for use in constructing homes. One season several young adventurers from Pittsburgh undertook a trip to New Orleans on a flatboat that had been built at Elizabeth, a few miles above Pittsburgh on the Monongahela River. T h e i r captain was a level-headed young man named Scully, selected for the job because of his daring, skill, and knowledge of Indian ways. It was late summer when they finally got started downriver, but despite the late start they hoped to complete the journey to New Orleans and work their way back to Pittsburgh before winter set in; so they bent their broad backs, working the sweeps constantly to increase the boat's speed. When they reached a point between the Ohio and Kentucky shores, the vigilance of all was increased, for the savages here were hostile. On the fifteenth day, as they swung around a sharp bend and the current forced them close to the Ohio shore, they were startled by the sound of screams. They saw a young white woman running

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along the heavily wooded shore, an Indian warrior in pursuit. She rushed into the shallow water and began to wade toward them, crying and pleading for mercy, begging the boatmen to save her from the savage. T h e Indian hesitated, stopped, and finally darted into the woods, seemingly overawed by the force aboard the boat. T o the surprise of his crew, who would have swung the craft inshore to pick up the woman, Scully commanded them sternly to hold their course downstream. Shocked by this apparent heartlessness, one chivalrous youth rushed astern, j u m p e d into a skiff towed behind, and cast off the painter. Before anyone could stop him, he was rowing shoreward toward the screaming woman. Scully, after a moment of stunned silence, turned to the men at the sweeps and ordered them to carry on. As the youth neared shore, he must have seen something that aroused his suspicions, for he seemed about to turn, when suddenly the air was filled with savage outcries. A horde of whooping Indians ran out of the woods and let loose a barrage of arrows at the skiff. T h e lone oarsman fell forward upon the bottom boards, his body bristling with feathered shafts. Knowing of the rich cargoes carried by most flatboats, the Indians had used this white captive to decoy the boat to shore. Captain Scully's knowledge of Indian trickery and his quick thinking saved the flatboat's cargo and its crew. T h e Indian band, unusually large, would have swarmed aboard the boat, massacring the men and taking the goods. Western Pennsylvanians were to become increasingly aware that a busy river port would develop from the hamlet at the Ohio Forks. T h e rivers then were the only arteries of traffic for heavy merchandise and great quantities of other products. T h e boats already in use—Indian canoe, pirogue, bateau, and flatboat—were gradually proving inadequate for the increasing river traffic. New boats of an advanced and totally different type of construction would have to be built to accommodate expansion of trade and commerce—boats more easily handled and controlled. Realizing their limitations in the boat-building art, Pittsburghers called upon experts from the East. A boatyard was soon set up by Easterners on the Monongahela R i v e r at Elizabeth. T h e boatbuilders proceeded to study the con-

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ditions to be met with on western streams, and then started construction of a new type of craft, the keelboat. T h e local keelboat was an adaptation of the Schenectady boat, resembling the latter greatly in general appearance but differing from it in that the timbers or knees were built over a small keel three inches deep and four or five wide. This keel furnished additional protection to the boat, acting as a buffer against rocks and snags. While it saved the planking, it took away some of the keelboat's buoyancy, causing three inches more draft than a Schenectady boat of the same size. It ranged from thirty to eighty feet in length, from seven to twelve in width, and was pointed at bow and stern. T h e central section of the boat, according to the type of service for which it was intended, might contain a deck-house cabin to shelter passengers during attacks from Indians, renegades, and river pirates. From a helmsman's block at the stern, the boatmaster manned the steering sweep and issued orders to the crew. T h e boat usually carried a knockdown mast that could be set and rigged with a squaresail to catch a favorable wind. Along each side, on a level with the gunwales, extended a running board fitted with crosswise cleats for the use of polers. T h e minimum crew for a downstream boat, carrying about one hundred barrels of salt or its equivalent, consisted of a helmsman and two deckhands. T h e trip upstream required six or eight good hands to make fair time. Depending on weather and river conditions, the crew used poles, paddles, or oars; and, wind permitting, the sail was hauled up to assist the polers or relieve them entirely. Keelboats, ranging from twenty to thirty tons capacity, carrying both passengers and freight, were called packets. T h e first packetline service from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati was inaugurated by Jacob Meyers on October 21, 1793, when the first of his four packets left the Monongahela Wharf bound for Cincinnati. He proudly proclaimed that the new schedule called for the departure of a packet every Monday morning, each boat requiring only four weeks to make the round trip. He boasted that accommodations were of the finest, with cabins large enough to house all on board and constructed with walls so thick as to be proof against musket balls. T o ward off attacks, he had equipped each boat with six

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brass one-pounders and a sufficient number of fine muskets for the picked men w h o constituted the crew. T h e proprietor also assured prospective passengers that he provided the best of foods and liquors, all at reasonable rates. Further to alleviate the discomfort of the long trip, he had arranged with the master of each boat to go straight through to his destination without tying u p at night. Another innovation was the partitioning of the cabin so as to provide separate quarters for the women. H e also made it possible for a limited number of men to work their passage, provided, of course, they could pass the master's requirements, chief of which were physical fitness and obedience. Such was his efficiency as an operator that Meyers established the first river insurance in the district, offering complete coverage at reasonable rates for all cargoes of merchandise shipped on his packets. H e maintained ticket and insurance offices at both terminals of his route. Colonel James O ' H a r a , army contractor, and M a j o r Isaac Craig, deputy quartermaster-general, both of Pittsburgh, started a line of mail packets down the O h i o River in 1794. A coxswain and four oarsmen made u p the crew. A box at the edge of each oarsman's seat kept his g u n dry and handy for quick action. M a j o r Craig so advertised for crew members in the Pittsburgh Gazette: BOATMEN

WANTED

T o be employed on board light boats, in transporting a weekly from W h e e l i n g to Limestone.

Mail

Active y o u n g men desirous of engaging in the above business, for the period of one year, o n producing certificates or other satisfactory testimony of their sobriety and fidelity, at the Quarter Master's Office, Pittsburgh, will be immediately employed on liberal terms. A contract will be entered into for carrying a weekly M A I L , from Pittsburgh to W h e e l i n g , via Washington, the w h o l e distance to be rode in one day. A p p l y as above.

As no provision was made aboard for sleeping and cooking, it was necessary to go ashore and tie u p at mealtime and at night. T h e spot usually chosen was at the head of an island, as such a vantage point was considered safest from surprise by Indians. A large tarpaulin was thrown over the entire boat at night to protect the mail,

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supplies, and arms. Thirty miles upstream or sixty miles downstream was considered a good day's run. T h e trip from Wheeling to Cincinnati took six days and required four crew changes. Mark T w a i n thus described the men of the river: T h e y are rough and hardy men; rude, uneducated, brave, suffering terrific hardships with sailor-like stoicism; heavy drinkers, coarse frolickers in moral sties like . . . Natchez-under-the-hill. . . . Heavy fighters, reckless fellows, everyone, elephantinely jolly, foul-witted, profane, prodigal of their money, bankrupt at the end of the trip, fond of barbaric finery, prodigious braggarts. . . .

These early rivermen, perhaps the most colorful of the pioneers in this district, were a hard-living, straight-spoken lot, their lives a never-ending series of adventures. They bragged of the numerous sweethearts waiting for them in every town up and down the rivers, referring to them with names indelicately descriptive. Great, hulking fellows, they were childishly superstitious, believing that to carry a preacher or a white horse on their boats was the worst of luck. When rats left a boat the more fearful hands would gather their belongings, go to the captain or master and demand their wages, firmly believing that the boat would sink. Friday was always a bad-luck day. T o begin building a boat on Friday, to launch one on Friday, or to start on a trip on Friday was to court misfortune. Every spring the red-jacketed army of raftsmen descended upon Pittsburgh from timberlands up the rivers. Rafting crews either ended their journeys here, tied up for the night, or laid over for supplies. In any case they were "on the loose" for the time being and wanted some fun before going back to the logging country or continuing on down to Cincinnati or Louisville. T h e hotels along the Allegheny which catered to them were the settings for many a boisterous night. While their money held out, these lumbermen did their best to drink the bars dry and paint the town red. T h e Lion Hotel, mine host Daniel "in the Lion's D e n " Herwig, was one of the favorite hangouts, as was the Red Lion Hotel on old St. Clair Street. After drinking themselves into a genial mood, the rivermen usually visited Ben Trimble's Varieties Theatre, which specialized in

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the sort of entertainment most acceptable to them. W h e n both their money and credit were exhausted, they returned to the rivers or the lumber country. A hearty, happy bunch atop their huge rafts of logs, they bandied words with the people along the river, played practical jokes, or vied with one another in feats of strength and skill. W i t h evening the tinkle of the b a n j o or the plaintive wail of a violin accompanied the sometimes surprisingly sweet singing of many backwoods songs. T h e arrival in town of a goodly number of rivermen almost inevitably meant lawbreaking and general disorder. W h e n indignant citizens tried to enforce the laws, the attempt was accepted as a declaration of war that allied the offenders and other kindred spirits against the inhabitants. T h e battle royal could end in victory for the town only when the rivermen were greatly outnumbered and driven back to their boats. Mike Fink was the outstanding, hard-drinking, trouble-raising riverman of the inland waterways. Born in western Pennsylvania in 1770, he learned as a boy to shoot with uncanny skill and, when still a y o u n g man, had taken so many Indian scalps that he quickly won fame as a backwoodsman. Soon wearying of this lonely forest life, he gave it u p for the more pleasurable activities of the river and made numerous trips d o w n the O h i o and the Mississippi. But when he had money in his pockets and a h a n d f u l of his crew behind him in Pittsburgh, he was in his glory. Bronzed by sun and wind, he appeared in the red shirt, coarse linsey-woolsey trousers, blue jacket, and leather cap of the riverman. As he swaggered around Pittsburgh, followed by cronies, hangers-on, and envious boys, he was treated with cowed respect by all w h o were not looking for trouble. In his prime he boasted: I'm a Salt River roarerl I'm a reg'lar screamer from the ol' Massassip'l Whoop! I love the women an' I'm chockful o' fight. I'm half wild horse and half cockeyed alligator and the rest o' me is crooked snags an' red-hot snappin' turkle. I can hit the fourth-proof lightnin' an' every lick I make in the woods lets in an acre o' sunshine. I can outrun, out-jump, out-shoot, out-brag, out-drink, an' out-fight—rough an'-tumble; no holts barred—ary man on both sides the river from Pittsburgh to New Orleans an' back ag'in

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to St. Louis. Come on, you flatters, you bargers, you milk-white mechanics, an' see how tough I am to chaw. . . . Cock-a-doodle-do! Most of the rivermen admiringly accepted him at his own valuation. T o dispute his prowess meant a bloody battle. In winning, he might gouge out an eye or chew an opponent's ear to shreds, for he neither asked nor gave quarter, and no holds or trickery were barred. Mike never acknowledged defeat as long as he was still able to move an eyelid. A tale of Mike's merciless tactics concerns one of his boatmen who, on this particular occasion, became too drunk to work. Mike ordered him towed astern of the keelboat. A n d towed he was! Splashing, yelling, diving, and plunging in the wake until he was half drowned! Greatly sobered, he pleaded for mercy and was quickly hauled aboard, where he took his regular place at the oars and counted himself lucky to be alive. Fink liked to boast of the time he "killed two birds with one stone." Stalking a deer one afternoon, he suddenly became aware that an Indian brave was after the same buck. Knowing he had not been seen, Fink stopped and waited until the Indian had taken careful aim at the deer; then he, too, sighted along his gun b a r r e l — but at the Indian. W h e n the Indian's gun rang out, Mike fired, and both deer and Indian fell. A f t e r assuring himself that the shots had not been heard, Fink calmly cut such meat from the deer as he needed; then, chuckling to himself, he set off for his camp. O n e of the most colorful stories was about Mike's own death, and it involved his bosom friend, Carpenter. W e l l matched in deviltry and prowess, these two inseparable cronies would demonstrate their mutual affection during bouts by shooting a cup of whiskey from each other's head. O n one of their many excursions into Indian country in 1822, Fink and Carpenter had an argument, and Mike decided on another demonstration of their mutual friendship. As was usual, he won the toss for first shot. Carpenter stoically set the cup of whiskey on his head, folded his arms, and waited. W h i l e T a l b o t t , a friend of both, watched, M i k e paced off seventy yards, took careful aim and fired. For the first time he missed his mark, and Carpenter fell with a bullet through the head. Later, befuddled by an excess of raw whiskey,

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Mike boasted to Talbott that he had deliberately killed Carpenter. But retribution was swift. Talbott immediately drew his pistol and shot Fink through the heart. He and some friends, he said, buried Mike's body in an unmarked grave somewhere along the Missouri River. T h e keelboat era in Pittsburgh was a constructive period, marred only by the misunderstandings that led to the Whiskey Insurrection, which in turn brought the district into a closer relationship with the government of the young Republic. This broader understanding of the problems of the struggling borough, then known throughout the United States as the Gateway of the West, brought about the enactment of Pinckney's Treaty, which removed restrictions on Mississippi River trade and opened new markets to Pittsburgh merchants and craftsmen. New mills sprang up, and Craig and O'Hara's pioneer glass factory went into production. T h e growing town acquired an air of permanency, as brick houses began to replace the crude log huts of an earlier day, and a market house was erected. Craftsmen and artisans from the East began to arrive in large numbers. By the opening of the nineteenth century the 1,565 people living in Pittsburgh had begun to feel a sense of business security, with forty-nine shops and thirty-seven industries already established. T h e outlying district was becoming agrarian, with small communities forming along the valleys of the three rivers, becoming ever more secure from the ravages of attack and the fear of crop failure. T h e building of sea-going ships became commonplace, and goods from Pittsburgh were shipped direct to the Old World. T h e residents began to take pride in their town, even to the point of building timber-bound, gravel sidewalks along the fronts of houses. Overland service to the East was opened by scheduled stage and freighter lines. A bank from Philadelphia sent John T h a w to establish a branch in Pittsburgh, and, during the height of the keelboat days, word came of Fulton's success with the steamboat. So great was the general interest in this western country that Fulton's company set up a boatyard in Pittsburgh, and in 1 8 1 1 the New Orleans was built and commissioned here for the Mississippi River trade. T h e launching of the New Orleans introduced steam transportation to the inland waters and ushered in a new era of industrial

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and economic greatness for Pittsburgh. It definitely was a contributing factor in the transition from a straggling town to a great industrial metropolis. T h e new mode of power transportation developed rapidly, reached a high point during the Civil War, then entered a long period of decline. But the great rivers were again recognized as an excellent transportation system about the time of the World War. Now, with newly designed barges and towboats, much of the output of Pittsburgh's great mills and factories moves in ever increasing tonnage, as Pittsburgh begins a greater era in river traffic, greater even than the post-war era, when the district handled the largest harbor traffic of any city in America.

TESTING THE STOURBRIDGE

LION

W H E N America's first steam locomotive, the Stourbridge Lion, trundled over its three miles of wooden track on August 8, 1829, and disappeared into the woods beyond Honesdale, Pennsylvania, it did two things. For its sponsors, the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company, it provided a solution for the problem of transporting to industrial centers the limitless product of the newly opened Pennsylvania coal mines, and it ushered in a phase of transportation destined to assume decisive importance in the life of the Nation. From the year 1822, date of the first commercial invasion of the Pennsylvania coal fields by the Wurts brothers, demand for the new fuel became enormous. Bituminous coal, wood, and charcoal had been previously imported from England, but the War of 1812 closed this traffic and skyrocketed prices. At this auspicious moment the Wurts brothers, Swiss immigrants in the fuel business in Philadelphia, set out to verify persistent rumors that a combustible substance—"stone coal"—existed in great quantities beneath the forests.

Unsuccessful in the Pocono Mountains and marshes, the search349

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ers struck out to the west, and found what they sought—mountain outcroppings of hard coal—in the Lackawanna Valley. T h e y acquired large parcels of land at prices ranging from fifty cents to three dollars an acre. In 1822 they dug a mine shaft at Carbondale, hauling the tools and blasting powder from Philadelphia in lumber wagons. In the fall of that year they mined about a thousand tons and succeeded during the winter in transporting the major part on rafts over the Lackawaxen and Delaware rivers and then by sled to Philadelphia, where it sold at prices ranging from ten to twelve dollars a ton. Eager to reach New York markets, the Wurts brothers studied the various American canal systems, especially the earliest one, built around the rapids of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, and decided that a waterway would solve their problem. Benjamin Wright, who had just completed the Erie Canal, was employed; his survey, completed in November 1823, followed a direct line, 120 miles long, between the Hudson and Lackawaxen rivers. T h e Wurts brothers were given the right to canalize the Lackawaxen River on March 13, 1824, and six weeks later the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company was incorporated. On January 7 of the following year the company floated a stock issue. When subscriptions had netted nearly $75,000, work on the canal was started; three years later, upon completion, it was described as " f a r superior to any canal in New England or the South." T h e first shipment of anthracite passed through the locks en route to Roundout (now Kingston), New York, and brought about eight dollars a ton in New York City. Yet the railroad caused it to be abandoned almost overnight. Wright, whose original report on the canal contained a recommendation that a railway system, such as the ones then in use at the English collieries, might serve the canal company better, resigned as chief engineer in March 1827. T h e vacancy was filled by J o h n B. Jervis, Wright's assistant. T h e new engineer was a railroad enthusiast, too. He, along with many other persons in America, had been watching the successful experiments in England, which were making slow but steady progress toward the use of steam as motive power.

STOURBRIDGE

LION

35 1

A m a n named T h o m a s Newcomen in England, w h o had constructed, as early as 1723, a steam-driven water pipe, the first practical application of the steam principle, died in 1729, a reputed lunatic. T h e n came James W a t t , whose reciprocating steam engine was exhibited in 1774. By 1800 many men in various countries were struggling with the problem. T w o outstanding experimenters were George Stephenson and Robert Trevithick, both Englishmen. T r e v i t h i c k , a Cornish engineer, developed an improved steam p u m p for use in the Cornwall mines. In 1802 he patented a steam locomotive and worked out an idea for rails over w h i c h it could run. Stephenson entered the engineering profession in 1812. O n July 25, 1814, he sent his first engine puffing laboriously over a fourmile stretch of track at the Kenilworthy Collieries, dragging eight coal-laden wagons at a speed of four miles an hour. As a result of this, Stephenson found employment with the Stockton and Darlington Railway, whose original plan to use horse-drawn cars was discarded in favor of Stephenson's "iron horse." Some railroad historians question whether the American "steam maniac," Oliver Evans, did not precede Trevithick. Evans operated one of the queerest vehicles ever seen, his Oruktor Amphibolis, which amazed and startled P h i l a d e l p h i a s in 1804. But the Pennsylvania State Legislature refused to grant Evans a patent on his invention, calling it the hallucination of a crazed mind. T o come back to Jervis, one of his first acts after assuming the position of chief engineer for the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company was to write a long and technical paper called Single Track Railroad, in which he estimated building costs and gave precise and comprehensive measurements, showing railway costs to be "very little in excess of the cost of present transportation by canal." T h e company adopted his report and gave him permission to start work on a railroad line, with a view toward using stationary engines and cables on the inclines, and locomotives on the levels. Jervis was forced to purchase bar iron and locomotives in England. For this assignment he chose Horatio Allen, his protégé and a junior engineer with the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company. Allen, twenty-six years old and a graduate of Columbia, had drifted into the canal company's employ after deserting a law course. H e

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too had visions of the great future of steam transportation by rail. T h r o u g h Jervis' influence, the Delaware and Hudson C o m p a n y commissioned Allen to purchase equipment in England. T h e company agreed to pay the young man's expenses there for three months, a sum not to exceed $900, which gave A l l e n the opportunity to study his subject before negotiating purchases. H e sailed from New York for Liverpool on January 24, 1828. In July, his time apparently having been extended, though on what terms is unknown, A l l e n contracted for the purchase of four locomotives: one from the factory of George Stephenson, at Newcastle, and the remaining three from Foster, Rastrick and Company, of Stourbridge. T h e first turned out by the latter company was the Stourbridge, and about the same time George Stephenson's firm completed work on the America. T h e two locomotives were awaiting shipment across the Atlantic when a painter with latent talent noticed a wide expanse of bare metal at the front end of the Stourbridge's boiler. Getting out his paints and brushes, the unnamed artist reproduced the head of a lion on the locomotive. A l l e n liked the design, and from that time on the locomotive was known as the Stourbridge Lion. T h e dismantled Lion and the America reached N e w York in the winter of 1828. T h e y were held there until the following summer, then reshipped to Roundout, where the Lion was assembled for a trial run. W h e n ready for action, it looked not unlike a gigantic grasshopper. Its six-ton weight, including the cylindrical boiler and high smokestack, rested upon two pairs of high, wooden-spoked wheels driven by side rods. A t the rear of the boiler, set horizontally upon the axle bed, two perpendicular cylinders communicated motion to a pair of walking beams, which in turn activated the drive wheels by means of another set of long rods. T h e contraption seemed to be covered with rods and joints. T h e road on which the Lion was to be tested ran from Honesdale to Prompton, a distance of three miles. T h e tracks are said to have been constructed poorly, running straight for about a mile, curving sharply and continuing over a trestle across the Lackawaxen, then straightening out again. T h e y consisted of six-by-twelve hemlock stringers, or ties, set edgewise in twenty- to thirty-foot lengths, held together by cross ties at intervals of ten and fifteen feet, and sup-

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ported by posts set in broken stone or stone piers. The running surface was protected by wrought-iron straps, two and one half feet long, countersunk for screws and screwheads that secured them to the wooden rails. The hemlock proved too soft, however, and strips of a harder wood were added. Allen supervised the placing of the Lion on the rails at a point opposite the old Methodist Episcopal Church in Honesdale. Spectators lined both sides of the track at the starting point when he finally climbed aboard. No one would join him for the test drive, and with good reason. Because of unseasoned timber in the track, some stretches of rail had moved slightly out of plumb, and the trestle over the Lackawaxen appeared too frail for the six-ton locomotive. Moreover, there was a curve that would have to be negotiated even before the trestle was reached. Would the engine stay on the rails? Allen heated the boiler until the steam was at the right pressure, then opened the valve; and the engine, having no train-weight behind it, responded readily to the throttle. It rattled over the rails at ten miles an hour and soon traversed the first straight stretch of road. The curve was reached and passed, and, before Allen had time to dwell on the possible buckling of the trestle, the engine had crossed and was lumbering like a strange forest pachyderm into the thickly wooded area beyond Honesdale. On reaching the end of the track, Allen reversed the valve and returned to the starting point without accident. He had made, as he later wrote, "the first locomotive trip in the Western Hemisphere—alone." The test indicated that the curved road would need additional support if the plan to haul heavy loads of coal was to be successful. However, Jervis was emphatic in stating that the engine had met his expectations and would provide excellent transportation "when the road is firm enough." On September 9 the Lion was sent over the route again. After Allen and Jervis analyzed its performance, they decided to reinforce the rails. This was done by spiking lengths of iron bar to the running surface of the track; it would prevent weathering and dislocation of the rails and would check wear on the timber by the irontired wheels of the engine. The roadbed was also reinforced and the trestle propped up with iron girders.

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The Lion had been taken from the track and placed in a Honesdale barn. In the meantime the other two locomotives, the Delaware and Hudson arrived from England. These were stored, as had been the America before them. The records are not clear whether any of the four, except the Lion, was ever set up and used; but the Lion "never rolled again" after its second tryout, and it does not seem likely that the others ever "rolled" at all, considering the poor trackage of that time. Newspapers began to deride the experiment in steam. The New York Enquirer characterized it as a failure and prophesied that the steam engine would never prove practicable in America. The theory of a heated boiler supplying steam to transport coal or other commerce was not feasible, declared the newspaper. But despite this skepticism toward steam, the railroad itself proved not only practicable, but highly successful. By October 9, 1829, the first "payload" of coal, weighing about seven thousand tons and carried by horse car, passed over the railroad to open water, selling for seven dollars a ton in New York. During the next four years, forty-three thousand tons were transported, finding a market not only in New York City, but in northern New York State and New England. After the Lion made its second trip it remained in the barn, where Allen housed it for nearly twenty years. In 1849 it was taken to the Honesdale Foundry, where it was dismantled and shipped to Carbondale. There the boiler was placed in commission and used in the shop of the Delaware and Hudson Company. Other parts of the locomotive were utilized in the mine shaft or became the property of local inhabitants. Subsequently the boiler, replaced by a new one in the Delaware and Hudson Company shop, was sold; in the 1880's it was discovered in the foundry of Lindsay and Easley at Carbondale. Realizing the historical significance of their possession, Lindsay and Easley shipped the boiler to the Smithsonian Institution at \Vashington, D. C., on June 18, 1889. It thus became the basis of an attempt to reconstruct the engine, and individuals scattered throughout Pennsylvania's coal-mining districts hastened to send their salvaged parts to complete the Washington exhibit. Some of these parts seem to have belonged originally to one or more of the other locomotives, for as late as 1923 it was discovered that a cylinder of

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LION

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the resurrected Lion belonged to the America. This would indicate that all the locomotives, at one time or another, had seen service as stationary engines or had been adapted to other uses. Horatio Allen's career was not as short-lived as that of the engine which carried him to fame. Shortly after he and Jervis had put the Delaware and Hudson on a paying basis, he was offered a railroadbuilding job in the South. Some of the greatest cotton plantations were geographically isolated and saw in the Lion the answer to their needs. Charleston, as the center of wealth and culture, took the lead by obtaining a charter and hiring Allen to build a 137mile railroad from Charleston to Hamburg. Operated by the South Carolina Canal and Railroad Company, it became the first railroad to carry U. S. mail. The 1830's saw rapid strides in the development of railroads and the application of steam to land transportation. Early in 1831, Matthias W. Baldwin, a Philadelphia watchmaker, exhibited a miniature steam engine in the Peale Museum on Chestnut Street. He was soon commissioned to build a locomotive for the new Philadelphia, Germantown, and Norristown Railroad, and before the end of 1832 the now-famous Old Ironsides had demonstrated the feasibility of steam on wheels. More than a hundred and ten years have passed since the daring Horatio Allen climbed aboard the Stourbridge Lion to stoke the furnace while an awed crowd drew back from the tracks and began wagering among themselves as to how soon the boiler would explode. Instead of exploding, the Lion at a touch of the throttle leaped forward, snorting and threshing violently, carrying its whitefaced driver over the rails at a faster pace than any of the spectators had thought possible. "As I placed my hand on the handle," wrote Allen afterward, " I was undecided whether I should move slowly or with a fair degree of speed. But holding that the road would prove safe, and proposing if we had to go down, to go handsomely and without any evidence of timidity, I started out with considerable velocity." Neither Allen nor his cumbersome steed went down; they rolled on "handsomely" to a new chapter in the history of American transportation.

STEAM ON THE RIVERS THE first steamboat to ply upon a Pennsylvania river attracted an audience of the embryo Nation's most distinguished citizens. Its inventor, J o h n Fitch, is supposed to have conceived the idea while walking along the Neshaminy Creek, in Bucks County, two years before, in 1785, when he "did not know there was a steam engine on the earth." Yet every element of the modern steam engine had been invented and applied about a century before, and, in the Old World, stationary steam engines were bringing royalties to their owners, and innumerable models and tests of steam-propelled vessels had been made. T h e New World, however, was to make amazing strides toward leadership in the fields of industry and transportation, and in others as well. America outstripped the efforts of even Britain's maritime interests largely because of the absence here of the fetters on industrial expansion that still existed in the slowly disappearing feudalism of the Old World, and American workmen had greater opportunity to learn and apply mechanical techniques. In 1823, when everyone realized that steam navigation had arrived, the three hundred steamboats on American waters were twice as many as England possessed. 356

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Fitch's boat, rude and primitive, boasted an audience whose equal was seldom marshaled in Europe or Britain for far more spectacular occasions. The Constitutional Convention, meeting in Philadelphia to draft the Nation's basic law, turned out almost to a man, and the spreading of the word among the most influential circles paved the way for Fulton's triumph two decades later. The work of Morey, Read, Roosevelt, Stevens, Rumsey, Evans, Ormsbee, Longstreet, Henry—Americans all—belong to this early period of steamboat invention in America. A high proportion of these men were Pennsylvanians, in keeping with the leading economic position of the State. Knowledge of the power of steam was possessed by antiquity, and more or less authenticated accounts of experimental engines have come down from the Middle Ages. With the industrial revolution, and the growing inadequacy of sail to meet the imperious demands of expanding trade, the steamboat, independent of calm and tide, became inevitable. No one man invented it. When factors united to produce the need and the means of satisfying that need, daring minds transformed dream into reality. T h e list is long—from the fifteenth century upwards. Englishmen, Frenchmen, Americans, Norwegians, Italians—members of every nation civilized enough to profit from its success—contributed to the development of steam power. The steamboat that Fitch demonstrated to the members of the Constitutional Convention on August 22, 1787, was about fortyfive feet long and eight feet wide. Its twelve "oars or paddles," actuated by steam, produced a speed of three or four miles per hour. The cylinder was twelve inches in diameter. About one-third of the distance from the stern a long pipe protruded, belching smoke and sparks. Fitch built other boats. The financing of their construction is a story in itself. In the spring of 1790, his fifth, and most successful, boat traveled a measured mile in the Delawâre off Philadelphia in seven and a half minutes. Called simply The Steamboat, it was placed in service that summer on the Delaware, running between Trenton, Burlington, Chester, Wilmington, and Gray's Ferry, and covered an estimated three thousand miles. It was perhaps the first attempt at commercialization of the new force on water. But the

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traffic did not warrant its operation, and in the autumn it was laid u p permanently. T w o years later, Fitch wrote to Rittenhouse that steam would always be secondary to sail because "air was much cheaper." But he continued his efforts. H e sailed to France, hoping to achieve recognition there, failed, and had to work his way home. H e died in 1798 in a Kentucky village on the Ohio. After the passing of another generation, the sound of steam engines was loud on the river. Reflection anticipates and records prove the hit-or-miss quality of important developments. T o W i l l i a m Henry, an obscure mechanic of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and one of America's early riflemakers, can be traced some of the first stirrings of the future giant of American steam navigation. In 1760, at the age of thirty-one, Henry visited England, where the work of Watt was producing a tempest. Returning, he built a tiny paddle-wheel steamboat and launched it on the Conestoga River near Lancaster, where it was sunk by accident. He built an improved model, dividing his interests between this new study and his first love, art. Benjamin West, a protégé of Henry, had left some pictures in his possession, and it was to study these that Robert Fulton came to visit Henry about 1777; and there, perhaps, Fulton received the first impetus towards his future activities. He was twelve years old at the time. T h o u g h the inauguration of successful steamboat travel over Pennsylvania rivers was to await Fulton's accomplishments on the Hudson in 1807, and to be expedited by the Iatter's monopoly of arterial rights on that stream, there was no marking time on the Delaware, then one of the chief rivers of the Nation. A strange chapter was written on the Schuylkill and Delaware around Philadelphia by Oliver Evans in 1804. His weird scow-steamboat, jestingly named the Oruktor Amphibolis, was designed to clean out the city's docks. Fitted by Evans with wheels, it steamed from his Spring Garden Street shop down to the Schuylkill at Market Street, where it was launched. W i t h paddle-wheel thrashing, it proceeded down the Schuylkill to the Delaware and then u p that river, leaving more seemly craft far behind. After this flurry, the Oruktor seems to have settled down to its prosaic task. Evans was resourceful. In 1801 or 1802 he sent a steam engine to New Orleans to power a boat in-

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tended for the mighty Mississippi, but lack of finances thwarted the project. The engine, however, was put to running a sawmill, with phenomenal success. American steamboat inventors of this period had their eyes fixed on France and England. Because of steam, the name of Watt had become a household word. Hence those who sought to apply the new force to water travel turned to England. At the same time the new political force, Napoleon's revolutionary Grande Armée, was conquering Europe, and inventors thought to find in the yeasty triumphal spirit of Paris, and in Napoleon's need for a device to overcome Britain's sea power, the opportunity to test their diagrams of cylinders, pistons, and walking beams. By and large, they met disappointment. Napoleon was willing to be convinced, but his technical experts delivered sour opinions on the new form of power. Fulton, having failed in France, crossed the channel and ordered an engine from the firm of Boulton and Watt. This engine later drove the famous Clermont on the Hudson from New York to Albany in a test run of such success and magnitude that it ended at once the period of head-shaking and scepticism. The date was August 7, 1807. Meanwhile Colonel John Stevens had built the Phoenix in the United States, but Fulton's legislative monopoly of Hudson River traffic forced him to transfer it to the Delaware. Thus the old streams, referred to as the North and South rivers by the early Dutch colonizers—and occasionally still so called—were the first to witness the arrival of the new order in water locomotion. T h e Phoenix, cheated narrowly of its triumph by the Clermont, made the first steamboat sea-passage in history, traveling along the New Jersey coast from New York to Philadelphia, where it arrived in June 1808. Stevens and his son, Robert L. Stevens, who had been through the inevitable period of experimentation on the Seine, became perhaps the foremost developers of steam. Beginning with the Phoenix, they operated a whole fleet of steamboats on the Delaware; and when Fulton's monopoly on the Hudson was vacated by the courts, they captured the lion's share of Hudson River traffic. For several generations the Stevens name held for America the significance that Watt's had for England. Robert initiated what is now known as the streamlined bow, coal in place of wood, the

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simple and stronger wrought-iron walking beams, and forced-draft fires. T h e first trip of the Phoenix on the Delaware was made between Philadelphia and Trenton on July 5, 1809, with forty passengers. T h e boat advertised "twenty-five commodious berths in her cabin and twelve in her steerage, with other ample accommodations for passengers." The second passenger steamer to travel the Delaware was the Philadelphia, otherwise known as "Old Sal," from the grotesquely carved figure on her prow. Much of the river traffic consisted of passengers taking a combined water and overland route between Philadelphia and New York. They landed at Bordentown or Bristol and traveled by stage to Washington, New Jersey, where another line operated to New York. Sharp competition appeared from the beginning. The fare, which originally was about four or five dollars for the through trip to New York, was cut at one time in an orgy of competition to one dollar. In the East, at least, the new era had definitely been launched. The West, with its swift, broad waterways—the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio in Pennsylvania; the majestic Mississippi flowing, in some places still mysteriously, through a good portion of a continent, connecting by the only feasible means the expanding developed East with the expanding undeveloped West—imperiously demanded the steamboat. Fulton, showing again the enterprise that was perhaps his most marked characteristic, hastened, together with his apparently ever-ready financial supporters, to investigate the vistas opening before his new craft. In 1810, waterborne freight—and there was no other—between Pittsburgh and New Orleans, taking in the almost unheard-of but blossoming towns along the Ohio and upper Mississippi—floated on crude, flatbottomed keelboats and flatboats that moved at the pace of the river currents, and often were torn apart at their destination. Whatever products were exported from the South and West moved circuitously through the Gulf in wind-driven craft. In 1803 President Thomas Jefferson purchased from Napoleon the vast Louisiana Territory for fifteen million dollars. Eight years later, on March 17, 1 8 1 1 , the New Orleans, first steamboat to run on western waters, was built in Pittsburgh. It contributed more

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than any other agency to the development of the West. From 1810 to 18x9, the population of Cincinnati, for example, increased from twenty-five hundred to twelve thousand. T h e groundwork preceding construction of the New Orleans was methodically carried out by Nicholas J. Roosevelt, a junior member of the firm of Fulton and Livingston. He journeyed from Pittsburgh to New Orleans by flatboat, studying general conditions along the route from the viewpoint of steamboat operation, and, though he encountered the usual pessimism, was sufficiently confident of the power of the new agency to establish coaling stations along the future route. H e sailed from New Orleans to New York to report his findings and in 1810 was back in Pittsburgh, superintending the construction of the New Orleans. T h e vessel, a sidewheeler, was one hundred and thirty-eight feet long, twenty-six and one-half feet wide, and seven feet deep. T h e two separate, reversible engines had a combined horsepower of one hundred and sixty, and there were two masts for emergency sails. T h e cost was thirty-eight thousand dollars. In the fall of 1811 the new steamer left the spectator-lined banks of the Monongahela River on a thousand-mile voyage of discovery, danger, and profit. W i t h Roosevelt sailed his wife, captain, engineer, pilot, two female servants, a man waiter, cook, and a crew of six. T h e wooded banks of the O h i o fell behind at the rate of eight to ten miles per hour. Crowds waiting at Cincinnati and Louisville saw in the strange spark-throwing monster both menace and promise. H a v i n g successfully completed her course, the New Orleans was placed on the run between that city and Natchez, the route for which it had been designed, and is said to have earned a profit of twenty thousand dollars the first year. T h e first vessel to make the long-awaited ascent of the Mississippi and O h i o rivers was the Enterprise, which in the spring of 1815 covered the distance between N e w Orleans and Louisville in twenty-five days. By 1828 the time had been reduced to about eight days, and in 1848 to approximately five. T h e real steamboat boom came to Pittsburgh in the 1840's. T h e supply of cotton from the South, which was also becoming the Nation's gateway to the tropics, was threatening to congest all existing means of transportation. Pittsburgh's steel-fisted, smoke-

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belching fame was being born. Trade between the two points and the faraway places beyond leaned more and more heavily on the power of steam. In 1845, also, Pittsburgh's westward-bound coal made its way from drift-barges to barges hauled by steam-driven towboats, a change traceable to the effect of the railways. In the year 1850, seventy steamboats were built in the Pittsburgh area, and the wharves of the Allegheny and Monongahela were covered with steamboats from the Point to Smithfield Street. In this period some three thousand steamers called annually at Pittsburgh. Passenger accommodations became luxurious, and the gambling, racing, and drinking that are associated with the old river steamboat days appeared. T h e gaiety of steamboat travel entered the pages of fiction. T h e voices of Cincinnati, Louisville, and other robust river towns, in addition to that of Pittsburgh, were heard in the hoarse, thrilling note of the steam whistle. Dickens, who rode the Messenger to Cincinnati in 1842, spoke disparagingly of the . . . high pressure boat, carrying forty passengers, exclusive of poorer persons on the lower deck. T h e r e was no mast, cordage, tackle, or rigging, only a long, ugly roof, two towering iron chimneys, and below, on the sides, the doors and windows of staterooms; the whole supported on beams and pillars, resting on a dirty barge, but a few inches above the water's edge. . . .

Before long, Dickens' criticism was invalid, just as many at the time deemed it irrelevant. Gaudy ostentatiousness later characterized the river boats that were built in answer to the rapidly growing passenger traffic along the majestic streams of the expanding West. In the pre-Civil War decade, New Orleans outranked in volume of shipping all the Atlantic seacoast cities combined, and money flowed in vast quantities through the river ports. In large measure, the river steamers at that time were individually owned and operated, and the competition was keen. New methods of increasing speed were sought; coal was soaked in rosin and so many drafts were opened that "the fires all but dropped out." Indeed, speed records reached then were never again equaled. The toll of accidents was appalling. Between 1840 and 1846, two hundred and twenty-five steamboats were lost on the great inland rivers. The average life of a vessel was only nine years. Burst boilers, fire, col-

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lision, and hidden obstructions accounted for most of the casualties. T h e loss of life was proportionate. Iron steamboats arrived on the Ohio in September 1839, and— to the astonishment of many—they floated. T h e Codorus, first iron steamboat in America, was built at York in 1825, but was found impracticable. It was flat-bottomed, had no keel, and probably resembled a floating stove lid. But at Pittsburgh, iron ships— immune to snags and hidden rocks—stimulated the whole industry. T h e first iron vessel was the Valley Forge. In 1878 the first steelplate steamer was built in Pittsburgh for a South American company. It was the Francesco Montoya. T h e great period of river steamboats ended with the Civil War. T h e railroads, which began to invade the West in 1840, the dislocation caused by the Civil War, and the uncertainties of river travel eventually reduced this colorful mode of transportation to a bare trickle. Only such a phenomenon as the discovery of oil on the Allegheny River and the tremendous barge movements on that river between 1865 and 1880 fleetingly revived some of the earlier river scenes and tempo. T h e single product—coal—provided almost the sole article of river commerce following the decline. Incredible flotillas of barges, propelled by gigantic steam towboats, moved down the Monongahela and Ohio to the lower Mississippi, replacing to some extent the more varied cargoes of former years. But the World War cut sharply into this traffic. More of the coal was consumed locally in supplying the greatly accelerated demands of the steel industry, and little coal moved south of Wheeling. Large towboats found their way into "boneyards" along the river and were eventually dismantled. It is perhaps worth noting that this great coal traffic of the 1900's was carried on under a single commercial flag, that of the Monongahela River Consolidated Coal and Coke Company. T h e days of individual ownership and operation, with their splashes of color and violence, disappeared beneath the endless chains of coal-heaped barges. T h e modern revival of Western river traffic restored Pittsburgh to its place as the foremost inland river port in America. T h e increase from four million six hundred thousand tons carried on the Ohio in 1917 to more than twenty million in 1927 (the figure also

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of 1939) was due largely to the Government-financed construction along the rivers. This "liquid stairway" of forty-three dams and locks between Pittsburgh and the Mississippi, seriously undertaken since 1913 and involving a total expenditure of eighty-five million dollars, provides a nine-foot stage of slack water the year around and eliminates the delays and uncertainties which were the chief arguments for railroads when the two means of communication were in competition. Coal still dominates other river-borne freight, with steel and iron products, cement, etc., comprising the remainder. T h e important users of the river are the great steel corporations of the Pittsburgh area. The typical steel tow consists of as many as eighteen barges carrying products worth many millions of dollars. Strangely enough, the modern barge closely resembles the old pioneer's flatboat, but in place of the long pole is a steam or Diesel-powered towboat costing several hundred thousand dollars.

RAFTING ON THE SUSQUEHANNA Thus drifting to sea on a hick of white pine For grub and the wages we're paid. The scoffers who rail as we buffet the brine May see us in sun or in shade. But true to our course though the weather be thick We set our broad sail as before And stand by the tiller that governs the hick, Nor care how we look from the shore.

IT IS an old rafting chant, a song that once came up at night out of rivers in flood, from camps and from taverns along hundreds of streams—a Gloria from the lips of hard-working, hard-fighting, daring, skilful, picturesque men who helped raze the great forests of the Keystone State to a "desert of five million acres." T h i s and other rollicking songs have come down through the past century and a half to voice the spirit of lumbermen who took an estimated two hundred billion board feet of timber out of the State's hills and valleys. T h e pioneers who sang them rode the giants of the forests to the shipbuilding and lumber markets of the State, the Nation, and the world. Pennsylvania timber went by rafts to Phila365

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delphia, New York, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, and New Orleans; and in great timber ships it was carried across the Atlantic to France and England. T h e rafting of timber, identified closely with chopping, sawing, and hauling, has been confused often with log-driving, or logfloating. Log-driving eventually superseded rafting and changed almost all lumbering in Pennsylvania into the cutting, fabrication, and marketing of saw-logs. Both rafting and log-driving were utilized in the early days of the timber industry. Log-floating generally was in the lead on the smaller streams, and rafting on the larger ones, before the days of lumber dams and booms. Logs were floated down the smaller streams from headwaters high in the mountains chiefly because these streams were too narrow, crooked, or shallow to permit rafting. When broader, smoother waters were reached, the logs were gathered in eddies and lashed together into rafts for transportation down the larger streams. Rafting, after this stage, was cheaper and safer, as rafts could be handled by fewer men than could a log-drive and were not liable to such losses in timber, sometimes millions of feet, as were sustained in driving logs down the streams. Under early lumbering conditions the destination of the saw-log usually was the dam or eddy of the sawmill, while the raft might follow the courses of several rivers, traveling as many as two thousand miles. T h e raftsmen of the Pennsylvania and southern New York rivers went down to the sea jn ships of four distinct types: spar rafts, timber rafts, lumber rafts, and ark rafts or boats. Spar rafts were made of large straight logs, some exceeding a hundred feet in length; these were used for masts and spars in shipbuilding. Timber rafts were platforms of great logs that had been squared for use in the building of hulls of ships, wharves, docks, foundations, bridges, and similar structures. Lumber rafts were made u p of sawed boards stacked on platforms of timber and sent down the rivers for use in home-building and similar purposes. Ark rafts were small craft to which "horns" or "peaks" were added. Often they were converted into ark boats by fitting them with boarded, caulked bottoms, sidewalls, and roofs to accommodate cargoes of shingles, wheat, pork, and other products. Ark boats were

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used also as eating and sleeping quarters for log drivers and for stabling their horses. In the making of spar rafts the logs, usually twenty-five to eight) feet long, were laid side by side in fairly deep eddies. T h e y were hewn flat on the sides by means of a pole-axe, with the tops and bottoms retaining the original rounded surfaces of the trees. T h e total width of the parallel logs was usually about twenty-five feet, as this was the average m a x i m u m width of the chutes in dams through which the rafts had to pass on their way down the rivers. These chutes were openings in the dams, with timbered slopes down which the rafts could pass without danger of breaking up. W h e n the logs of the raft had been placed side by side to the total width desired, they were lashed to within a few inches of one another by means of lash-poles, bows, and wooden pins. T h e lashpoles, generally of yellow birch or ironwood two to four inches in diameter, were laid across the logs at both ends and in the middle. Holes about an inch and a quarter in diameter were bored several inches deep in the logs, on each side of the lash-poles, all the way across. These were for the bows, which secured the lash-poles to the logs. T h e bows, usually of white oak, were about sixteen inches long, one and a quarter inches wide, and from a quarter-inch to two inches thick. Bent into the form of a staple, they were "straddled" over the lash-pole and their ends inserted in the holes, after which square pegs, usually of ash, were driven in the holes alongside the ends to secure them. W i t h the spar logs fashioned into a platform, the next step was to fasten head-blocks crosswise of the raft, at each end, for the mounting of oars or sweeps. T h e head-block was a pine stick eight or ten feet long that had been hewn flat on the bottom and on two sides, the top side retaining the curved surface of the log. Its thickness and height depended u p o n the raft's size. Its ends were chipped away in slanting lines that began at points about two feet from the middle, leaving a rounded four-foot top surface. In the middle was set a thole-pin of hard wood for the sweep. T h e hole for the pin, about two inches in diameter, was bored through the head-block and continued for about five inches into the platform. Driven down through the head-block and into the bottom timber, the pin not

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only helped to secure the head-block itself but provided a pivot for the oar. On the average raft the oar was forty to fifty feet long and built in two sections, the stem and the blade, which, when joined, were balanced as evenly as possible and fitted to revolve on the thole-pin. T h e making of an oar stem called for a tree twenty-eight to thirtyfive feet long and about eight inches in diameter. T h e tree was tapered to about four by four inches and shaved, at the hand-hold end, to a diameter of about two inches. T h e oar blade was a plank twelve, fourteen, or sixteen feet long and eighteen to twenty inches wide. It varied in thickness from four inches, at the point of junction with the stem, to about one inch at the outer or water end, being tapered the entire length. T h e blade was mortised or pinned into the largest end to form the completed oar. In order that the oar might be dipped easily, by upward pressure on the hand-hold, or lifted from the water by downward pressure, an almost exact center of balance was determined. At this point a mortise was cut through the stem, and the entire oar fitted over the thole-pin protruding from the head-block. T h e mortise was of sufficient length to permit easy up-and-down movement on the tholepin and wide enough for a side-to-side sweep. Some rafts were not considered complete without a shanty in the center for crew and tools. Sometimes the shanties had stoves for cooking, but more often they had hearths made by banking mud and sand to a depth of several inches on a platform of boards fastened to the raft. T h e smaller rafts of earlier days did not have shanties, stoves, or hearths; the men had to depend upon pup tents and cold food until they had tied up at some landing where they could eat and sleep in taverns. Spar rafts were made up of the best logs. T h e "Number One" spar had to be straight, sound, free from large knots, ninçty-two or more feet long, and at least eighteen inches at the small end. Many of these were sent to British shipyards for use in the large fourmasters of that time. In this connection it must be pointed out that not all spar rafts were made of side-hewn logs; some were sent down the rivers in the round. Timber rafts, oared in the same manner as spar rafts, were made in platforms having a width of sixteen sticks, or pieces of timber.

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and generally thirty-two, forty, or fifty feet long. Three platforms, end to end, made a half-raft, or "piece," as large as could be manipulated out of a small fork or branch of a stream. At the mouth of the fork two pieces were coupled end to end to make a raft, and, when the raft reached a main river such as the Susquehanna, Delaware, or Allegheny, two rafts were joined side by side to make a "fleet." Timber platforms were joined into pieces or half-rafts, and these into full rafts, by using what was known as finger-pieces, hingesticks, or cribs. T h e finger-pieces had to be inserted into the platforms in such a manner as to hold them in a straight line while floating on the level stream, and, at the same time, to permit sufficient flexibility for safe passage through rapids and chutes. About three such pieces were used in each platform, with ends extending seven or eight feet into the next platform. These finger-like projections were bowed to small lash-poles, independent of the platform timbers, and kept the ends on an even keel. T h e bows were the "hinges" which held the hinge-pieces to the larger lash-poles. T h e construction of lumber, or board, rafts marked a departure from methods used in building spar and timber rafts. T h e foundation of the lumber raft was made of three narrow planks or "runners" long enough for platforms about sixteen feet square and about twenty-five board courses high. Three long stakes or "grubs" were driven, peg-like, into each of the runners to hold the lumber in place. T h e first course of boards was placed crosswise of the runners between the "grubs," the second lengthwise, the third crosswise again, and so on in alternating directions. Binders at the top of the platform were made fast to the "grubs," thus holding the lumber in place. T h e grub stakes or pins were made from saplings of tough, hard wood cut off at the surface of the ground or below it so as to retain the root "bulge." This bulge, forming the stake's top, prevented the stake from dropping through binder and bottom runner in case it worked loose. T h e lumber raft platforms were joined together at the ends by three-foot "crib" boards with holes in each end, enabling the board to be fitted over the rear grub stakes of one platform and the forward grub stakes of the other behind it. They held the platforms together and gave flexibility to pieces from seventy-three to ninety-

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two feet long. When the pieces reached the main waters downstream they were made into a fleet. Oars were fixed on the front and shanties built. Lumber rafts are said to have been larger than any of the other types. Some on the larger streams were 148 feet wide, 160 feet long, and contained 180,000 board feet of lumber. These sometimes had oars on the sides as well as at bow and stern. T h e ark raft or flatboat was short, with a peak, or horn, built out from the front end on which a steering oar, manipulated from a footboard across the front, was placed. T h e ark, used chiefly for transporting merchandise, was constructed by placing runners or foundation timbers upside down and fastening curved cross-sills to them. This bottom was then boarded and caulked to make it watertight, after which it was turned right-side up, and construction completed by boarding the sides and roof. When loaded, the "bulged" bottom settled into the water to ride flat. A rafting crew sometimes numbered thirty men, though small rafts of not more than three platforms usually required no more than a crew of two. T h e "captain," who acted as pilot, manned the bow oar while the steersman manipulated the stern oar. In a fourman crew the pilot and steersman would turn over their oars to relief men during a traverse of wide, smooth water where the greatest watchfulness was not necessary. T h e pilot also needed assistance in pushing the oar from side to side in rough, swift water. While negotiating such waters the pilot only dipped or lifted the oar, depending upon the helpers to sweep the raft blade. When pieces were joined side by side to make a raft, or the rafts themselves coupled into fleets, crews were increased to two or more pilots and steersmen and, if necessary, double the original number of helpers. When a small raft or fleet was joined to a larger craft for a long trip, as a measure of economy, the combined crew was skeletonized. Size of the crews varied in different areas and under different conditions, as did also the wages. Men working on streams high in the mountains received more pay than those manning rafts in the comparative safety of the main rivers. For that reason up-river men, in the later days of more highly organized rafting, seldom descended farther than the mouths of the smaller streams. Raftsmen's incomes frequently were augmented by earnings from picking up or "rafting in" lost pieces, for which they received a dol-

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lar a stick. A t the completion of their trips the raftsmen, paid in full, w o u l d start the trip back home on foot. T h o s e who took rafts as far as N e w Orleans would not arrive home for several months. O n such long trips men walked from four o'clock in the morning until late in the evening, often covering sixty miles a day. As rafting lasted only during the spring flood season, these rivermen at other times of the year worked as woodsmen, sawmill workers, or farmhands. T h e farmhand of that day received a wage of twelve to thirty dollars a month and board. T h e unskilled sawmill worker received about one dollar and a half a day, although a sawyer or other skilled worker could command more. A good woodcutter in winter earned from thirty to forty-five dollars a month and board. Pilots of rafts received an average of four dollars a day, steersmen two and a half to three dollars, and the helpers about two dollars a day. These rates, however, were not maintained on shanty rafts, which provided bed and board. T h e most important rafting highway in Pennsylvania was the Susquehanna River, which, with its north and west branches, drained twenty-one thousand square miles in the Keystone State and six thousand in New York. T h e other rafting areas were along the Delaware and the Allegheny. T h e Delaware was the first scene of rafting on any considerable scale in Pennsylvania. Delaware River rafts contained as much as 180,000 feet of lumber. Some also carried shingles and produce on top of the lumber. T h e y required from twelve to eighteen men each, were constructed with shanties for the crews, and traveled about fifty miles a day. T h e size of the Delaware rafts made extra equipment necessary, including the placing of oars on the sides as well as the ends of the craft. O n the lower Delaware the rafts of timber and spars were converted into giant raft-ships fitted with masts, booms, yardarms, and rudders. T h e s e ungainly craft, which in themselves constituted the cargo, were sent across the Atlantic to England and France under a full spread of canvas. T h e y were made u p of about eight hundred logs each, enough to build six 250-ton vessels. T h e earliest of these raft-ships were launched before the Revolution at Philadelphia, the purpose then being to escape the British tax on lumber. Fifty years later the Canadians, in order to avoid a similar tax,

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followed Pennsylvania's example by constructing such giant timber ships as the Columbus and the Baron of Renfrew, each rigged as a four-masted barque three hundred feet in length. T h e Columbus, launched at Quebec in 1824, was stowed with timber and sailed to England, arriving at the Blackwall docks, London, with her cargo intact. She, like other ships of the kind, was to have been broken up, but at the last minute her owners insisted that a second crossing of the Atlantic be attempted for another cargo of timber. She never reached her destination. T h e Baron of Renfrew, launched in the summer of 1825 and loaded with squared timber for London, never did reach port. She drove ashore near Gravelines on the French coast after first grounding on Long Sand Head. T h e storm that forced her ashore broke her up and scattered her big timbers all over the English Channel. On the Susquehanna River the rafting industry was important enough to require rafting divisions, similar to those into which railroad systems are now divided. There were three divisions on the stream: the first from Clearfield to Lock Haven, the second from Lock Haven to Marietta, and the third from Marietta to tidewater. T h e actual marketing of rafts took place in Marietta or nearby Columbia and Wrightsville, where owners and timber merchants, or brokers, would meet. In the early days of rafting the average price of raft timber was fourteen and a half cents a cubic foot, the best white pine and oak bringing only about twenty-five cents. Spars ninety to one hundred feet long were sold at one hundred dollars each. Rafting on the Susquehanna began about 1795 and was a flourishing business until about 1889. One of the earliest operations of importance was in 1807, when two brothers named Phelps took the first raft of spars from Owego, New York, down the Susquehanna's North Branch. Others later came from Bradford County, Pennsylvania, down this branch on their way to Port Deposit, Maryland, with timber for the Baltimore market. In New York at Hornell, Tuscarora, Woodhull, Jasper, Canisteo, Greenwood, and "Deadwater," as Addison was called, the North Branch was lined with rafts. From Bath, New York, the route was down the Cohocton River to the Chemung River, and thence down the Chemung to the Susquehanna. This also was the route of the New York ark

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rafts which brought down wheat, pork, shingles, and other commodities. George McClure ran the first ark down the Canisteo River in 1801, loaded with wheat and pork for the Baltimore market. T h e West Branch of the Susquehanna became the most important rafting stream in Pennsylvania, however, and Williamsport became the greatest lumber center in the United States. Tributaries of the West Branch near Williamsport include Pine, Loyalsock, Muncy, and Lycoming creeks, each of which produced rafts and logs of more than ordinary size and quality. Farther u p the West Branch is Sinnemahoning Creek, which drains the extreme western part of Clinton and Cameron counties. Its watershed once was covered with dense forests of white pine and of oak and ash as well as other hardwoods. T h e hills and valleys of the Sinnemahoning, forming the country known as the Sinnemahone, was a contributor in many notable ways to the early history of Pennsylvania lumber. R a f t i n g of white pine and cherry on the Allegheny River began about 1800 in Warren County. It reached its height in the years from 1830 to 1840, ceased almost completely during the W a r between the States, and was resumed in the late 1860's to continue prosperously for more than twenty years. T h e first rafts were sent out from Warren County to Pittsburgh, Wheeling, and Cincinnati. After the purchase of Louisiana in 1804, the lumbermen decided to go beyond these markets to New Orleans. Large rafts, built in 1805 and 1806, transported western Pennsylvania white pine to the mouth of the Mississippi, more than two thousand miles. T h e lumber brought forty dollars per thousand feet in New Orleans, double the price received at Pittsburgh. Soon, however, markets along the O h i o River from Pittsburgh to St. Louis took western Pennsylvania's total output of lumber, making the long trips unnecessary. Allegheny River rafts were put together in four pieces in W a r r e n County to make a Pittsburgh fleet. At Pittsburgh four or more of these fleets were put together to form an O h i o River fleet, each equipped with a shanty for the crew. T h o u g h many streams in western Pennsylvania contributed rafts to make up Allegheny fleets, much pine timber in the western half of Potter County was sent in

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log drives down the Oswayo Creek to the New York State mills, where it was cut into lumber and shipped by way of the Erie Canal and the Hudson River to New York City. T h e Allegheny River watershed gave birth to the first of the Indian raftsmen. From the Indian "reservation" twenty miles above Warren, the famous Chief Cornplanter in the 1790 s took young men of his tribe to Clarion County to learn lumbering. In 1796 he built a sawmill on Jenneseedaga Creek, later named Cornplanter Run, in Warren County, and for many years rafted lumber down the Allegheny to Pittsburgh. T h e Indians were good pilots when they could be kept sober. This was a difficult problem because of the activities of bootleggers along the shore who, as on other rivers, ran their skiffs out to rafts to sell bottles of "red eye," which they carried in the long tops of their boots. One of the most important tributaries of the Allegheny is the Clarion River. Lumbering began on that stream in 1805 when James Laughlin and Frederick Miles built a sawmill. Rafting began twenty-two years later when shipments of squared or board timber started from Elk Creek down the Clarion River to Pittsburgh and the Ohio River markets. T h e rafts, containing thirty-five hundred to five thousand cubic feet, were twenty to twenty-four feet wide and 130 to 150 feet long. T h e Clarion River offered a more diversified contribution to the lumber markets than many streams because it could augment its production of pine with much fine cherry, oak, and poplar. When rafting had its inception with logging operations at Ridgway in 1827-28, the rafted logs were floated down the Clarion and Allegheny to Pittsburgh, thence down the Ohio to Louisville. T h e first Ridgway raft of cork pine was said to have been sold at five dollars per thousand feet, or one-half cent a foot. By 1862 the price had advanced to five or six cents a cubic foot, and after the War between the States it rose to as high as twenty-eight cents. Warren County raftsmen began their first export traffic in western Pennsylvania timber about 1806, when they sent three rafts of bestquality, stub-shotted, and kiln-dried lumber to New Orleans for shipment to foreign ports. T h e rafts, piloted by Daniel Horn and Daniel McQuay, were sent all the way down the Mississippi by their owners, Colonel William McGaw and William B. Foster. T h e

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lumber was sold at forty dollars per thousand feet. Horn and McQuay walked back. In the spring of 1807 another fleet of seven rafts was sent to New Orleans, accompanied by the owners, Joseph Mead, Abraham Davis, and John Watt, who returned by sailing vessel. Rafting down the Allegheny River increased as the lumber industry grew. It is said the largest raft ever to be seen on the Ohio River was one which, through frequent additions during the course of its trip, had an area of two acres and a content of a million and a half feet of lumber by the time it passed Cincinnati. The Tionesta River and its tributaries were chief highways for the lumber products of Forest County during the early days of the rafting industry. But because the Tionesta cut its way through mountains all along its course and was more difficult to navigate, and also because it drained the largest growth of hemlock timber in the world, it was not exploited to the extent of other regions in which white pine predominated. For this reason there are available few authentic records of the area's rafting trade, although this form of transportation was carried on here until about 1880. T h e Tionesta drained the great "Eastern Forest" in Forest, Clarion, Warren, Elk, McKean, and Potter counties—a forest extending all along the Tionesta and its tributaries for about a hundred miles to the Sinnemahoning River and far back into the highlands. The existence in western Pennsylvania in 1880, after more than a century of lumbering, of the largest hemlock stand in the world was due to the fact that early lumbermen ignored hemlock. Pine and other woods were preferred in the early days. When hemlock was cut in any considerable quantity it was only for its bark, used in tanneries. The same was true in eastern Pennsylvania, except that there was a greater demand for eastern bark, said to be more suitable for tanning. Because of this preference, the great hemlock forest drained by the Tionesta River was still standing when almost all the pine, cherry, oak, ash, and other woods had gone. Although the cavalcade of rafting in Pennsylvania starts properly at the Delaware River, because of such lumber markets as Philadelphia and Baltimore, the industry's expansion to its largest and most important proportions may be traced most progressively through the Susquehanna and its tributaries. T h e north and west

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branches of the stream, rising in the lakes or tiny runs of the highlands and joining at Sunbury to form the main river flowing to Chesapeake Bay, undoubtedly formed the most important lumbering waterway in the United States for many years. Most important of the Susquehanna's lumber feeders was the Sinnemahoning River, or Creek, which long supplied big timber for the United States and the world. From the upper reaches of the Sinnemahoning the rafts came out in single platforms, or in half-rafts of three pieces, suitable for running to the First Fork. At the mouth of the Fork two half-rafts were coupled to make a raft. Below Lock Haven two rafts were joined to make a fleet, and on some of these, three or four men were required to handle each oar. Raftsmen of the Sinnemahoning followed the technique of mixing rafts of hardwood and pine. In a pine raft it was necessary, for quick trips, to insert three or four hardwood pieces to hold the rafts deeper in the water and give them velocity. A fast raft could reach the dam at Lock Haven in time to go through the chute before nightfall, which cut several hours off the time required to reach tidewater. On the other hand, it was necessary sometimes to buoy a hardwood raft with pine to make it float more easily, pass through, the chutes with lighter draught, and be less susceptible to the waterlogging of the heavier timbers. It was not unusual for an allhardwood raft to reach tidewater completely submerged. T h e Sinnemahoning raftsmen looked "death bang in the eye." They swept down rapids, around sharp turns, against the heads of islands, or to the wrong sides of chutes or dams at a speed that occasionally "stove" the rafts. Pilots, steersmen, and helpers were hurled into icy waters and forced to swim or ride loose lumber to safety. Sometimes a pilot would dip his oar into the edge of an eddy with a suddenness that flung his helpers off backward. At other times the steersman, holding the stern oar as the raft rounded a curve, failed to clear a rocky point. Disaster, occasionally fatal, followed when the raft cracked up. T h e rocky shores and sharp turns were not the only dangers in the stream. Changes in channels every season created new problems. T h e most careful pilots, approaching a dubious stretch of water, invariably snubbed their rafts to trees on shore and investigated

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channel, current, and shores before continuing downstream. T h e pilot on the Sinnemahoning, in common with those on the other large feeders of the Susquehanna, knew his river like a book. He was familiar with every bend, curve, shoal, ripple, island, rock, bridge, pier, and chute. There were many dangerous places all the way down the Susquehanna. Rafts sometimes were carried by strong winds over the breasts of dams instead of through the chutes, and were broken up. Bridge piers at Williamsport were particularly dangerous. Another bad place was the Conewago Rapids, below White House, where a special pilot had to be taken on to run the falls. Though the rapids at this point were two miles long, a raft could traverse them in from five to seven minutes. Many places had names appropriate to their natural features or inspired by some riverman's real or legendary experiences. These included Raceground Island, Davis's Landing, Raccoon Riffles (where Paul Fisher, a famous old hunter, locksmith, and gunsmith lived), Dry Valley Furnace, Seven Kitchens (below Lewisburg, a famous place for tying up for the night and known to every raftsman on the river), Lazy Man's Gap, Sliding Rock, and Hen and Chickens, the last-named a group of islands below Dauphin. Conditions were much the same on all feeders of the Susquehanna. T h e raft of the Sinnemahoning was the raft of the Loyalsock, Lycoming, Pine, or Muncy creeks, although there might be differences in size. Raftsmen were "up-river" men if they came from above Lock Haven, the first lumber sales town. If they sold their rafts they walked back home. If they failed to sell they went to Marietta. Lumber jobbers met rafts at different points on the river from Lock Haven to Marietta. T h e standard price for a raft was from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five dollars. When a jobber bought a raft at Lock Haven he hired a new crew to take it on to Marietta. Rafting and logging on Loyalsock Creek perhaps were typical of lumber transportation on all feeders of the Susquehanna, as well as on the Allegheny and Delaware. Timber was both floated and rafted from the white pine forests. Hemlock was peeled of its bark and left to rot or to be used for fuel in lumber camps and sawmills. Logs were floated down the Little Loyalsock and the Big Loyalsock

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to Forksville and thence to Montoursville, where they were made into rafts for shipment to Marietta. Rafts were made at or near the sawmills on streams that drained Sullivan County for a distance of fifty miles from Williamsport. An important institution on all the tributaries of the larger streams was the splash dam, constructed to provide water when needed for moving rafts and logs down shallow streams. T h e dam was equipped with a gate, or spillway, kept closed until the water reached a height sufficient to form a sudden "splash," and then opened to flood the stream below. Splash dams were constructed in many different ways, with an up-and-down gate, a double-hinge gate, or other features designed to serve best the purposes for which the dams were intended. One of these purposes was to provide ponds or flumes in which logs could be rafted. T h e typical raftsman was a man of almost any age past sixteen, more than six feet tall and possessed of great strength and agility. Usually he wore whiskers, having been told that whiskers protected him against colds, sore throats, and tuberculosis. H e worked hard, played hard, ate heartily of plain but substantial food, and often drank hard liquor. He welcomed a fight or a wrestling match, was quick to challenge an adversary and just as ready to aid anyone in danger or distress. H e accepted discipline with grace and imposed it impartially when placed in authority. Roused easily to enthusiasm, he could be boisterously drunk in the morning, fighting mad by noon, and yet, by night, exhort a religious revival meeting to frenzy with all the ardor of a crusader. And in any stage of his emotional transition he was sincere, at least for the time being. T h i s was the type of man that went up and down the Susquehanna, the Delaware, the Allegheny, and the smaller streams of Pennsylvania during the heyday of lumbering. H e was familiar to residents of cities and towns all along the water highways. His coonskin or foxskin cap with the waving tail, his red or red-checked woolen shirt, and his high leather boots highlighted the costume that identified him on the rafts or in taverns along the rivers. H e liked gay colors. W h e n he could not afford a tailed cap of fur he took his battered old black or gray slouch hat, painted the brim glaring red and wore it "off the forehead" as women wear their hats today, with

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a squirrel's, coon's, or fox's tail on the crown to give the proper dash. When he went ashore down river at the end of the trip, he often decked himself in a frock, or swallow-tailed, coat, put on a long, heavy, gold watch chain strung with as many charms and other gadgets as it would hold, and set out for the taverns or other places that catered to rivermen. He drank, danced, wrestled, or sang in a spirit of friendly ribaldry that did not end until the money he had received for his trip had been spent. Then he started the long trek back home. All along the Susquehanna, the Delaware, and the Allegheny the visits of raftsmen were awaited with eagerness. In almost every crew was someone who could play a violin, banjo, or harmonica; and nightly, from some point on the river where a raft had moored or from the tavern to which the men had gone, came music and song. Their repertory included sad ballads as well as lusty, often ribald, lays brought to camps or taverns by banjo-toting minstrels, who passed their hats or bargained with tavern keepers for board and drinks in return for their entertainment. These songs included one of "My Faithful Sailor Boy," who did not come back to the girl who was waiting for him. There was another called " T h e Boston Burglar," who was "brought up by honest parents and reared most tender-lee, until I became a sporting lad at the age of twenty-three." T h e raftsmen had their sentimental moments in "Just Plain Folks," about an old couple from the country, who visited the city only to learn that their citified son was ashamed of them. Among the occupational songs exploiting the excitement and daring of rivermen were " T h e Log J a m at Hughey's Rock" and " T h e Leek Hook." A universal favorite up and down all the rivers and tributaries was " T h e Girl I Left Behind Me." Almost as popular as the songs were the melodramatic recitations of such favorites as " T h e Face On the Barroom Floor," "Ostler Joe," " T h e Drummer Boy of the Rappahannock," " T h e Slave Who Saved St. Michael's," and even "Spartacus to the Gladiators." An unfrocked clergyman who had found in lumbering an outlet for his vagaries would read, with forensic fervor, "Ye call me chief, and ye do well to call me chief." "Jim Bludsoe" found deep sympathy in the hearts of rivermen; nor was anything more dramatic than " T h e

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Deathbed of Benedict Arnold," as recited by the wayward scion of a wealthy family who had left home for life in the woods. Group singing reached its greatest volume among the raftsmen in "Captain Jinks of the Horse Marines," who fed his horse on corn and beans, and " T h e Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze." There were many more group and solo numbers, all of which, however, had to be "he-man" compositions. Various songs that have come down through the years as favorites in pioneer lumbering days were only tolerated by the "wood hicks," considered proper for "tipsy collegiates or sissy youths." These, surprising as it may seem to alumni of the barbershop quartets of forty to fifty years ago, included "Sweet Adeline," "There Is a Tavern in the T o w n , " . " T h e Old Gray Mare," and "Seeing Nellie Home." T h e latter were all right at "tame social affairs," but the man who tried to sing them in an assemblage of raftsmen invariably ended up with a fight on his hands. Rivermen liked their songs and music raw. There was a tavern every four miles on the Susquehanna between Lock Haven and Marietta, in addition to bootleggers in skiffs, to supply the drinking wants of the raftsmen, but the Allegheny and Delaware had fewer places of refreshment and entertainment. Because the work was strenuous and required men to sleep in the woolen clothes in which they worked, drinking was general on all rivers. For that reason, perhaps, it has been overemphasized as a factor in the rafting life of the State. There were, after all, hundreds of raftsmen who were total abstainers, and a great many more were at least temperate. Owners of vast tracts of timber or men engaged in the rafting business were not drinkers generally, but they did not try to prevent drinking among the men who worked for them, except through moral suasion. As in other occupations, raftsmen with exceptional skill could drink and still hold their jobs, but in the later period of rafting in Pennsylvania there was a tendency toward employing only those who kept sober, at least while on the job. Lumbering on the Susquehanna and the Sinnemahoning, and on the tributaries of both, reached its greatest proportions after the watersheds down river had been cleared. Speculators in Pennsylvania and other states became fully appreciative of enormous profits to be made, and began to invest in vast tracts of timber. This rush of investment attracted men from New England, particularly Maine,

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many of whom selected Williamsport as a center from which to direct their operations. As their operations increased, the importance of Williamsport as a lumber city grew until eventually most lumbering of the Susquehanna depended upon Williamsport for financing and technical direction. The pioneer operator on the Sinnemahoning was John Brooks, who put spars into the river at Sterling Run and on Driftwood Branch from 1865 to 1872. He was known as "Thunder and Lightning" Brooks because of his favorite expletive. He is credited with having taken out the largest stick of timber ever floated down the Sinnemahoning—one hundred and twenty-three feet long, twentythree inches in diameter at the top, and containing six thousand board feet of lumber. One of the outstanding raftsmen of the Susquehanna was John Meyers of Lock Haven. Meyers and his seven sons are credited with having taken as many as five hundred rafts down the river from Lock Haven to Marietta in one season. T h e beginning of the end of the rafting business in Pennsylvania came with the organization of boom companies about the middle of the nineteenth century. Rafting and log-driving had been carried on concurrrently for many years, but it gradually became apparent that, on larger streams, log-driving would displace the older method, preferred over rafting by the New England and other outside lumber interests that had been attracted to Pennsylvania. As the forests nearest to the markets had now been stripped, it was necessary to go to the highlands at the headwaters of streams, where logging operations had to be undertaken so far from the banks that costs of cutting, hauling, and rafting became prohibitive. T o help solve this problem, timber was reduced to saw-logs in the woods and floated downstream to Lock Haven, Williamsport, and other cities where large sawmills had been set up. This form of competition eventually increased the cost of rafting. It was more expensive to take a raft down a river filled with floating logs than it was with clear "sailing." Competition also developed feuds which became so bitter as to cause losses amounting to thousands of dollars. The raftsman and the logger became members of rival groups and subject to group antagonisms. Fights between the rivermen, destruction of rafts, the spiking of saw-logs with metal to cause sabotage in sawmills, and other forms of violence and trickery

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became so numerous and bitter that special legislation was enacted to forbid such acts and to define rights of the respective groups. T h e river feuds were costly to everyone in the lumber business except the "Algerines," named after Algerian pirates. These were men who picked up logs and timbers in the rivers and sold them to the highest bidders. They would steal loose logs, saw off the ends bearing the owners' marks (branded into the wood), store them for a time and eventually sell them, sometimes even to their real owners. T h e pirates flourished for many years and some of them amassed fortunes. Thefts, increases in marketing costs, huge losses in floods, and other factors posed a problem which required sweeping reorganization of the lumber industry. Timber could be converted into lumber more cheaply in the large sawmills than in the forests, where only small mills could be set up. T o keep these larger mills going, however, it was necessary to have facilities for the storage of huge quantities of logs. This problem was solved by booms, dam-like contrivances floating on the water's surface but anchored firmly to the bottom. They corralled the logs at important points along the rivers where sawmills had been set up. Most important of the log booms was the huge sixmile affair stretching diagonally across the Susquehanna at Williamsport. T h e project was conceived by James H. Perkins as an operation of the Susquehanna Boom Company in 1849. Perkins, a native of New Hampshire, had amassed a fortune from the calico business in Philadelphia before launching his Williamsport venture. T h e Susquehanna Boom Company eventually began to dominate river log traffic. It received one dollar per thousand feet on all logs rafted out of its booms. Its volume of business is indicated by the fact that in 1889 the booms contained three hundred million board feet of logs, and a clause in its charter permitted it to claim ownership of all unbranded logs in its booms. This revenue was large because freshets often swept logs away before they could be branded. From 1862 to 1891 the boom company, which employed about one hundred and fifty men at one dollar and fifty cents a day, handled more than thirty-one million logs, each containing about two hundred board feet. At about the same time that the Susquehanna Boom Company

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started its Williamsport enterprise, the West Branch Boom Company was organized at Lock Haven, and a boom was built there. As log-booming and log-floating increased, the rafting of timber and lumber declined until it finally disappeared altogether from the rivers of Pennsylvania. But just as the decline of rafting started at a time when it apparently had reached permanent prosperity, so the ebb tide of the great Pennsylvania lumbering industry set in while leaders of the lumbermen were insisting that the State's supply was inexhaustible. Nature, however, mocked at them with the great spring flood of 1889. Millions of feet of saw-logs and timber were torn from booms, dams were crushed, factories and homes washed away, and incalculable damage caused. So much lumber was carried down the Susquehanna River into Chesapeake Bay that many enterprises in Maryland were busy for three years gathering and sawing Pennsylvania timber. T h e subject of the decline in rafting on the Susquehanna always has provoked discussion concerning the date, origin, and course of the "last raft in Pennsylvania." These discussions invariably have led to revivals of sentimental interest in rafting and have inspired many last-raft projects. T h e latest of these was launched on the Susquehanna in 1938, when an effort to take a log raft down the river from Clearfield to Harrisburg, a distance of two hundred miles, resulted in the death of seven persons. T h e raft was sponsored by R. Dudley Tonkin of Tyrone and was navigated by seventy-five-year-old Harry C. Connor of Burnside, Clearfield County, a veteran lumberman who had taken his last raft down the river as an actual commercial venture twenty years before, and who, with Tonkin, had made a similar trip in 1912. T h e raft carried a crew of six old-time rivermen and more than thirty passengers when it started from Clearfield on March 15. A five-foot rise in water was not sufficient to maintain the time schedule set for the craft, and the first day's trip of forty miles took nine hours and five minutes. T h e raft tied up the first night at Salt Lick Landing. T h e next morning, Thursday, it passed Buttermilk Falls, the Cataract, and Keating, to stop that night at Renovo. By mid-afternoon on Friday it was in Lock Haven. T h e next leg of the trip to Williamsport started the following morning after Chief Pilot

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Connor had thrilled onlookers by taking the raft over the Lock Haven dam without mishap. At one o'clock that afternoon the raft passed Jersey Shore at four miles an hour and was able to reach Maynard Street, Williamsport, above the dam, by eight. The trip to Harrisburg was continued the next morning, after the raft had gone through the dam chute and had tied up near the Market Street bridge long enough to take on more passengers. A large crowd waiting on the Muncy railroad bridge was cheering as the raft approached, when suddenly the lookout, another river veteran, yelled out a warning that the craft was heading for a bridge pier. Almost instantly it struck the abutment and swung violently around, throwing almost everyone aboard into the water. Rescuers saved thirty-eight persons, but seven were drowned and the bodies were not recovered for several days. Pennsylvania lumber is still in demand. More than one hundred and fifty million board feet were marketed in 1939, and probably more in 1940, with soft woods such as white and yellow pine making up the bulk of the production. But rafting, chief means of timber transportation for more than a century, is now only a colorful page in history.

THE ALLEGHENY PORTAGE RAILROAD NOT FAR from where the crack fliers speed over the main tracks of the Pennsylvania Railroad, a few miles east of Johnstown, lie the vestiges of the Allegheny Portage Railroad, one of the outstanding achievements of the pioneering period of American transportation. Powerful locomotives of today cross the Alleghenies with scarcely more effort than they expend in rushing over level stretches of track. But when the Portage Railroad was in operation a century ago, the slow and laborious work of the primitive steam engines hauling freight and passengers over the mountains at from five to ten miles an hour was considered a marvel. It was the most important link in the system of state-wide transportation, and from it developed the present networks of steel that span the State. In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, settlement of the West had reached as far as the Mississippi Valley. Each new wave of westward migrants enlarged the area of inland commerce. As a consequence, the three great ports of the Middle Atlantic Seaboard—Philadelphia, New York, and Baltimore—became keen competitors in the race to capture western trade. Business men and capitalists in the East realized that a pre385

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requisite to commercial expansion was better transportation. T h e old method of hauling by packhorse and Conestoga wagon was fast becoming obsolete. New York had already obtained an edge on her rivals by building the Erie Canal. As railroading was still in an embryonic stage, Pennsylvania and Maryland were undecided as to what method of transportation to adopt. Some engineers proposed a line of canals to link the large rivers of the East with those of the West, declaring that water transportation was the cheapest and best. In 1824 the Pennsylvania Assembly created a Board of Canal Commissioners to draw up a route for a state-wide canal system extending from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. After surveys were made by engineers, it was found that a continuous canal system was impracticable. A modified plan was finally adopted, that of having a railroad from Philadelphia to Columbia, a distance of eightyone miles; a canal from Columbia to Hollidaysburg, one hundred and seventy-three miles; and, on the other side of the Allegheny Mountains, a canal from Johnstown to Pittsburgh, one hundred and five miles. Spurred on to action by the completion of the Erie Canal, linking New York City with the Great Lakes, and by the starting of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1826 passed an act authorizing construction of the Pennsylvania Canal, first link in the cross-state system of waterways and railroads known as the Main Line of Public Works. Governor John Andrew Shulze signed the act in February of that year, and work was started on the eastern division of the canal at Harrisburg in July. Although the venality of politicians and contractors engaged in the construction slowed down the work considerably, progress was such that on March 31, 1831, an act was passed providing for the construction of a railroad over the Alleghenies to connect the eastern and western divisions of the canal, which were separated by the high mountain barrier. T h e projected railroad was to extend from Hollidaysburg on the eastern slope of the mountain to Johnstown at the Conemaugh Gap of Laurel Hill, a distance of 36.69 miles. T h e name given to this mountain link was the Allegheny Portage Railroad. T h e word "portage" is from the French, meaning

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a stretch of land between two waterways requiring the carrying of both goods and boats from one stream to the other. As the name implies, the railroad was constructed for the portage of canal traffic over the mountain. With Sylvester Welch as chief engineer, construction of the mountain railroad was got under way. Preliminary surveys of the route were started in cold stormy weather, presenting formidable difficulties to the engineers. The lines of the road had to be laid out in thick stands of spruce and hemlock. Many of these forest giants lay on the ground obstructing the way; and those standing had to be felled and removed in the manner most feasible. Because of the intense cold in the mountain, engineers and workmen slept in their clothes, first wrapping themselves in heavy buffalo robes. Tents were the only shelters available. The average pay of the civil engineers was two dollars a day. Chainmen and axemen were paid one dollar a day. By May 20 the line from Johnstown to the summit of the mountain was laid out and construction work from that end let out to contractors. The surveys from the summit to Hollidaysburg on the eastern slope were finished in July. The summit of the mountain at Blair's Gap was nearly fourteen hundred feet above the valley lands to the east, and nearly twelve hundred feet above the west bottom. The railroad line comprised a double track having ten inclined planes—five on each slope of the mountain—numbered easterly from Johnstown. Trains were to be moved up the inclined planes by means of stationary steam engines which operated heavy rope cables on the inclined planes. On the flat stretches between the inclines the trains could be drawn by horses. The total length of the ten inclined planes was 4.38 miles, overcoming more than two thousand feet of elevation. A roadbed twenty-five feet wide was graded along the right of way, and the work of laying the first track steadily progressed. The original rails consisted of oak or pine stringers, measuring six by eight inches. They were capped with flat iron strips and mounted on stone blocks spaced five feet apart. Two Portage Railroad features which have been regarded as triumphs of early engineering were the Conemaugh Viaduct, spanning the Little Conemaugh River east of Johnstown, and the

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Staple Bend Tunnel, near by. Considered the most perfectly constructed arch in the country, the viaduct shortened the road's distance by two miles. It was destroyed in the Johnstown flood of 1889. T h e Staple Bend Tunnel, 901 feet long, was the first railroad tunnel built in America. Abandoned in 1852, its entrance today is marked by a monument. On November 26, 1833, about two and a half years after the beginning of the work, the first car and passengers were carried over the railroad. T h e passengers were a committee from Philadelphia representing the Board of Trade. Only the first track had been completed when the railroad was officially opened on March 18, 1834. T h e State provided the motive power only on the inclined planes. Private contractors supplied teams of horses for hauling on the level stretches. T h e road continued in use until the end of the year, when the canals were closed for the winter. T h e road resumed operations in March 1835, and the second track was completed shortly thereafter. T h e spreading action of frost on the rails during cold months was eliminated by placing cross-ties between the stone blocks. After five years of using bare hempen cables to operate the inclined planes, an improvement was made by coating the enormous ropes with tar, which prolonged their life. T h e cables ranged in length from thirty-six hundred to sixty-six hundred feet and had circumferences of from six to eight inches. T h e average price of the ropes was three thousand dollars apiece. By 1849, however, the hempen cables were discarded and replaced by stronger and more durable wire cables. Another improvement was adopted on the Portage shortly after the opening of the road. So much confusion and delay were caused by the clashing temperaments of the teamsters, whose horses pulled the cars on the levels, that the Canal Commission decided in 1835 to replace horsepower with locomotives. By 1851 horses were entirely eliminated. T h e early passenger cars on the Portage had a capacity of eleven persons. They were similar in appearance to the cabooses of the present day, and not much larger in size. Like the passenger cars, the freight cars were four-wheelers; they were capable of a maxi-

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mum load of from six thousand to seven thousand pounds, depending on the type of freight. Before the advent of locomotives on the levels, the average price charged for moving freight over the mountains was almost two and a half dollars a ton. After locomotives displaced horses, the cost of freightage from Hollidaysburg to Blairsville was reduced to about one dollar a ton. On the earlier turnpikes the cost had been twelve to sixteen dollars a ton. A novel method of transportation was introduced on the Portage during the late 1830's. Some inventive haulers conceived the idea of eliminating the expense and labor involved in transshipping canal cargoes from the boats to the railroad cars by building canal boats in detachable sections. When the boat reached the end of the canal, its several sections were hoisted separately on heavy trucks and hauled, with cargo and passengers intact, over the mountain to the canal on the other side. There the sections of the boat were rejoined, and the craft was lowered into the canal to resume its water journey. A writer of the period records the following incident of canal-boat hauling: Jesse Chrisman from the L a c k a w a n n a loaded his boat, n a m e d Hit

Miss,

with his wife, children, beds a n d family accommodations,

a n d other live stock, and started for Illinois. A t

Hollidaysburg,

or

pigeons where

he expected to sell his boat, it was suggested . . . that the whole concern could be safely hoisted over the mountain a n d set afloat again in the canal. M r . Daugherty prepared a railroad car calculated to bear the burden. T h e boat was taken from its proper element a n d placed on wheels, a n d . . . the boat and cargo at noon on the same day began their progress over

the rugged Allegheny.

All

this was d o n e

without

disturbing

the

family arrangements of cooking, sleeping, etc. T h e y rested at night on the top of the mountain, like N o a h ' s A r k on Ararat, a n d descended the next m o r n i n g into the Valley of the Mississippi, a n d sailed f o r St. Louis.

When the season of 1843 opened, ten sets of trucks for hauling boat sections were placed on the Portage road. Inclines leading from the canal basins at Johnstown and Hollidaysburg were built to facilitate raising of the boats from the water to the railroad trucks. T h e new method became increasingly popular, and, for a while, brought an increase of passenger traffic and freight over the Portage. A print description of that period shows the stern sec-

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tion of a canal boat, mounted on heavy horse-drawn trucks, drawn up in front of the O l d Stock Exchange Building at T h i r d and Walnut streets in Philadelphia;

a crowd of curious onlookers

and

friends stand about, while the passengers climb aboard and take their places on the roof of the boat-housing, to begin the first stage of their journey via the Columbia Railroad to the canal terminus at Columbia. During its time the Allegheny Portage was considered one of the wonders of transportation. Charles Dickens, in his American

Notes,

thus describes a trip he took on the railroad in 1842: Occasionally, the rails are laid upon the extreme verge of a giddy precipice; and looking from the carriage window, the traveler gazes sheer down, without a stone or scrap of fence between, into the mountain depths below. . . . It was very pretty travelling thus at a rapid pace along the heights of the mountain in a keen wind, to look down into a valley full of light and softness; catching glimpses, through the treetops, of scattered cabins; dogs bursting out to bark, whom we could see without hearing; terrified pigs scampering homeward; families sitting out in their rude gardens; cows gazing upward with stupid indifference; men in their shirt sleeves, looking on at their unfinished houses, planning out tomorrow's work; and we riding onward high above them, like a whirlwind. It was amusing, too, when we had dined, and rattled down a steep pass, having no other moving power than the weight of the carriages themselves, to see the engine, released long after us, come buzzing down alone, like a giant insect, its back of green and gold so shining in the sun that if it had spread a pair of wings and soared away, no one would have had an occasion, as I fancied, for the least surprise. But it stopped short of us in a very business-like manner when we reached the canal; and, before we left the wharf, went panting up the hill again with the passengers w h o had waited our arrival for the means of traversing the road by which we had come. In spite of popular enthusiasm and increased toll revenue from the section-boat traffic, the system began to fall into disfavor for various reasons. Chief of these was the cost involved in repairing the boat trucks, which frequently broke down under the weight of increasingly large boats and cargoes. However, the section boats continued in use until the end. In 1836 the road handled freight amounting to 52,700 tons. In ten years it increased to 146,000 tons annually, and, by the i85o's,

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to 250,000 tons. The number of passengers carried in 1836 was 25,000; but by the middle of the next decade the annual average had decreased to 11,300. Though the Portage road performed a fairly efficient service in moving goods and passengers, it failed, along with the entire system of Public Works, in the one important purpose for which it had been built. That was to attract a greater share of the competitive trade between the West and the Middle Atlantic ports. This failure was attributed to the slowness and uncertainty involved in shipping goods in section boats by canal and railroad. The inclined planes on the Portage were also found to be inadequate for the maintenance of regular and rapid schedules. The fact that the canals were closed by ice during the winter months and frequently rendered inoperative by floods at other times also militated against the system. In addition, charges of graft and mismanagement were constantly being raised against the line and its administration by the State. One of the major faults found with the Portage was in the use of the inclined planes. The frequent changes of power required to move trains of cars on the planes was the cause of much delay and irregularity of movement. As many as thirty-three changes of power were necessary to move a train over the thiry-six miles of Portage track. Each operation of this kind entailed the use of twelve stationary steam engines on the inclined planes, nine locomotives and twelve teams of horses on the levels, and the services of fifty-four men. Because of these shortcomings, the Pennsylvania Assembly in May 1850 passed an act for the construction of a new portage railroad without inclined planes. In June 1851, contracts were awarded; and the work progressed so favorably that by January 1853 three of the ten planes had been eliminated. Meanwhile the Pennsylvania Railroad, a privately owned and operated line, was looming as a formidable competitor of the state-owned system of transportation. By arrangement with the State Board of Canal Commissioners, the Pennsylvania line was using the Philadelphia & Columbia stretch of railroad track. On September 17, 1850, the Pennsylvania's tracks were extended from Harrisburg to a point connecting with the Portage Railroad near Hollidaysburg. The Pennsylvania continued to use the Portage

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until February 1854, when the Mountain Division of the Pennsylvania line, between Johnstown and Altoona, was completed. It had a summit tunnel and no inclined planes. T h i s was a heavy blow to the advocates of the new portage, since it would have to contend with the competition of the Pennsylvania's new Mountain Division near by. As a consequence, progress was very slow during the season of 1854. A n d when the new road without inclined planes was opened for traffic in the following year, it was in an incomplete state, only a single track having been laid. Parts of the old road were used, and the line was lengthened by six miles. T h e road had a maximum grade of seventy-five feet per mile, and, like the rival Mountain Division of the Pennsylvania, had a summit tunnel about two thousand feet long. T h e construction of the improved Portage cost the Commonwealth a total of $2,143,355. In view of the fact that the Main Line of Public Works had already cost the Commonwealth about forty million dollars without achieving the purpose for which it had been designed, public clamor began to be raised for its sale to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company. T h e existing competition between the two roads was found to be injurious to both. In addition, the Baltimore fe O h i o Railroad was successfully operating to Cumberland, Maryland, and was now menacing the interests of Pennsylvania transportation by planning to extend its tracks to Pittsburgh. Since the Pennsylvania had already withdrawn its traffic from the State lines to its own road, there was no other recourse for the Commonwealth but to authorize the sale of the entire Main Line of Public Works to the privately owned Pennsylvania Railroad interests. O n June 15, 1857, the system was sold at public auction to the Pennsylvania Railroad Company for seven and one-half million dollars. A l o n g with the rest of the Public Works, the Portage Railroad thus passed into the hands of the rival company, which closed it after three months of operation. Thenceforth the old system of canals and railroads was abandoned and dismantled, as the Pennsylvania Railroad established direct rail service from Philadelphia through to Pittsburgh. A l t h o u g h it performed a useful service during its twenty-three years of operation, the Portage road fell into disuse once the pioneer-

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ing stage of rail transportation had been passed. Because of the rapid growth of trade and invention, the old system of Public Works had outlived its usefulness within two decades after its completion. Today, parts of the Pennsylvania Railroad lines still run along the original road of the Portage and of the Philadelphia 8c Columbia branch. Relics of the pioneer mountain railway that still survive a century of neglect are the Staple Bend Tunnel and the Skew Arch Bridge. The former is situated at the Staple Bend of the Conemaugh River, four miles east of Johnstown. The Skew Arch Bridge, standing a few feet away from the William Penn Highway fifteen miles west of Altoona near the borough of Cresson, was abandoned for use as a highway link in 1922.

THE ERIE EXTENSION CANAL T H E ERIE EXTENSION CANAL, n o r t h w e s t e r n l i n k i n t h e P e n n s y l v a n i a

system of canals connecting Lake Erie with the Delaware River at Philadelphia, was constructed as part of the internal improvements undertaken in the State from 1820 to the eve of the Civil W a r . Regional sections of the canal acquired such designations as the French Creek Feeder, Beaver, Shenango, and Conneaut or Erie Extension. T h e canal itself has been known by many names: the Beaver and Erie, the Erie and Pittsburgh, the Shenango Canal, the O h i o and Erie Canal, and simply as the Beaver. As the water traverse began at the mouth of the Big Beaver, twenty-eight miles northwest of Pittsburgh, and traffic was continuous with the O h i o System for ten years before the Extension was opened, the name Beaver may seem appropriate. Although legislation of 1823 and 1824 mentions the linking of the State's eastern and western waters, it was not until 1826 that legislation directly affecting the Erie Extension was enacted. Governor Shulze on February 25 of that year approved an act of Assembly providing for the construction of the Pennsylvania Canal. A part of this act involved a navigable feeder for a canal from 394

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French Creek to the summit level at Conneaut Lake; there was also provision for the survey and location of a canal from that point to Lake Erie. However, twelve years were to elapse before the actual work of excavation was begun on the Erie Extension. O n July 4, 1838, ground was broken at Erie with appropriate ceremony. Erie's famous Captain Dobbins, who had so materially aided Oliver Hazard Perry in the War of 1812, led the parade. T h e town turned out in gala array, and the first shovelful of earth was removed by Captain Martin Strong, an early settler. T h e groundbreaking group used plows, wheelbarrows, and spades; and, although nine years had passed since the New York State Barge Canal had been opened, the ceremony at Erie was one of jubilation. T h e long-awaited canal was becoming a reality! A major financial reverse was suffered in 1842, prior to the incorporation of the Erie Canal Company. T w o minor reverses, called " T h e Battle of the Route" and " T h e Terminus Fight," had wrecked plans for early work on the Extension. In 1827 the politicians had devoted their attention to the two possible routes from Pittsburgh to Erie: up the Allegheny River to Franklin and thence by way of Waterford to Erie, or down the Ohio River to Beaver and through the Shenango Valley and Conneaut Lake region to Erie. Contention over the route, finally settled in favor of the Ohio, was essentially political. Pennsylvanians living in the northern interior favored the Allegheny, or eastern, route. Ohio people, however, desired a connection with the Pennsylvania Canal system; and as this could best be gained on a western route, they naturally leaned toward the Shenango choice and had their wishes fulfilled. Particularly, Ohio desired development in lake traffic. T h e eastern or French CreekWaterford advocates in 1827 had managed to elect Stephen Wolverton to the legislature. But George Moore, champion of the western or Shenango-Conneaut Creek route, won in 1828. Until 1831 the legislature had delayed appropriations for the Extension, pointing out that the northwestern counties were disputing among themselves, and that it was not consistent to allocate state funds for a canal whose course had not been determined. But the route selection was not the end of strife, for Erie County politics made trouble in 1837, just one year before the ground-breaking.

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In the persons of W i l l i a m and James Miles, owners of land at the south of Elk Creek in Erie County, opponents of the Erie terminus of the Extension campaigned to end the canal at Elk Creek. It had long been a plan of the Miles brothers to create a city at Elk Creek, but their hope of securing the canal terminal was frail at best. A canal basin had been built at Erie in 1833-34 and had been used steadily for certain lake traffic. A n d the Miles's own faction, including two influential politicians, were not in accord. Some contended that Elk Creek was the logical terminus. Dredging and a breakwater would have provided a safe harbor and fifteen miles of canal, and the costly Elk Creek and Walnut Creek aqueducts would not have been necessary. T h e lockage from the south shelf to the lake level would have been the same in either descent. T r u e , such a decision would have shifted the shipping center from Erie for a time, but the Erie interests were the more powerful. T h e Miles family were public-spirited citizens. William Miles offered the State one thousand acres of land at Elk Creek for the founding of a state college, but the site was turned down because of its remoteness from the center of population. However, the idea itself was fostered, and a college was later established in Center County. Miles was a member of the first board of trustees and was a chairman of the board of what is now Pennsylvania State College. T h e Commonwealth was hopeful of completing a gigantic canal system embracing New York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. In 1839, with the Erie Extension under construction, the State sent a committee to Albany, urging that New York build a connection with the Pennsylvania North Branch Canal at the State Line north of Wilkes-Barre. Ohioans for years were eager to utilize water communications. T h e legislature passed an act for a cross-cut canal that linked the O h i o and Pennsylvania systems by 1834. As early as January 10, 1827, the Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal Company had been incorporated by an act of the Ohio Assembly. A copy of this act was rushed to the Pennsylvania legislature then in session, and so impressed were the members that on April 14 they incorporated a similar company. T h i s joint sanction of canal construction made water traffic possible from central Ohio to west-central Pennsylvania, thence to Philadelphia and the Atlantic. But the hundred

ERIE

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miles of northern canal remained in the hopeful stage. Completion of the L a k e Erie section was naturally a part of this plan, and although the canal was in operation between Pittsburgh and Beaver, little work had been done between Conneaut Lake and Erie. By 1840 the work had progressed to a point six miles above New Castle and was almost ready for navigation as far as Greenville. T h e sections between Greenville and Erie were also progressing, when monetary trouble called a halt. In 1842 the Governor and the legislature, aware of the heavy public debt which included other internal expenditures than the Erie Extension, refused further appropriations for the Extension. N o other course seemed open, since the public clamor to reduce internal expenses was such that the legislature could do little else. But while hard hit by this latest blow, the Extension still survived. Led by R u f u s Reed of Erie, the Erie Canal C o m p a n y was formed in 1842-43, and this corporation completed the work still to be finished between Conneaut Lake and Erie. T h e State had spent more than four million dollars on this canal between B i g Beaver Creek and Erie, yet the Erie Canal Company took over and completed the work with $211,000. T h e first boats came through to Erie in December of 1844. Earlier in the month two canalboats bound for Erie had been frozen in at Lockport (now Platea), and any hope of "first" boats through the canal had vanished for that year. B u t the weather moderated and the boats finally were free of the ice. T h e y arrived in Erie early in the morning, and the celebration began immediately. Heralded by the boom of cannon and the blast of the boatsmen's horns, the R. S. Reed, captained by a Mr. D r u m , came first, followed by the packet boat Queen of the West, C a p t a i n Armstrong in command. T h e banks of the canal through Erie were lined with cheering crowds, for this particular event had been awaited almost a quartercentury. T h e cargo boat was loaded with Mercer County coal for the lake trade; the packet was jammed with passengers. Here indeed was ample cause for jubilation: the lakes at last had met the sea! A n important and interesting section was a triangular area midway between the O h i o and L a k e Erie. Here was the summit of the

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system where the important French Creek Feeder supplied water to the Great Level, a ten-mile stretch that flowed both north and south. One side of this triangle ran from Meadville on French Creek to Evansburg on the southern tip of Conneaut Lake, eight miles to the west. A point rested at Shaws, seven miles down French Creek. Meadville was the high point. A feeder canal was built through these three towns as provided in the Act of Assembly of 1826. T h e main line of the Extension ran in a general north-and-south line directly west of Conneaut Lake. This feeder was a water supply and gave Meadville a navigable western link to the main canal, in addition to the Allegheny outlet to the south by way of the slackwater system on French Creek. T h e feeder began at Bemus Dam, built across Cussewago Creek in what is now Waterworks Park, at the edge of Meadville. From Bemus Dam the canal crossed French Creek to the east, then ran south nine miles parallel to French Creek, crossing it at Shaws Landing on a stone aqueduct about fifty feet above the creek. This section was the right branch of the feeder. Bemus Dam was higher than the lake, and a ridge intervened. Topography required the canal to dip south and loop around Shaws to flow back in a northwest direction twelve and a half miles to Evansburg, Conneaut Lake, and ultimately to the Extension. This was known as the left branch. Here the first ground-breaking ceremony on the western canal route was held at Meadville on August 24, 1827, when work commenced shortly after legislative authorization for the French Creek Feeder. Shortly after the opening of the Feeder in 1834, work was begun on the slackwater creek section, which started at the junction of French Creek and the Allegheny River. There were eleven dams, varying in height from seven to sixteen feet, and sixteen lift locks that overcame the rise of one hundred twenty and one-half feet in the twenty-seven miles to Meadville. This slackwater passed through Shaws, where the feeder and French Creek were connected by a series of locks. T h e highest point in the Extension Canal was above the lake level. An eleven-foot dam at the outlet raised the water level nine feet, but not enough to permit a flow into the canal. T h e feeder joined the lake reservoir at Evansburg. Boats ran the lake to Lynch's Junction, where locks connected the lake with a short feeder to

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Summit Junction on the main line. It was necessary to transfer a large volume of water into the canal at the Great Level. Mechanical waterwheels were erected at the lake's edge to lift the water the few necessary feet to the canal. A new waterwheel installed in 1865 was forty feet in diameter, weighed more than one hundred tons, and was driven by two 125-horsepower engines. The William B. Duncan, an eighty-ton sidewheeler, steamed to Franklin, and hopes were again raised for the eastern route. T h e sternwheeler Allegheny reached Warren in 1830, and even paddled on to Olean, New York. A steamboat actually docked at Meadville in 1834, over the slackwater of French Creek. Portions of the French Creek Feeder are visible today between Meadville and Franklin along Route 322, which parallels French Creek at some points. Apparently the Feeder Division was used while still only a roughly cut waterway. A section of the right branch was opened in 1829 with elaborate ceremonies. An act of March 21, 1831, allocated $270,681.32 in a contract for "22 miles and 88 perches," the remainder of the feeder. And in 1832 the Erie Observer noted that the "Girard Legacy" of $300,000 was appropriated for the French Creek Feeder, and voiced the ever present wish that the canal would be completed by the next session. The Beaver Division, the second section to get under construction, extended forty-five miles up the Big Beaver to New Castle. It was started July 28, 1831, and completed May 26, 1834, six months before the French Creek Feeder reached Conneaut Lake. But there remained a like distance to canalize beyond New Castle to the lake, and no contracts had been let. Pittsburghers, enjoying trade from Beaver Valley and from the interior of Ohio, seemed little concerned with the northern portion of the works. The Ohio cross-cut canal, starting at Akron, had joined the Beaver division at New Castle Junction on the Mahoning River near its junction with the Beaver. The main Ohio canal linked Lake Erie at Cleveland with the Ohio River at Marietta. Little Pittsburgh support was given to the forty-five miles of the second division to Conneaut Lake, let alone the run from the summit to Lake Erie. The contract was not let until 1838, and then only for twenty-seven miles to Greenville, with eighteen miles remaining to join the feeder. Beyond the sphere of direct Pittsburgh commer-

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PENNSYLVANIA

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cial influence, the unfinished canal was considered but an extension, hence the term. Quicksand added a construction difficulty to the many problems of the Extension. Harmonsburg lies north of the divide where a fivemile stretch of treacherous sand almost forced a change in the route. Sand bubbled into the excavation, slowly filling the canal bed and making the banks difficult to anchor. This taxed the ingenuity of the early engineers and builders, but they determined to line the canal with timber walls along the sandy stretches. Straight trees along the route were cut down and squared on three sides, so they would fit snugly side by side as well as have a smooth surface facing the canal. These were sunk into place by a crude pile-driver consisting of a half-ton weight controlled by a derrick mounted on skids. T h e hammer was lifted to striking height by a rope traveling over a wheel at the top of the derrick. Oxen were used to hoist the heavy hammer, and, as each pile was driven, the derrick had to be moved forward by pinch bars. This, however, did not solve the problem altogether, as sand in many sections continued to flow in from the canal bed. It became necessary to floor the canal with squared timbers cut to fit between the timbered banks. They were forced into position not only against their normal buoyance in the water but against pressure from the sand beneath, and braced from above. T h e sand was sealed out by a wooden flume. A cracker-barrel story about such a section, near Harmonsburg, further records the resourcefulness of the early builders. It was incumbent upon a contractor to get a boat through his section by a specified date to signify its completion. Work was progressing slowly and the date for completion was at hand. T h e men were sitting one night in the local grocery store, discussing the problem of getting a boat through. They had neither boat nor clear passage, but they decided to do something about it anyway. T h e next day they felled two big whitewood trees and set the trunks near the canal, cutting the ends on an angle. Ends and bottom were closed in with planks, making a scow-like boat. They launched this hastily made craft and began the trip, but soon the quicksand piled up in front, stopping the boat. T h e straining tow-horses were unable to budge it. Six yoke of oxen were hitched on to the towline, and the

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boat literally plowed through the thick sandy water to reach its destination on time. T h i s cumbersome boat was used for many years. Another section of the canal presented a problem altogether different. Here the course ran through gravel strata, and the water disappeared almost as fast as it reached the porous beds. A water level high enough for boats could not be maintained. T o eliminate this difficulty the water was shut off, and the sides and bottom of the channel plastered with several inches of impervious clay. Elk Creek presented a construction problem in carrying the canal to Erie. T h e normal contour crossed Elk Creek at the highest point above its bed. A n aqueduct was built that extended eleven hundred feet, including both approaches, and was a hundred feet in maxim u m height. A wooden flume carried the water over on a frame trestle made of timbers cut from trees one hundred and twenty-five feet tall. T h e original plan called for an imposing structure of stone columns and arches. A quarry was opened near by and considerable stone hewn. Abutments were set and the vertical masonry was begun. It was first intended that carpenters should erect timber forms over which the stone arches could be laid by masons, but as the height was considered too great, timber bridging was used instead. A living memento of the old canal is the little hamlet of Platea Boro on Route 18 between Girard and Cranesvillc in Erie County. Founded by one Silas Pratt, Platea was once a thriving canal community named Lockport. It was so named because within a distance of two miles was built a series of twenty-eight locks, with an average lift of six and one-half feet. T h e locks were necessary in scaling the two-hundred-foot elevation from the lake shore plain to Conneaut Creek Valley. Pratt saw that a town could exist on the business made possible by the lockage; his first effort consisted of a store, a few houses, and one hotel. In time the village prospered. T w o hotels, two churches, an oar factory, tannery, printing office, planing mill, and three blacksmith shops in time were serving the growing populace, but Pratt's venture failed in 1848-49, and when the canal was abandoned twenty-one years later, only a scant handful of farmers remained.

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Since that time the pleasant farming center of Platea Boro has replaced the boom town of Lockport. On the main line of the canal were Erie, Fairview, Girard, Lockport, Albion, Springboro, Conneautville, Greenville, Clarksville, Sharon, New Castle, Wampum, Moravia, and Beaver. Albion, near the Erie-Crawford County line, was first called Jackson Cross Roads. Of less importance, yet indicating typical rural naming, were Cranesville, Tuckerville, Log Grocery, Quarrytown, and Hamburg. Keepville gained its unique nickname of "Tighthole" possibly through the subconscious processes of a discouraged preacher's mind. According to one authority a certain preacher had always experienced difficulty in securing contributions. T h e day finally came when he was delivering his farewell sermon to the small flock. At the end of the sermon he bowed his head to ask for divine blessings upon "Tighthole." Dicksonburg, a family name, was better known as Gooseport. Connecticut Yankees had settled this area, and their large flocks of geese daily used the canal, swimming to one side when boats passed by. Frenchtown, east of Meadville, was originally laid out by Frenchmen. Agents of the Holland Land Company sold tracts to farmers who lived in Alsace, with travel instructions that took many of them to New York, over the Erie Canal, and up the Extension to Meadville. From Conneaut Lake to Erie the canal skirted the northwestern corner of Albion, ran north through Platea Boro, thence to Girard. It entered Erie from Elk Creek (Girard) almost on a line of the old Bessemer Railroad to the present Eighteenth and Cranberry streets, slanting on a diagonal from this point through a series of locks, both single and in steps, to the basin at the foot of Sassafras Street. This was also the route of Lee's Run. T h e greater part of canal business, aside from coal, was iron ore and merchandise. Many coal slips marked its course through Erie, and the principal lock—the weigh lock—was at Seventh Street. Coal was the cargo that proved the worth of the canal. The first imported bituminous coal reached Erie in 1840, over the Extension as far as completed and then hauled the remaining distance. It sold for five dollars a ton and was considered cheaper fuel than wood at one dollar a cord. In 1845, within one year of the canal opening,

ERIE

EXTENSION

CANAL

fifteen thousand tons reached Erie. That year the Presque Isle Furnace, looking forward to improved special castings, contracted for a boatload of anthracite from the hard-coal fields of eastern Pennsylvania. The Star under Captain Turner accomplished what a few years earlier would have been unbelievable; he transported a load of coal the length of the State, over mountains, and floated it into the Erie Canal basin. The collector's report at Erie shows that thirty-two canalboats arrived and thirty-five cleared during the week of June 18, 1845. Thirty-three arrived the following week with 643 tons of coal, 1,400 pounds of cheese, 2,997 pounds of wool, 41,500 staves, 60,000 feet of lumber, 50,000 pounds of nails, and ten barrels of whiskey. Other cargoes were of iron, butter, corn, wheat, leather, ashes, lime, white lead, plaster, castings, and general merchandise. The merchandise boats plying between Erie and Pittsburgh often augmented their crews as best they could. Boys of the 1840's were not unwilling to make these Extension Canal trips; there was always excitement in the thought of canal travel. Many a lad of the time was glad to work as driver, lock-fitter, rower, or steersman. Laden with a cargo of white ash for the farm-tool manufacturers of Pittsburgh, the canalboat Polk and Dallas of Albion slid into the Spring Corners lock one June dawn in 1846. Captained by Elisha Alderman and manned by two sturdy youths, one the captain's son and the other a farm boy, the boat had been on the move from near Albion since four o'clock. Heavy-hocked and docile, the horses had been unstabled from their quarters amidship and hitched while the stars were still out. Now, moving at the end of the towrope, the arklike craft followed the horses, as they plodded with slow dignity along the towpath. All that summer day the boat made its leisurely way down the Shenango Valley. Late afternoon found it at Hartstown, at a place known as Big Pond, or "Snake Land," bordering the Pymatuning region. Here a welter of snakes slid from the rocks and banks, disturbed by the long poles with which the crew kept the boat clear of obstructions. The first night the boat tied up at Greenville, then moved on its way past Sharon and New Castle. At Beaver three "boats of the line," bearing Seneca Indians to the West, passed by. Homesteaders

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by the thousand were on the move, and as the East became settled, the Indians moved to the wider reaches of Western reservations. T a k e n in tow by a river steamer for the last lap of its journey, the Polk and Dallas was conducted to Pittsburgh, where it tied u p for unloading next morning. T h e thirty-five-ton return cargo of light railroad iron for northwestern Pennsylvania was loaded without use of a hoist. Again taken in tow, to be dropped at Beaver, junction of the canal with the B i g Beaver, the boat set out on its homeward passage. Eight f u l l days were sometimes required for the EriePittsburgh round trip, but this placid pace was well geared to the solid progress of the Keystone State. Not without its elemental dangers, the canal provided copy for the newspapers of the time. Perhaps no better comment on the canal era, with its mixture of industrial progress and politics, is to be f o u n d than an item in the Erie Gazette of December 3, 1846: We learn from the Crawford Democrat that during the severe blow of Wednesday afternoon of last week, the canal boat R. Patch on her way from Pittsburgh to Meadville, was blown against the embankment on the south side of Conneaut Lake Reservoir and filled with water, so that she sank. The boat was heavily laden with merchandise, and a printing press belonging to the office of the Democrat. Several ladies and children on board had barely time to escape with their lives. A large portion of the merchandise was entirely lost; the printing press with considerable difficulty, recovered. It will soon be in use knocking off sheets, in an enlarged form vindicatory of "democratic" and denunciatory of Whig principles. Sorry it will not be better employed. T h e canal provided ready transportation for every farmer along the route who had any produce to sell. T h e location of the largest dairy f a r m west of the Allegheny ridge is directly attributable to the canal. R i c h a r d Porch, an Englishman, had come to America and had settled in Wisconsin for the purpose of operating a dairy farm. A f t e r surveying his prospects he concluded he would have better chances of success near the canal in western Pennsylvania. He came to Sandusky, and in 1848 settled at the Ohio-Pennsylvania L i n e near Andover, where his farm soon became famous for its herd of milch cows. His butter and cheese were shipped on northbound canal boats, and then sent on to New York City. Butter, cheese, and dried apples became important elements in

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the economic life of the farmers of northwestern Pennsylvania and the adjoining counties of Ohio. Cheese was shipped both North and South—as far south as New Orleans. Before the Civil W a r days, farmers had learned to make a special type &f cheese that would stand up under the hot weather of the South. It is said the return from cheese sales took, care of the family needs, whereas the mortgage payments came from the sale of dried apples, which had an extensive market even in Europe. Early commercial development of the western portion of Pennsylvania was in great part due to the Beaver Division and the Erie Extension of the Pennsylvania Canal. During the decade from 1845 to 1855 the canal was actually overcrowded, having no carrier competition. T h e first packets resembled flatboats, about eight by forty feet, with decks extending fore and aft and with cabins above deck. T h e i r speed was about two and a half miles an hour and required approximately sixty hours to run between Erie and Rochester. C. M. Reed, who owned fast lake boats, built a fleet of canal packets with berths and staterooms. T h e speed was stepped u p to a trot, three horses being used and changed every ten miles. T h e time between Erie and Beaver decreased to thirty-six hours and the fare to four dollars, including all service. T h e Reed Line crews included captain, two steersmen, two bowsmen, a lock lifter, chambermaid, steward, cook, and helper. In 1852, packets on the south schedule met the railroad trains at Rochester and transferred passengers to both west and southbound stagecoaches. T h e fare from New Castle to Rochester by boat and then by train to Pittsburgh was one dollar. A n emigrant furnishing his own bedding and food could ride from Cleveland on the Ohio Canal to Akron, then over the Ohio Cut-off to the Extension, and thence to Rochester, for sixty-six cents. But packet-boat passenger business dropped materially after 1853, when the Lake Shore Railroad passed through Erie and took on into O h i o much of the immigrant trade that had utilized the canal. It was inevitable that this form of transportation could not long satisfy the increasing demands for swifter travel. T h e railroads were to improve this condition. Four major factors were concerned in the abandonment of the Erie Extension Canal: the sale of the main line in 1857, the small

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capacity of canal boats, the development of the railroad, and finally the collapse of the aqueduct at Girard. While the sale of the main line was not locally important at the time, it had its effect on the discontinuance of the Extension. Since 1844 the State had tried to incorporate the canal and railroad with a view to reducing the State debt. T h e act was approved at the time but the sale was not concluded. By 1848 the State was some forty million dollars in debt for internal improvements, and Governor William F. Johnson publicly denounced the management of the Public Works. Those interested in Extension Canal business had not been sufficiently impressed by the new trend toward communications development, although an Erie delegation as early as 1831 had attended a New York State convention held to discuss the construction of a railroad from Buffalo to the State line, where a connection would be made with a road in Pennsylvania. In 1842 stock was sold in the Erie & Northeast Railroad Company, a survey of the proposed road was completed in 1849, and actual grading was begun the same year, five years after completion of the Extension Canal. T h e Extension and other Pennsylvania canal lines generally used a boat of sixty-five tons, but heavier traffic demands could not be met because of the shallow construction of the canal. T o offset light tonnage, increased speed in transportation was attempted. Experience had shown that the wash from a small type of paddle-wheel power boat damaged the canal banks. These factors, as well as the progress and growing popularity of the railroad, helped to bring an end to the canal era. By the time of the Civil War, the Pittsburgh & Erie Railroad had pushed on to Greenville and Linesville. T h e first soldiers to leave the area did not use the canal; they marched to Linesville, where they boarded railroad cars. T h e Atlantic & Great-Western entered Meadville in 1862. T h e loss of canal business created some havoc along the Extension route. Formerly packet boats made regular trips on the French Creek Feeder and main canal; then, in the later years, coal was the chief cargo. T h e northern end of the canal still remained the traffic route, holding out against the railroad, but with shrunken mileage and lessening tonnage. Erie exponents of canal service, believing it could compete with

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steam, planned to buy the stock and enlarge the Extension, but they were unable to solve the problem of an increased water supply needed for a larger canal. At this time the controlling interest of the Extension was acquired by the Erie 8c Pittsburgh Railroad, and shortly thereafter the control passed to the Pennsylvania Railroad. Another problem was the big aqueduct, an expensive piece of canal bed to maintain. Like the old plank roads, it required constant repair and was a continual source of worry to its owners. T h e structure by this time needed considerable replacement to assure safety of operation, and, according to tradition, it was wilfully destroyed in 1871. W i t h the Girard aqueduct gone and the canal stock owned by railroad interests, little could be done to preserve the canal tradition. W h e r e once sounded the boatsman's horn, where once plodded the stolid tow-horse, now came the shrill whistle of the locomotive.

THE SUPERHIGHWAY P E N N S Y L V A N I A T U R N P I K E , or Superhighway, is a broad, comparatively level pathway of smooth concrete sweeping for one hundred and sixty miles over Pennsylvania's valleys and under its mountains from Irwin, thirteen miles east of Pittsburgh, to Middlesex, three miles east of Carlisle, near the Susquehanna River. For almost two centuries this route, in part or in whole, has played an important part in the life and history of Pennsylvania. It stretches through territory where the Indian once stalked the deer and the bear, or trotted on moccasined feet through forest glades. Carved deeply into the hills, burrowed under mountains, extending straight as a lance for miles over field and valley floor, it follows the same general course as the Lincoln Highway between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh, though avoiding all towns. T h e turnpike has a right of way two hundred feet wide, with four paved traffic lanes each twelve feet in width. Between the two eastbound and the two westbound lanes is a ten-foot grass-covered strip, and a shoulder on each side of the road is likewise ten feet in width. T h r o u g h o u t the highway's length there is not a railroad crossing,

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street intersection at grade, or stop light. Routes US 11 and 30, which parallel the turnpike, have more than nine hundred road and street intersections, twelve railroad crossings, and twenty-five traffic lights. But once on this turnpike, the motorist has nothing to halt his progress. In addition to the two termini, Irwin and Middlesex, there are nine other entrances, or interchanges: at Carlisle, Blue Mountain, Willow Hill, Fort Lyttleton, Breezewood, Bedford, Somerset, Donegal, and New Stanton. These, of the semi-cloverleaf type, are so designed that a motorist cannot become bewildered on entering or leaving the highway. All traffic is handled on the right-turn principle, and, after an oblique turn is made, a single roadway marked by curbs makes it impossible to confuse the route. Signs at intervals in advance of every interchange inform the motorist of its number and name, and also give the route number with which connection is made. T o gain access to the turnpike a motorist leaves the State route and approaches the tollhouse over a connecting road. At the tollhouse he procures his ticket and drives straight ahead to a fork near the turnpike, where a sign gives him the necessary directions. He approaches by a twelve-hundred-foot-long acceleration lane, on which he can pick up speed and enter the highway safely and conveniently. When leaving the turnpike, a decelerating lane enables him to slow down before making the turn to the tollhouse, where he presents his ticket and pays his fare. Plans for landscape treatment around the interchange tollhouse include formal seasonal displays of bulbs, annuals, and perennials, with well-kept lawns bordered by trees, shrubs, and evergreens to furnish a natural background. There will be large group plantings of dogwood, rhododendron, and evergreen in their native sections. This scheme is to be carried out by counties. For instance, in Cumberland County for the spring season there will be apple, cherry, and peach trees, and for the autumn season box-elder, Norway maple, sweet gum, and weeping willow. T h r o u g h Franklin County hemlock and birch will prevail. T h e cuts and fills are to be planted with trees, shrubs, and vines that have hardy, vigorous roots and fast-growing tops. This type of vegetation helps prevent erosion, hides the scars of construction, and mitigates the glare of head-

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lights. Densely branched shrubbery and evergreens in group formations serve as permanent snow fences and windbreaks in the winter and have a pleasing green effect in the summer. In building the Pennsylvania Turnpike, tunnels totaling almost seven miles in length were bored through seven mountains of the Appalachian system, saving approximately four thousand feet of vertical climb over existing routes. These tunnels pierce Blue Mountain, Kittatinny Mountain, Tuscarora Mountain, Sideling Hill, Rays Hill, Allegheny Mountain, and Laurel Hill. All had been partly drilled by the old South Penn Railroad in the i88o's, but the Allegheny Mountain T u n n e l was beyond repair and a new one had to be driven. T h e old South Penn had uncompleted tunnels under Negro Mountain and Quemahoning also, but the Turnpike Commission substituted deep cuts at these two points. T h e Blue Mountain and Kittatinny Mountain tunnels, west of Carlisle, are only 650 feet apart. A motorist emerging from one tunnel flashes into the open and in a few seconds is across narrow Gunter Valley and into the other tunnel. T h e longest of the seven tunnels is through Sideling Hill. About half its 6,626-foot length had been drilled by the South Penn. T h e shortest tunnel, at Rays Hill, is 3,517 feet. At both openings or portals of each tunnel, with the exception of Rays Hill, buildings have been erected. At Rays Hill one building was deemed sufficient for the entire tunnel. These buildings, of concrete construction, contain two sets of fans and power equipment that insure fresh air for the passage of from two thousand to three thousand vehicles an hour. Each building also contains tools, towing trucks, and other accessories for emergency purposes. T h e tunnels are twenty-eight feet six inches wide and fourteen feet four inches high, with a curb and an emergency walk along one side. T h e y are concreted throughout, the walls and ceilings being reinforced with steel. Approaches are illuminated at night by sodium vapor lights. Mercury vapor lights in the interior produce a daylight effect. Should these fail at any time, an incandescent emergency lighting system becomes automatically and immediately effective. T h e r e are also telephone and signal equipment, stationary and portable fire-fighting apparatus, and other safety devices. Along this turnpike are 312 bridges and culverts, of which 148 are

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for drainage purposes and the remainder for grade separation. T h e largest of these structures is the 500-foot New Stanton viaduct in Westmoreland County. Here, sixty feet above the valley floor, the highway is carried over two highways, a railroad, and Little Sewickley Creek. Other large ones are the ¿oo-foot bridge across the Juniata River and, a little beyond, the 425-foot viaduct over Dunning's Creek. Although the turnpike is illuminated only at interchanges, tunnels, and service stations, reflector markers for night driving are placed throughout its entire length, outlining the roadway some distance in advance of the headlights. At times of poor visibility during fog, rain, or snow, they also serve as valuable guides. Posts numbered in succession and placed a mile apart line both sides of the highway. As a motorist drives along he notices the complete absence of all hot-dog stands, soft-drink booths, roadside markets, antique shops, and liquor establishments. Most needs are supplied by ten up-todate service stations at intervals of about fifteen miles. These are of Pennsylvania Colonial architecture, with stone masonry walls, slate roof, and wood trim. Nine are one-story high, but the Midway Station is an elaborate two-story building with a large dormitory that provides sleeping quarters for truck drivers. T h e r e are also shower baths, laundry, smoking lounge, recreation room, barber shop, and a large dining room. Special high-speed pumps, capable of delivering twenty-five gallons of gasoline per minute, are provided for the refueling of trucks. There is a large parking area for automobiles. Not only for trade and commerce, but for military purposes also, the turnpike's value is inestimable. In time of war, two and a half million men could be transported by truck from Pittsburgh to Harrisburg in eight hours; or 450,000 tons (equivalent to 150 freighttrain loads) of munitions, supplies, and equipment could be carried the same distance in the same length of time. Before the highway was officially opened on October 1, 1940, the army made practice tests over it with trucks and ordnance, and planes were successfully landed upon it. Although the turnpike does not follow the routes of Indian trails throughout its entire length, many traverses are identical with, or

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roughly parallel to, the old trails. It is not by chance that modern engineers so often follow the fading traces left by countless moccasins on mountain and valley floor. T h e Indian, as well as the deer, buffalo, and elk—and the white man who came at a later period— had to take into consideration such physical characteristics as grade elevations, water supply, mountain gaps, and solid ground in preference to swamp. Soon after colonization had spread beyond the Susquehanna, such early traders as Croghan, LeTort, Davenport, and Fraser used the Indian trails over the Alleghenies to take their supplies by packhorse to the Ohio Forks, site of modern Pittsburgh, where they established a lively and profitable business. One of these trails, used by traders and Indians alike, was the Raystown, or Traders, Path leading from the Susquehanna Valley near Carlisle to the Ohio Forks. It remained nothing but a path until 1755, when a British army under General Edward Braddock was sent to America to capture Fort Duquesne. As Braddock was to march from Maryland to the Ohio Forks, Pennsylvania was requested to construct an auxiliary supply road from eastern Pennsylvania to meet his route. This road was to extend from the vicinity of Chambersburg, on the Conococheague Creek, to Turkey Foot, or Confluence as it is now called, on the Youghiogheny River near the Maryland border. T h e route could follow much of the old Traders Path as far west as Raystown before turning southwestward. Colonel James Burd, a young and resourceful Scotsman, was entrusted with this undertaking, an arduous and a dangerous one. His three hundred York, Lancaster, and Cumberland County men were equipped with axes, sledges, picks, and shovels, but some also brought their guns. For two months they toiled from dawn to dusk, clearing brush, felling trees, digging, shoveling, sweating—while an alert guard of armed men insured them against surprise by French or Indians. T h e road was finally finished to the top of Allegheny Ridge, at a point about twenty-two miles southwest of Bedford, a total distance of sixty-five miles, when word came of Braddock's defeat and Dunbar's ignominious retreat. Realizing that the Indians would soon be upon them, Burd and his men hastily buried their tools on top

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of the ridge and hurried southward to Fort Cumberland, in Maryland. Three years later (1758) Brigadier General J o h n Forbes was assigned the task of investing Fort Duquesne with an army of between six and seven thousand men. It was at first intended to march to Fort Cumberfand and then follow Braddock's route northwestward. After considerable correspondence, however, Forbes decided to establish a base at Raystown (now Bedford) and march from there in a direct line across the mountains to Fort Duquesne. T h i s would be the shortest route, the dryest in wet weather, and the advancing army could be better supplied with wagons and provisions in Pennsylvania than in Maryland or Virginia. Eventually the long-buried tools on Allegheny Ridge were resurrected to supplement others in one of the greatest road-building jobs of pioneer history. Washington, although he favored Braddock's route, helped in the building of Forbes's Road. Groups of men were taken to various points and work started simultaneously at different places between Bedford and Loyalhanna Creek. T h e ring of steel axes sounded through mountain glades and along the slopes where a crude road twelve feet wide was being hewn out of the wilderness—a road sometimes arched so thickly with overhanging branches that it resembled a tunnel. While the road builders were at work, others devoted their energies to the construction of new forts and auxiliary posts, or to strengthening old ones. T h e army of soldiers and artisans toiled on until at last it reached the Loyalhanna, on the other side of Laurel Hill, where a fortified camp, later to evolve into Fort Ligonier, was erected. T h e general, so ill he had to be carried on a litter swung between two horses, arrived at the Loyalhanna in November. Because of the lateness of the season Forbes was reluctantly deciding to bivouac for the winter when, almost by accident, he learned that the French garrison at Duquesne was small and poorly provisioned. Immediately he ordered twenty-five hundred men to pack and march toward the Forks without artillery or wagons. Washington and Armstrong hastened ahead with detachments to widen the Indian pathway for them. Marching over this improvised road, the army came within twelve miles of the fort on the evening

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of November 24, when the French set off their powder magazines and fled, leaving the smoking ruins to Forbes and his army. T h e dying general, however, did not tarry long at the scene of conquest; he returned almost at once to Philadelphia, where a gold medal was struck off to commemorate his success. He died long before the trees began to bud for another spring. T h e Forbes Road played a greater part in the reduction of Fort Duquesne than did muskets and cannon. It had much to do with blasting the hopes of Chief Pontiac in his general war against the English in 1763, for it was over this road that Colonel Henry Bouquet led his now-famous expedition to the relief of Forts Bedford, Ligonier, and Pitt. It lay more or less quiescent during the Revolutionary War, but afterward became the main commercial highway over the Alleghenies. Men and women afoot, on horseback, and in wagons pushed their way westward, seeking new homes in the lands beyond Fort Pitt. Again, during the Whiskey Rebellion in 1794, the militia marched over part of this route. As commerce increased, agitation was started for a short and fast road to Pittsburgh, with the result that in 1785 the Supreme Executive Council authorized a road from Shippensburg to Bedford, running through Burnt Cabins and Fort Lyttleton, and later to Pittsburgh. This was the shortest road to Pittsburgh, but because of heavy grades over the mountains it is doubtful whether it was the quickest. Opened in 1791, it ran from the western part of Cumberland County to Pittsburgh on a line almost parallel with the route followed by today's Superhighway. It served its purpose well, but twenty-six years later gave way to an improved turnpike that was completed in 1817. In 1838, a century before construction was started on the Superhighway, an engineer named Hether Hage made a survey of a line from Pittsburgh to Chambersburg, seeking to avoid the steep grades of the Alleghenies by boring through them. He was convinced of the feasibility of a railroad along this route and was so enthusiastic over his plan that officials of the State government became interested. In 1844 they delegated J . L. Schlatter and a crew of men to investigate the proposed route. Schlatter was impressed so favorably that he extended his survey from Harrisburg to Pittsburgh. In his corps of engineers was John A. Roebling, who became known all

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over the world for his bridge building, and Colonel James Worrell of Harrisburg, who had been with Hether Hage and who was destined to keep the "paper road" alive. Worrell tried unsuccessfully to interest the Pennsylvania Railroad in his plan. Worrell's "paper road" was known by several different names. First incorporated in 1854 under the name of the Duncannon, Landisburg and Broadtop Railroad Company, its name was changed in 1855 to the Sherman's Valley and Broadtop Railroad Company, in 1859 to the Pennsylvania-Pacific Railroad, and again in 1863 to the South Pennsylvania Railroad Company. In 1883 the plans and franchise were sold to William H. Vanderbilt for $25,000, but up to this time no actual construction work had been done. T h e primary reason for the construction of the South Penn Railroad was the struggle of Daniel Drew, James Fisk, Jr., Jay Gould, J. Pierpont Morgan, William H. Vanderbilt, and a few others for railroad supremacy. In 1882 Vanderbilt, planning to parallel the Pennsylvania Railroad from New York to Pittsburgh, sent three hundred men into Pennsylvania to survey the road that had been projected in 1838. With the survey completed, construction work began and was continued for three years. Tunnels were partially bored under the mountains between the Susquehanna River and Pittsburgh. Sixtyone per cent of the total length of these tunnels was excavated and the piers and abutments across the Susquehanna finished. Construction of the tunnels is said to have cost the lives of twenty-seven men. About thirty-four per cent of the road was completed when the financiers and railroad magnates decided to settle their differences. T h e project was ultimately abandoned, though Vanderbilt and his associates had invested $6,000,000 in the venture. Contractors moved their equipment out, laborers dropped their tools; the roadway, tunnels, and bridges were left to the ravages of time. As years passed, weeds grew over the right of way, water gathered in the tunnels, and the skeleton road was left to lie quietly among the valleys and hillsides. T h e crumbling piers in the Susquehanna River now stand as monuments to the memory of the South Penn Railroad. Meanwhile Andrew Carnegie had become one of the largest steel manufacturers in the United States. In 1899 the railroads increased

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their freight rates to the seaboard, and Carnegie protested strenuously but to no avail. Balked in his desire for lower freight rates, he sent surveyors out over the old South Penn Route in 1900 to estimate the cost of building this road. T h e ghost of the South Penn was stirring again. Carnegie spent $400,000 on this survey; but, as before, J. P. Morgan stepped in and blocked the contemplated road. He went to Charles M. Schwab, with the result that the United States Steel Corporation was formed. It purchased the Carnegie steel interests for $492,000,000, and with a sigh the South Penn ghost settled back for another long nap. In 1936 a $75,000 allocation was made by the Works Progress Administration to the Pennsylvania Department of Highways to survey this route. One draftsman and five surveyors turned in such a comprehensive report that the State was convinced of the practicability of the proposed highway. A joint legislative committee, appointed in 1935 to study the matter, recommended the undertaking to the Pennsylvania Legislature in 1937. O n June 5, 1937, the T u r n p i k e Commission was created with Walter A . Jones of Pittsburgh as chairman. Consultations were held with President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, and Chairman Jesse Jones of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, with the result that the Public Works Administration made an outright grant of $29,250,000, and R F C absorbed the Commission's bonds, not to exceed $40,800,000. T h e bonds, bearing interest at three and three-quarters per cent, are dated for thirty years; after their amortization by the revenue derived from the tolls collected, the highway will become a part of the toll-free State highway system. T h e T u r n p i k e Commission received final notice of approval on October 10, 1938, and on October 14 a nine and one-half mile section in Cumberland County was advertised. On October 26, bids were received and the contract was let the same day to a Mt. Union contractor. Actual work was started the next day. Other contracts followed quickly, and in a few months' time, work was started over the entire one hundred and sixty miles of road. W h e n acquiring the two-million-dollar South Penn right of way, the commission was faced with the problem of having to purchase farms that had been in the same family for generations and had

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never been for sale. At places the route bisected farms, making it necessary to construct underpasses for the farmers at these points. In a number of instances the commission had to purchase entire farms, so that when the right of way was bought up, officials found themselves in possession of 787 farms. It was planned, however, to dispose of these parcels of land at public auction. W i t h actual construction work in progress, towns along the right of way experienced a boom reminiscent of the gold- and oil-rush days of a former generation. Contractors began moving in their thirty million dollars' worth of equipment: shovels, clam shells, bulldozers, graders, tractors, and trucks. From a handful of men the number soon swelled to fifteen thousand and continued to increase, with engineers, surveyors, draftsmen, and office personnel amounting to fifteen hundred. T h e construction was observed with interest by a number of old "South Penners" who had worked under Vanderbilt fifty years before. T h e y watched the power shovels, tractors, trucks, vibrators, rooters, graders, and mixers working in what seemed hopeless confusion, but they soon realized that all the machines and men were moving in a systematic manner. While the trucks were dumping their loads, caterpillar tractors equipped with blades were busy leveling piles of earth and making way for the huge, ungainly machines called graders. After the graders came the heavy rollers, some weighing as much as twenty tons; these pressed and packed the loose soil into a hard, compact roadbed. It was estimated that this modern machinery could move twelve cubic yards of earth five hundred feet in three minutes at a cost of $2.40. In 1882, in building the South Penn by pick and shovel, it had cost $10.80 and had required three hours to move the same amount. T h e largest single excavation was made through Clear Ridge Mountain near Everett, a cut 150 feet deep, 380 feet wide, and a half mile long. T h e greatest single obstacle of topography was encountered at the Juniata Gorge, west of Everett. Centuries before, the bison and elk had cut their trails through this narrow gap. T h e Indians and white men followed, and every engineer since who had to build any kind of road, lay a pipe line, or throw a cable, has followed his predecessors. T h i s narrow gorge held the Lincoln Highway, a rural road, the Huntingdon and Broadtop Mountain

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Railroad, two major cable lines, a pipe line, a power line, a branch of the Pennsylvania Railroad, and a one-hundred-foot channel of the Juniata River. It was necessary, therefore, to move the Dallas Mountain back about seventy-eight feet to make room for the Superhighway. T h e contractor placed his twenty-ton power shovels on top of that mountain peak, 315 feet above the road, and early in 1939 they started digging their way down to the turnpike level. Six days a week and twenty-four hours a day the work went on. T h r o u g h the hot summer sun and through the snows and cold of winter the powerful shovels kept digging away, aided by blasting, and finally in the spring of 1940 the grade was reached. Viewed from across the valley, these powerful shovels, perched on the mountain top, presented a fascinating sight. T h e trucks, crawling like flies and clinging precariously to the slopes, shuttled back and forth, executing what seemed impossible hairpin turns on temporarily constructed roads on the mountain face. As more and more of the mountain was cut away, these roads were swallowed u p and today no vestiges of them remain. Plans for the tunnels had to meet with the approval of five different bodies: the T u r n p i k e Commission, the Public Works Administration, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, the State Highway Department, and the consulting engineers. T h e tunnel staff worked for months on designs that would be acceptable to all. T h e project was of a very complex nature, construction plans calling for ninety-six different classifications of work that required expert tunnel men. Veterans with years of experience on the Grand Coulee Dam in Washington, the Boulder D a m in New Mexico, and scores of other hard rock jobs answered the call. T u n n e l i n g through the mountains of the Appalachian system meant only one more j o b to them. T h e i r first undertaking was to clear the débris from the tunnel openings and drain the water. A b o u t ten million gallons of water was taken from the six abandoned tunnels. In Rays H i l l tunnel a species of bat, rare to Pennsylvania, was discovered. Hundreds of these were marked or "tagged," according to the species they belonged to, and removed to a cave near Carlisle. A f t e r the tunnels were cleared, the real work of boring began. Specifications for the turnpike called for a gradual decrease from

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a four-lane highway to a twenty-three-foot roadway through the tunnels, which were to have a net height of fourteen feet four inches. According to plans, the T u r n p i k e Commission will eventually bore twin tunnels through these mountains, one to carry the eastbound and the other the westbound traffic. Indelibly impressed upon the tunnelmen, or miners, as they preferred to call themselves, was safety. Provided with fiber helmets, they looked somewhat like a division of infantry about to take over the front lines. A large steel frame called a jumbo, rigged with a half-dozen platforms, was built on rails at the portal of each tunnel. A f t e r the foreman had marked off the holes to be drilled, the j u m b o was rolled u p to the face of the tunnel, and a dozen or more miners, perched on the various platforms, started boring with pneumatic drills ranging in length from twelve to twenty feet. Boring and grinding continued until about a hundred holes were drilled, after which came the delicate operation of tamping five hundred pounds of dynamite into this honeycomb. W i t h the holes properly loaded and wired, the j u m b o was run back over the rails outside the tunnel and the dynamite charge set off. W h e r e twenty-foot drills were used, a section of wall eighteen feet thick across the entire face of the tunnel was torn off clean. A f t e r each blast the foul air caused by the explosion was forced out by powerful fans. Rock in these tunnels was found to be of silica content, a substance that engenders miners' asthma. N o one was allowed to enter the tunnel until samples of air were analyzed and pronounced safe for the muckers, w h o went in to clear away the three hundred tons of loose rock. A power shovel was then run in on the narrow-gauge track, and empty cars were pushed in after it by an engine fueled with storage batteries. T h e shattered rock was loaded into the cars and used for fill at some places. T h e structural steel men now took their turn. Eight-inch I-beams, formed into arches, were assembled outside the tunnel and carried in on the narrow-gauge track, to be put in place on the walls and ceilings. Concrete was forced in between the form and walls, and another section was completed. T h e turnpike's first concrete paving was placed August 8, 1939, in Cumberland County on a twelve-mile stretch. It was then decided

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to do no more paving until spring in order to permit the high fills to settle. Because of adverse weather conditions in April and May of 1940, however, the real work of pouring concrete did not get started until June, when contractors had to work their men in three eight-hour shifts. Traveling concrete mixers sped back and forth over the graded road. Some mixers laid a mile a day. W h e n pouring was at its height, one hundred railroad cars of cement, fourteen hundred cars of sand, eighteen thousand tons of gravel, and ten tons of steel were used daily. Some conception of the project's immensity can be gained by a look at statistics. T h e building of the Superhighway required approximately 2,000,000 barrels of cement, 700,000 tons of sand, 1,100,000 tons of stone, 46,500 tons of steel and the mixing of 1,650,000 cubic yards of concrete. Moreover, 26,000,000 cubic yards of dirt were excavated, and this in a matter of months. By comparison, in building the famous Maginot Line of France approximately 20,000,000 cubic yards were excavated, 50,000 tons of steel were used, 2,600,000 cubic yards of concrete were consumed—and that undertaking took ten yearsl T h e turnpike has been called an "all-weather" highway because it follows the southern and western slopes of the mountains, reducing the winter hazards of snow and ice. It is also built above the high water mark of 1936. Highest elevation is 2,485 feet, at Negro Mountain. However, grades generally have been reduced from a vertical accumulation of 13,880 feet to 3,940 feet. Curves are gradual and so banked as to permit speeds u p to eighty miles an hour in safety. Where the road goes through cuts more than fifty feet deep, the declivities are terraced or benched to prevent slides and erosion. From its eastern terminus at Middlesex the turnpike follows a highland route lying between the Potomac and Susquehanna watersheds. After traversing twenty-seven miles of rolling, agricultural land in Cumberland County, it attains the Blue Mountain T u n n e l in Franklin County. Proceeding across a 650-foot stretch of Gunter's Valley, it enters the Kittatinny T u n n e l . Coming out of this, it follows a southwesterly direction to reach the Tuscarora Tunnel, then westward to the Sideling Hill T u n n e l . From here it again resumes a southwesterly course and passes through Rays Hill T u n n e l near Breezewood. From this point it proceeds in a northerly and then

THE

SUPERHIGHWAY

421

westerly direction to Allegheny T u n n e l , continuing due west to enter Laurel Hill T u n n e l . From here the course is northwest through a beautiful country gradually losing elevation for thirty miles or more to Irwin, the western terminus. With the revenue from the turnpike exceeding the amount anticipated, financial success is assured. Offering the maximum of speed, safety, and comfort, this highway may form the nucleus of a network of similar roads that eventually will cover the Nation.

BIBLIOGRAPHY UNICUM:

PENNSYLVANIA'S FIRST WHITE S E T T L E M E N T

Acrelius, Israel. A History of New Sweden. Philadelphia, T h e Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1874. Ashmead, Henry G. History of Delaware County. Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & Co., 1884. Balch, Thomas Willing. The Cradle of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Allen, Lane and Scott, 1921. Benson, Adolph Β., ed. Peter Kalm's Travels in North America. New York, Wilson-Erickson, Inc., 1937. Benson, Adolph Β., and Noboth Hedin. Swedes in America. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1938. Brandt, Francis Burke. The Majestic Delaware. Philadelphia, T h e Brandt and Gummere Co., 1929. Ferris, Benjamin. Original Settlements on the Delaware. Wilmington, Wilson and Heald, 1846. Fiske, John. The Dutch and Quaker Colonies in America. New York, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1902. Jenkins, Howard M. Pennsylvania—Colonial and Federal, Vol. 1. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Historical Publishing Association, 1903. Johnson, Amandus. The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware. University of Pennsylvania, D. Appleton & Co., New York, agents, 1 9 1 1 . . Swedes in America, 1638-1900. Philadelphia, Lenape, 1914. . The Swedes on the Delaware, 1638-1664. Philadelphia, T h e Swedish Colonial Society, 1915. Jordan, John W. A History of Delaware County. New York, Lewis Historical Publishing Company, 1914. Myers, Albert Cook. Narratives of Early Pennsylvania, West New Jersey, and Delaware. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1912. Paxson, Henry D. Sketch and Map of a Trip from Philadelphia to Tinicum Island, Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, George H. Buchanan Co., 1926. Scharf, John Thomas, and Thompson Westcott. History of Philadelphia, 1609-1884. Philadelphia, L. H. Everts 8c Co., 1884.

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423

Smith, George. History of Delaware County. Philadelphia, Henry B. Ashmead, 1862. Walton, Joseph S. The History, Geography and Government of Chester and Delaware Counties. West Chester, Pa., Chester County Publishing Society, 1895. Ward, Christopher. The Dutch and Swedes on the Delaware. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, 1930. Watson, John F. A Manuscript Letter of John F. Watson's, dated Sept. 3, 1852, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania Library. . Annals of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Elijah Thomas, 1857. Winsor, Justin. Narrative and Critical History of America. Boston, Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1884-1889. Wuorinen, John H. The Finns on the Delaware. New York, Columbia University Press, 1938. A Catalogue of Books and Manuscripts Relating to Swedish Colonization on the Delaware River. Philadelphia, published by the Gilpin Library of The Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1938. SPANISH HILL Burrowes, Thomas H. State-book of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Uriah Hunt and Son, 1847. Butterfield, Consul Willshire. History of Brulé's Discoveries and Explorations. Cleveland, Ohio, The Helman-Taylor Co., 1898. Champlain, Samuel de. Voyages of Samuel Champlain. Boston, the Prince Society, 1880. . Works. Paris, Claude Collet, 1619. Clark, John S. Selected Manuscripts. Athens, Pa., 1931. Cowles, Ellsworth C. "Excavating an Indian Site Near Sayre, Pennsylvania," in Pennsylvania Archaeologist, Vol. 3 (1932). Craft, David. History of Bradford County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & Co., 1878. Garneau, François-Xavier. Histoire du Canada. Paris, Felix Alean, 1913. Godcharles, Frederic A. "Research in Susquehanna and Delaware Valleys," in Pennsylvania Archaeologist, July, 1936. Hill, Roland B. "A Brief History of the Andastes Nation," in the Pennsylvania Archaeologist, April, 1936. Holbrooke, George O. Proceedings of the Tioga Point Historical Society, Vol. 1, No. 1, Athens, Pa., 1896. Macaulay, P. Stewart. "The Legendary Susquehannock," in the Pennsylvania Archaeologist, Vol. 6 (1936). Moorehead, Warren K. "Report of Susquehanna Archaeological Expedi-

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tion of 1916," in Pennsylvania Historical Commission Second Report, 1918. Murray, Elsie. "Spanish Hill: Its Present, Past, and Future," in Pennsylvania Archaeologist, Vol. 6 (1936). . " T h e Noble Savage," reprint from Scientific Monthly, Vol. 36 ('933)· Murray, Louise Welles. Old Tioga Point and Early Athens, Penna. WilkesBarre, Pa., T h e Raeder Press, 1908. . "Aboriginal Sites in and Near Teago," in the American Anthropologist, Vol. 23 (1921)Parkman, Francis. Pioneers of France in the New World. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1902. Perkins, Julia A. Early Times on the Susquehanna. Binghamton, N. Y., T h e Herald Company, 1870. Sagard, Gabriel. Histoire du Canada. Paris, Claude Sonnius, 1636. Smith, Josiah. American Antiquities. Albany, N. Y., Hoffman and White, »835· Winsor, Justin. Cartier to Frontenac. New York, Houghton Mifflin & Co., 1894. PENNSBURY MANOR Brown, George Williams. A Concise Account of Pennsbury in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, J . P. Murphy, 1881. Dixon, William Hepworth. A History of William Penn, Founder of Pennsylvania. New York, New Amsterdam Book Company, 1903. Janney, Samuel M. The Life of William Penn: with Selections from his Correspondence and Autobiography. 4th ed. Philadelphia, Friends' Book Association, 1876. Penn, William. A Brief Account of the Province of Pennsylvania. . . . (Boston, 1924.) The Frame of Government of the Province of Pennsylvania in America. . . . n.p. Printed in the year 1682. Correspondence Between William Penn ir James Logan è· Others, 7700-/750. Pennsylvania Historical Commission. Pennsylvania Notes. Harrisburg, the Commission, 1938-1939. Sixth Annual Report. Harrisburg, the Commission, 1937. Weems, Mason Locke. The Life of William Penn. Philadelphia, U. Hunt, 1836. STENTON: PENNSYLVANIA'S

"MONTICELLO"

Armstead, Wilson. Memoirs of James Logan. London, 1851. Armstrong, Edward, ed. Correspondence Between William Penn and James Logan, ιηοο-ιη^ο. Vol. 1, 1870.

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425

Conyngham, Redmond. Indian Speeches, etc., to Sir William Keith. Extracts from papers in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth in Harrisburg. Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, 1826, Vol. 1. Cooper, Irma Jane. The Life and Public Services of James Logan. New York, 1921. Darlington, William. Memorials of John Bartram and Humphry Marshall. Philadelphia, 1849. Dunaway, Wayland Fuller. History of Pennsylvania. New York, PrenticeHall, Inc., 1935. Eberlin, Harold D., and Horace M. Lippincott. The Colonial Homes of Philadelphia and Its Neighborhood. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Co., 1913. Fox, R. Hingston. Dr. John Fothergill and His Friends. London, 1919. Hocken, Edward W. Germantown, 1688-1933. Philadelphia. Published by the author, 1933. Hull, William I. William Penn and the Dutch Quaker Migration to Pennsylvania. Swarthmore, Pa., Swarthmore College, 1935. . William Penn, A Topical Biography. New York, 1937. Jordan, John W. Colonial Families of Philadelphia. New York, 1911. Keiper, N. H., and C. H. Kain. History of Old Germantown. Philadelphia, 1907. Kellogg, Alice M. Stenton, The Home of Penn's Secretary. Philadelphia, 1904. Lockwood, Alice G. B. Gardens of Colony and State. (Before 1840.) Scribner's, 1921. Logan, George. Dr. George Logan's Diary, (Stenton Farm Record) Folio B, 1809-1813. MSS. Department, Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Myers, Albert Cook. Hannah Logan's Courtship. . . . Diary of John Smith, ιj36-1 j52. Philadelphia, 1904. Riley, Phil N., and F. Cousins. The Colonial Architecture of Philadelphia. Boston, 1920. Sharpless, Isaac. Political Leaders of Provincial Pennsylvania. New York, 1919. Shepherd, William R. History of Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania. New York, 1896. Sparks, Jared. Familiar Letters and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Franklin. 1833. . Works of Benjamin Franklin. (Vol. VII) Boston, 1834. . The Life of Benjamin Franklin. Leipzig, A. Durr, 1858. Westcott, Thompson. The Historic Mansions and Buildings of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, 1877.

426

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Wright, Mrs. William Redwood. The Colonial Garden at Stenton Described in Old Letters. Philadelphia Site and Relic Society of Germantown, Vol. s, No. ι, 1914. Dictionary of American Biography. Vol. 11. Jackson's Encyclopedia of Philadelphia. Pennsylvania Archives. Papers of the Governors. Fourth Series, Vol. 1, 1681-1747. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vol. 6 (1882). F O R T NECESSITY Hadden, James. Washington's Expeditions (1753-1754) and Braddock's Expedition (1755). Uniontown, Hadden, 1910. Hazard, Samuel. Pennsylvania Archives, First Series, Vol. 12. Philadelphia, Joseph Severns & Co., 1856. Hughes, Rupert. George Washington, 1732-1762. New York, Morrow, 19261930. Montgomery, Thomas Lynch, ed. Report of the Commission on the Frontier Forts of Pennsylvania. 2d ed., Vol. 2. Harrisburg, Pa., Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, 1916. Parkman, Francis. Montcalm and Wolfe. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1891. Sipe, C. Hale. The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, Pa., T h e Telegraph Press, 1929. Sparks, Jared. The Writings of George Washington. 2 vols. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1858. T H E F O R T PITT BLOCKHOUSE Agnew, Daniel. Historical Monographs. Pittsburgh, Myers, Shinkle 8c Co., 1893-1894. Albert, George Dallas, ed. The Frontier Forts of Western Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, 1916. Baldwin, Leland D. Pittsburgh, The Story of a City. Pittsburgh, T h e University of Pittsburgh Press, 1938. Boucher, John Newton, ed. A Century and a Half of Pittsburgh and Her People. New York, T h e Lewis Publishing Co., 1908. Butterfield, Consul Willshire. History of the Girtys. Cincinnati, Robert Clarke & Co., 1890. Chapman, Thomas J. The French in the Allegheny Valley. Cleveland, O., W . W . Williams, 1887. Craig, Neville B. The History of Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh, T h e J. R. Weldin Co., 1917. Dahlinger, Charles W . Fort Pitt. Pittsburgh, Privately Printed, 1922.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

427

Doddridge, Joseph. Notes on the Settlement and Indian Wars, of the Western Part of Virginia and Pennsylvania, from to 178), incl. Pittsburgh. Published by the author, 1824. Fullerton, Elizabeth Mary. Colonel Daniel Brodhead. A College Graduate Thesis. Pittsburgh, Pa., 1931. Harper, Frank C. Pittsburgh of Today, Its Resources and People. New York, The American Historical Society, 1931. Hildreth, Samuel P. Pioneer History, The Ohio Valley and the Northwest Territory. New York, A. S. Barnes & Co., 1848. Lambing, Α. Α., trans. The Baptismal Register of Fort Duquesne, From June, 1754 to December 1756. Pittsburgh, Myers, Shinkle & Co., 1885. McKnight, Charles. Captain Jack the Scout, or Indian Wars about Old Fort Duquesne. Pittsburgh, Robert Gibson, n.d. . One Hundred Years Ago. Philadelphia, M. C. McCurdy & Co., 1875. Mante, Thomas. The History of the Late War in North America and the Islands of the West Indies. London, printed for W. Strahan and T . Cadell, 1772. Miller, Annie Clark. Early Landmarks and Names of Old Pittsburgh. An Address Delivered Before the Pittsburgh Chapter, D.A.R., at Carnegie Institute, November 30, 1923. Printed by the D.A.R. Press, 1924. Parkman, Francis. The Conspiracy of Pontiac. Boston, Little, Brown and Co., 1898. Paxson, Frederic L. History of the American Frontier, IJÔJ-ISÇJ. Cambridge, Mass., Riverside Press, 1924. Sargent, Winthrop. The History of an Expedition Against Fort Duquesne in 1755. Philadelphia, Lippincott, Grambo & Co., 1855. Shoemaker, Henry W. Colonel Shoemaker's Column Altoona Tribune. Proposed National Park at The Point, Pittsburgh. Stobo, Robert. Memoirs of Major Robert Stobo. Pittsburgh, John S. Davidson, 1854. Thwaites, Reuben Gold, and Louise Phelps Kellogg, editors. The Revolution on the Upper Ohio, 1775-1777. Madison, Wisconsin Historical Society, 1908. Walkinshaw, Lewis Clark. Annals of Southwestern Pennsylvania. New York, The Lewis Historical Publishing Co., Inc., 1939. Whitehead, Rt. Rev. Cortlandt. The Capture of Fort Duquesne. An address delivered at Christ Church, Philadelphia, on the 140th anniversary of the capture of the fort, November 27, 1898. Wilson, Erasmus, ed. Standard History of Pittsburgh, Pa. Chicago, H. R . Cornell 8c Company, 1898.

428

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FORT M I F F L I N ON THE DELAWARE Bolles, Albert Sidney. Pennsylvania, Province and State; a History from 1609 to 1790. Philadelphia and New York, J . Wanamaker, 1899. Clark, William Bell. Gallant John Barry. New York, T h e Macmillan Company, 1938. Hughes, Rupert. George

Washington.

New York, William Morrow & Co.,

>93*· Mahan, Alfred Thayer. The Major Operations of the Navies in the War of American Independence. Boston, Little, Brown and Company, 1913. New Jersey Society of Pennsylvania. Year Book, ipjo. An article: " T h e Battle in the Delaware." Paullin, C. O. The Navy of the American Revolution. Cleveland, Burrows Brothers, 1906. Sparks, Jared. The Life of George Washington. New York, Perkins Book Company, c. 1902. Bulletin (Philadelphia). Nov. 8, 1989; September 2, 1939. Ledger (Philadelphia). Mar. 13, 1913; Mar. 9, 1919; Nov. 7, 1929; Aug. 19, 1932; Sept. 5, 1939. North American (Philadelphia). J a n . 12, 1913. Record (Philadelphia). Apr. 17, 1938; Jan. 24, 1939. V A L L E Y FORGE Burk, W. Herbert. Historical and Topographical Guide to Valley Forge. Philadelphia, J o h n C. Winston Company, 1912. Comstock, Sarah. Roads to the Revolution. New York, T h e Macmillan Company, 1928. Gibson, James E. Dr. Bodo Otto and the Medical Background of the American Revolution. Springfield, Mass., Thomas, 1937. Riddle, James W. Valley Forge Guide and Handbook. Philadelphia, Lippincott, 1910. Taylor, Frank Hamilton. Valley Forge, a Chronicle of American Heroism. Valley Forge, Pa. Vorhees, c. 1922. Valley Forge Commission. Reports. Weedon, George. Valley Forge Orderly Book. New York, Dodd, Mead and Company, 1902. Wildes, Harry E. Valley Forge. New York, T h e Macmillan Company, 1938. Woodman, Henry. History of Valley Forge. Norristown, 1897. PRESQUE ISLE PENINSULA Dutton, Charles J . Oliver Co., 1935.

Hazard Perry. New York, Longmans, Green &

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Jennings, Otto Emery. Botanical Survey of Presque Isle, Erie County, Pennsylvania. Pittsburgh, 1909. (Carnegie Museum Annals, Vol. 5.) Miller, John. A Twentieth Century History of Erie County, Pennsylvania. Chicago, T h e Lewis Publishing Co., 1909. Reed, John Elmer. History of Erie County, Pennsylvania. Indianapolis, Historical Publishing Co., 1925. Severance, Frank Hayward. Old Frontier of France; the Niagara Region and Adjacent Lakes Under French Control. New York, Dodd, Mead & Co., 1917. Whitman, Benjamin. Nelson's Biographical Dictionary and Historical Reference Book of Erie County, Pennsylvania. Erie, Pa., S. B. Nelson, 1896. WHEATLAND Auchampaugh, Philip G. "James Buchanan, T h e Squire from Lancaster," in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, Vols. 55-6. Curtis, George Ticknor. Life of James Buchanan. N e w York, Harper, 1883. Klein, Philip Shriver. The Story of Wheatland. Lancaster, 1936. Riddle, William. The Story of Lancaster: Old and New, 1730-1918. Lancaster, 1917. Lancaster Weekly Intelligencer. June 3, 1868; Jan. 18, 25, and 28, 1936; Feb. 1, 1936. THE BATTLE OF BUSHY RUN Bomberger, Christian Martin. The Battle of Bushy Run. Jeanette, Pa., Jeanette Publishing Co., 1928. Boucher, John Newton. History of Westmoreland County, Pa. New York, 1906. Bouquet, Henry. Orderly Book. MSS., Library of Congress. Brady, Cyrus Townsend. Colonial Fights and Fighters. N e w York, McClure, Philips Sc Co., 1901. Butler, Lewis. Annals of the Kings J. Murray, 1913-32.

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Cort, Cyrus. Colonel Henry Bouquet and His 1764. Lancaster, Pa., Steinman, 1883.

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Cresswell, Nicholas. Journal: 1774-1777- London, 1925. Croghan, George. Journal of Colonel George Croghan. Burlington, N. J., W . H . B. Thomas, 1875. . Selection

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43°

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Darlington, Mary Carson. History of Colonel Henry Bouquet and the Western Frontiers of Pennsylvania, 1147-1764. Privately printed, 1920. . Fort Pitt and Letters from the Frontier. Pittsburgh, 1892. Durant, Samuel W. History of Allegheny County. Philadelphia, L. H. Everts & Co., 1876. En tick, John. General History of the Late War. London, E. and C. Dilly, 1765-75· McClure, David. Diary of David McClure, 1748-1820. New York, Knickerbocker Press, 189g. Parkman, Francis. The Conspiracy of Pontiac and the Indian War After the Conquest of Canada. Boston, Little, Brown & Co., 1893. Proud, Robert. History of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Poulson, 1797. Rowe, James W. Old Westmoreland in History. Scottdale, 1934. Sipe, Chester Hale. The Indian Wars of Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, Pa., T h e Telegraph Press, 1932. Trent, William. Journal (1752). Edited by Alfred T . Goodman. Cincinnati, 1871. An Historical Account of Bouquet's Expedition Against the Ohio Indians, in 1764. With Preface by Francis Parkman. . . . and a Translation of Dumas' Biographical Sketch of General Bouquet. Cincinnati, O., R. Clarke and Co., 1907. Gratz Collection. Case 4, Box 6. Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Minutes of the Provincial Council. Vol. 9. Penn Papers. Vol. 9. Official Correspondence. Pennsylvania Archives. Vols. 5, 6, 7. Pennsylvania Gazette. No. 1846. Pennsylvania Journal. October 24, 1765. Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography. Vols. 3, 10, 11, 24, 32, 62. Philadelphia Staalsbote. October 17, 1763. Report of the Commission to Locate the Site of the Frontier Forts of, Pennsylvania. Thomas Lynch Montgomery, ed. Harrisburg, Pa., 1916. Shippen Papers. Vols. 4, 5. Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine. Vol. 19 (1936). Year Book. Pennsylvania Federation of Historical Societies. 1938. PHILADELPHIA'S YELLOW FEVER EPIDEMIC Biddle, Alexander. Old Family Letters Relating to the Yellow Fever. . . . Series B. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1892. Caldwell, Charles. Medical and Physical Memoirs. Lexington. Printed at the office of the Kentucky Whig, 1826. Carey, Mathew. A Short Account of the Malignant Fever Lately Prevalent in Philadelphia. Published by the author, 1793.

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Carter, Henry Rose. Yellow Fever. Baltimore, Williams & Wilkins Co., 1931. Chalwill, William G. Dissertation on the Sources of Malignant Bilious, or Yellow Fever. Doctor's Thesis, University of Pennsylvania, 1799. Chisholm, Colin. Essay on the Malignant Pestilential Fever. Philadelphia, Thomas Dobson, 1799. Cobbett, William. The Rush-light. New York, William Cobbett, 1800. Condie, Thomas. History of the Pestilence. Philadelphia, R. Fol well, 1799. Cresson, Joshua. Meditations Written During the Prevalence of the Yellow Fever in the City of Philadelphia in the Year 1793. London, W. Phillips, 1803. Currie, William. Observations on the Causes and Cure of Bilious Fevers. Philadelphia, 1798. Devéze, Jean. Enquiry into and Observations Upon the Cause and Effects of the Epidemic Disease which Raged in Philadelphia in 1793. Philadelphia, 1794. Ffirth, Stubbins. Treatise on Malignant Fever. Philadelphia, B. Graves, 1804. Goodman, Nathan G. Benjamin Rush, Physician and Citizen, 1746-1813. Philadelphia, 1934. Gorgas, William C. Yellow Fever. 1917. (In Musser, J . H. & Kelly, A. O. J . Handbook of Practical Treatment. Vol. 4.) Helmuth, Justus Henry C. A Short Account of the Yellow Fever of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, Jones, Hoff & Derrick, 1794. Howard, Leland O., H. G. Dyar, and Fred Knob. Mosquitoes of North and Central America and the West Indies. Washington, Carnegie Institution of 1912-1917. (Carnegie Institution of Washington Publications, Vol. 159.) Johnson, John G. A Criticism of Wm. B. Reed's Expressions on the Character of Dr. Benjamin Rush. Philadelphia, 1867. Jones, Absalom, and Richard Allen. A Narrative of the Proceedings of the Black People During the Late Awful Calamity in Philadelphia in the Year 1793, and a Refutation of Some of the Censures. Philadelphia, William W. Woodard, 1794. Kelley, Howard A. Walter Reed and Yellow Fever. Baltimore, Norman Pennington Co., 1923. La Roche, René. Yellow Fever, Its History in Philadelphia, 1699-1854. Philadelphia, Blanchard & Lea, 1855. Le Prince, Joseph Α., and A. J . Orenstein. Mosquito Control in Panama. New York, Putnam, 1916. Lloyd, James Hendrie. "Benjamin Rush and His Critics," in the Annals of Medical History. New Series, Vol. 2, No. 5 (Sept. 1930).

432

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McFarland, Joseph. The Epidemic of Yellow Fever in Philadelphia, ι Τ 9). New York, Medical Life Press, 1989. McMaster, John Bach. Lije and Times of Stephen Girard. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott Company, 1918. Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia, George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906. Reed, Walter, James Carroll, and Aristides Agramonte. Etiology of Yellow Fever. Reprint from Journal of American Medical Association, Feb. 6, 1901. Rush, Benjamin. Letters to his wife, written during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1793. . Account of the Bilious Remitting Fever. Philadelphia, Dobson, »793· . A Second Address. Philadelphia, Budd and Bartram, 1799. . Medical Inquiries and Observations. Philadelphia, Bradford and Innskeep, 1809. Vols. 4, 5. Ruston, Thomas. A Collection of Facts. Philadelphia, 1804. Shaw, William. A Practical Narration of the Autumnal Epidemic Fever in Philadelphia, 1803. Philadelphia, 1804. Sternberg, George Miller. Transmission of Yellow Fever by Mosquitoes. Smithsonian Institution Annual Report, 1900. Washington, 1901. Strobel, B. B. Essay on the Subject of Yellow Fever. Charleston, Muir, 1840. Volney, Constantin F. View of the Climate and Soil of the United States of America. London, Johnson, 1804. Watts, Washington. Inquiry into the Causes and Nature of Yellow Fever. Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania (thesis), 1799. Webster, Noah. Collection of Papers on the Subject of Bilious Fevers. New York, Hopkins, Webb & Co., 1796. Wilson, J. E. Benjamin Rush. Philadelphia, J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1904. Zinsser, Hans. Rats, Lice and History. Boston, Little, Brown, and Company, 1935. Facts and Observations Relative to the Nature and Origin of the Pestilential Fever Which Prevailed in this City in 1793-97-9S. College of Physicians, Philadelphia. THE WHISKEY INSURRECTION Bowers, Claude G. Jefferson and Hamilton: the Struggle for Democracy in America. New York, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1925. Brackenridge, Henry M. History of the Western Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, Commonly Called the Whiskey Insurrection. Pittsburgh. Printed by W. S. Haven, 1859. Commager, Henry Steele. Documents of American History. New York, New York University Press, 1938.

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Ferguson, Russell J. Early Western Pennsylvania Politics. Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1938. Findley, W i l l i a m . History of the Insurrection, in the Four Western Counties of Pennsylvania: in the year M.D.CC.XCIV. With a Recital of the Circumstances Specially Connected Therewith, and an Historical Review of the Previous Situation of the Country. Philadelphia. Printed by S. H . Smith, 1796. McCook, Henry C . The Latimers, a Tale of the Western Insurrection of 1794· Philadelphia, G . W . Jacobs & Company, 1898. Pennsylvania Archives. First series, Philadelphia, 1852-56, 12 vols. Second series, first edition, Harrisburg, 1874-93, 19 vols. "Papers Relating to W h a t Is K n o w n as the Whiskey Insurrection in Western Pennsylvania, 1794," is in the second series, 4:1-550. T H E HOT WATER

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Davis, W i l l i a m Watts Hart. History of Bucks County, Pennsylvania. town, Pa., 1876. Godcharles, Frederic Antes. Daily Stories

of Pennsylvania.

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1924· Hauser, J. J. " T h e Fries Rebellion" in The Penn Germania . . . (Magazine), Vol. 1 (1912), New Series. Roberts, Charles Rhoades. History of Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Allentown, Lehigh Publishing Co., 1914. T H E CHRISTIANA R I O T Cassel, Daniel E. History of the Mennonites. Philadelphia, published by the author, 1888. Commager, Henry Steele, ed. Documents of American History. N e w York, N e w Y o r k University Press, 1938. Forbes, D a v i d R . A True Story of the Christiana Riots. Quarryville, Pa., T h e Sun Printing House, 1898. Mode, Peter G „ ed. Source Book and Bibliographical Guide for American Church History. Menasha, Wis., George Banta Publishing Company, 1921. Pennypacker, Samuel W . Historical phia, R . A. T r i p p l e , 1883.

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Washington, T h e

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Lancaster County Historical Society Papers. Vol. 15. Miners' Journal, Pottsville, Pa., Sept. 13, 27, 1851. Weekly American, Waterbury, Conn., Sept. 19, 1851. OIL COMES IN A T TITUSVILLE Dunstan, Albert E., et al. The Science of Petroleum. London, Oxford University Press, 1938. Giddens, Paul H. The Birth of the Oil Industry. New York, T h e Macmillan Co., 1938. Hager, Dorsey. Fundamentals of the Petroleum Industry. New York, McGraw-Hill Book Co., 1939. Lilley, Ernest Raymond. The Oil Industry. New York, Van Nostrand Co., »935Tarbeil, Ida M. History of the Standard Oil Company. New York, McClure, 1904. Directory for Pennsylvania, Ninth Industrial, 1938. Encyclopedia of Pennsylvania. Hiram Shenk, editor. Harrisburg, National Historical Association, Inc., 1932. THE THIRD DAY A T GETTYSBURG Adams, James Truslow. America's Tragedy. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1934· Alexander, E. Porter. Military Memoirs of a Confederate. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1907. Bates, Samuel P. History of the Pennsylvania Volunteers, 1861-1865. Harrisburg, 1869-1871. Battine, Cecil. The Crisis of the Confederacy. New York, Longmans, Green and Co., 1905. Benêt, Stephen Vincent. John Brown's Body. New York, Farrar & Rinehart, 19*8. Bigelow, John. The Peach Orchard, Gettysburg, July 2, 1863. Minneapolis, Kimball-Storer, 1910. Doubleday, Abner. Chancellorsville and Gettysburg. New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1882. . Campaigns of the Civil War. 1894. Eckenrode, Hamilton James, and Bryant, Conrad. James Longstreet, Lee's War Horse. Chapel Hill, T h e University of North Carolina Press, 1936. Freeman, Douglas Southall. The South to Posterity. . . . New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939. Fry, Harrison W. Article in Evening Bulletin (Philadelphia), May 9, 1938.

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Dahlinger, Charles W . Pittsburgh, A Sketch of Its Early Social Life. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1916. Fleming, Geo. W., Editor. History of Pittsburgh and Environs. New York, T h e American Historical Society, Inc., 1922. Killikelly, Sarah H. The History of Pittsburgh, Its Rise and Progress. Pittsburgh, B. C. & Gordon Montgomery Co., 1906. Lambing, Α. Α., and J. W . F. White. Allegheny County—Its Early History and Subsequent Development. Chicago, A. Warner and Company, 1889. Schultz, Christian. Travels on an Inland Voyage through the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and Tennessee and through the Territories of Indiana, Louisiana, Mississippi and New Orleans. 1810. Pittsburgh Gazette for Oct. 14, 1793, and May 29, 1794. Webster's New International Dictionary, 22d edition, G. & C. Merriam Company, Springfield, Mass., 1934. TESTING THE STOURBRIDGE

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Brown, William H . The History of the First Locomotives in America. N e w York, D. Appleton & Co., 1871. Carter, Charles Frederick. When Railroads Were New. New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1909. Clark, William H. Railroads and Rivers; The Story of Inland Transportation. Boston, L. C. Page 8c Co., 1939. Fletcher, William. The History and Development of Steam Locomotion on Common Roads. London, E. & F. N. Spon, 1891. Hungerford, Edward. The Modern Railroad. Chicago, A. C. M c C l u r g 8c Co., 1911. Kane, Joseph Nathan. Famous First Facts. New York, T h e H. W . Wilson Co., 1933. Mathews, Alfred. History of Wayne, Pike and Monroe Counties. Philadelphia, 1886. Moody, John. The Railroad Builders. Vol. 38 in Chronicles of America Series. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1920. Penniman, Edward A. The Stourbridge Lion: 182g. Honesdale, 1903. Ringwalt, John Luther. Development of Transportation United States. Philadelphia, Ringwalt, 1888. Sterne, Simon. Railways in the United Sons, 1912.

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A Century of Progress: History of the Delaware and Hudson Company, 1823-1923. Albany, J . B. Lyon Company, 1925. American City (Magazine), April, 1930. The American Railway: Its Construction, Development, Management and Appliances. New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1889. Times, Scranton. August g, 1929. STEAM ON THE RIVERS Boucher, John Newton. A Century and a Half of Pittsburgh and Her People. New York, T h e Lewis Publishing Co., 1908. Daley, Edmund L. "Modern Argosies on the Ohio," in Review of Reviews. November, 1929. Dayton, Fred Erving. Steamboat Days. New York, Frederick A. Stokes Company, 1925. Dobbins, William W. Battle of Lake Erie. Erie, Pa., Ashby Printing Co., '929Eaton, Rebecca. A Geography of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia, Edward C. Biddle, 1837. Eskew, Garnet Laidlaw. The Pageant of the Packets. New York, Henry Holt and Co., 1929. Gould, Emerson W. Fifty Years on the Mississippi; or, Gould's History of River Navigation. St. Louis, Nixon-Jones Printing Co., 1889. Habermehl, John. Life on the Western Rivers. Pittsburgh, McNary and Simpson, 1901. Hoopes, Penrose Robinson. Connecticut's Contribution to the Development of the Steamboat. New Haven, Published for the Tercentenary Commission by the Yale University Press, 1936. Hulbert, Archer Butler. The Ohio River. New York, G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1906. Hylander, C. J . American Inventor. New York, The Macmillan Company, 1934· Keir, Malcolm. The Pageant of America. Vol. 4. New Haven, Yale University Press, 1927. Kussart, Sarepta. The Allegheny River. Pittsburgh, Burgum Printing Co., 1938. . The Building of Iron War Vessels at Pittsburgh. Leahy, Ethel C. Who's Who on the Ohio River. Cincinnati, Ohio, E. C. Leahy Publishing Co., 1934. Love, Gilbert. Around the World With Pittsburgh Products. Pittsburgh, The Pittsburgh Press, 1936.

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Thurston, George H. Allegheny County's Hundred Years. Pittsburgh, A. A. Anderson and Son, 1888. Way, Frederick, Jr. The Log of the Betsy Ann. New York, Robert M. McBride and Co., 1933. White, Edward, ed. Pittsburgh Sesqui-Centennial. Pittsburgh, igo8. Annual Report of the Chief of Engineers, U. S. Army. Part 2, May 29, 1936. Business Week (Magazine), Oct. 12, 1929. Article entitled "Old Man River Rejuvenated." Gazette, Erie, Pa. Apr. 7, 1825; Dec. 7, 1843; Aug. 8, 1844; Apr. 16, 1846. Marine Review, July, 1934. Nelson's Biographical and Historical Reference Book of Erie County, Pennsylvania. Erie, 1896. Pittsburgh—Commemorating the 50th Anniversary of the Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania. Engineers' Society of Western Pennsylvania, Pittsburgh, 1930. Post-Gazette, Pittsburgh. Dec. 6, 1935; June 22, 1936; May 24, 1938. Press, Pittsburgh, Jan. 23, Oct. 2, 1936; Jan. 27, 1937; Nov. 15, 1939. River News. April, 1938. Union Barge Line Corporation, Pittsburgh, Pa. Scrap Book, Erie Library. Story of the New Orleans. (Centennial Booklet) 1911. Transportation in the Ohio and Mississippi Valleys. U. S. Printing Office, Washington, D. C., 1929. Waterways Journal. Sept. and Oct. 1929; Nov. 5 and 19, Dec. 24 and 31, 1938; Jan. 21, Feb. 25, Apr. 8, June 17, and July 8, 1939. RAFTING

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INDEX A b b o t t , W . Η., *οβ Adams, John, 109, 182, 187 African Society, 162 Aix-la-Chapelle, Treaty of, 53 Albany, »3, 24, 396 Albion, 40s, 403 Albright, Colonel, 227 Alderman, Elisha, 403 Alexander, Col. Edward Porter, 214-15, 216, 217 Alexandria, 56, 70 Algonquin Indians, 18, 22, 26, 144 Allegheny County, 168, 175 Allegheny Mountains, 142, 149, 386-93, 410, 412-13, 414, 421 Allegheny Portage Railroad, 336, 385-93 Allegheny River, 53, 54, 68, 75, 95, 339, 363· 369. 37». 373. 378. 395 Allegheny, stern wheeler, 399 Allen, Horatio, 351, 352, 353, 354 Allen, Necho, 328 Allentown, 186 Almonry, 250 Altoona, 235, 392, 393 Amalgamated Association of Iron, Steel and T i n Workers, 239-40, 242, 244, 245, 246 Amboy, 99 Ambridge, 279, 288 Amelia, sloop, 156, 164 American Daily Advertiser, 157 American Navy, 98 American Party, 137 American Philosophical Society, 257 Amherst, Lord Jeffery, 88, 142, "145, 146, 151 Andaste Indians, 19, 22, 26, 27 Anderson, Maxwell, 113 A n n e Arundel County, 192, 194 Anthracite, 327-33. 335, 349-50, 403; see Coal

Appleman, William, 230 Appomattox, 221 Ariel, pilot schooner, 122, 124 Ark rafts, 366, 370 Armistead, Lewis Addison, 217, 218, 219 Armstrong, A l v a h , 315 , H a n n a h , 312, 313, 315 , Peter E., 311-15 Armstrong, Col. John, 73, 76, 77, 413 Army of Northern Virginia, 211 Army of the Potomac, 211 Ashmead, C . L., 199 Aston, Peter, 156 Asylum, 259-70 Athens, 17, 19, 24, 25 Atlantic & Great-Western Railroad, 406 Augusta, ship-of-the-line, 105 Azilum; see A s y l u m Babeer, M., 54 Baer, William, 196 Bailey, Joseph T . , 301, 307, 309 Baker, Caleb, 26 Baker, John, 234 Baker, R . L., 287 Baldwin, Matthias W . , 355 Baltimore, 372, 375 Baltimore, Lord, 31 Baltimore and O h i o Railroad, 386, 392 Baptist R o a d , 114, 115 Baptists, German; see Ephrata Cloister Barben, Lieutenant, 5 Barclay, C o m . Robert, 123, 124 Barnsdall, W i l l i a m , 208 Baron, Father Denys, 72 Baron of Renfrew, timbership, 372 Barry, Capt. John, 98 Barton, Clara, 235 Bartram, John, 45, 46 Bateaux, 339-40, 341

448

INDEX

Beard, John, ig5 Beatty, Rev. Charles, 76 Beaujolais, Count de, 260, 268 Beaumet, M., *6i Beaver, 88, 395, 402, 403, 404, 405 Beaver and Erie Canal; see Erie Extension Beaver Falls, 287 Beaver River, 88, 93, 94 Beaver Township, 227 Becker, Peter, 251 Bedford, 409, 412, 413, 414 , Fort, 73, 83, 85, 147, 148, 414 Beissel, Johann Conrad, 249-58 Benton, 225, 226, 227, 229 Berkman, Alexander, 239, 245 Berleigh, Charles, 199 Bessemer Railroad, 402 Bethania, 250, 258 Bethlehem, 185, 206 Bethlehem Steel Corporation, 233 Bicker, Captain, 13 Biddle, Charles, 321 B i g Beaver River (Creek), 77, 394, 397, 399· 404 B i g Meadow R u n , 67 Big R o u n d T o p , 213 Billingsport, 97, 102, 108 Bird in Hand [Pa.], 251 Bissell, George H., 203, 204, 205 Bissell, Capt. Russell, 120 Black Rock, 122 Blainville, Céloron de, 53, 54 Blairsville, 389 Blane, Lieut. Archibald, 149 Bleakley, John, Jr., 110 Blommaert, Samuel, 4, 9 Bloomsburg, 222, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228, 337 Blue Ball, 321 Blue Mountain T u n n e l , 420 Blue Mountains, 331, 409, 410 Blum, Ludwig, 253 Boije, Christer, 6 Bonde, Gen. Thomas, 193 Bootleggers, 374, 380 Borden town, 360 Boston, 162 Boulogne, Charles Felix Boué, 264, 265, 268

Bouquet, Henry, 69, 73, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 14:, 145-53, 414 Bow Creek, 7 Bowditch, E. B., 205 Bower Hill, 174 Bowman, Sarah, 258 Brackenridge, H u g h H., 172, 175, 176, .78 Braddock, Gen. Edward, 58, 66, 71, 72, 88, 145, 412 Braddock Road, 17g Braddock's Field, 176-77 Bradford, David, 175, 178 Bradford, Mrs. Thomas, 156 Bradford County, 259, 264, 372 Brandywine, Battle of, 100-101, 258 Creek, 100 Breezewood, 409, 420 Brent, R . J., 199 Brewer, Dr. Francis Beattie, 203 Brewer, Watson & Co., 203 Brisbane, Albert, 291, 292, 293 Brison, James, 176 Bristol (Pa.), 108, 360 Broad Mountain, 328 Brodhead, Col. Daniel, 92, 94 Brogdon, David, ig2 Brogdon, Maj. William, 192 Brooks, J. T . , 288 Brooks, John, 381 Brown, Charles Brockden, 15g Brown, Col. Earl I., 110 Brown, Noah, 121 Brown, Robert, 46 Brownsville, 56, 172 Brulé, Stephen (Étienne), 21-22, 23, 28 Brush Creek, 176 Bryant, William Cullen, 292 Buchanan, James, 130-38, 189 Buchanan Farm, 206 Buchlein von Sabbath; see Mysterion Anomias Buck T a v e r n , 180 Buckalew, U. S. Senator, 228, 22g Burks County, 182, 356 Budd, Andreas, 25 Budd's Ferry, 179 Buffalo [N. Y.], 121, 122 Buford, Brig. Gen. John, 211, 212 Buhley, Noah, igg Bull, Olaus Borneman, 300-10

INDEX Bullitt, Capt. Thomas, 73, 75 Burd, Col. James, 73, 76, 412 Burk, Rev. W. Herbert, 118 Burlington, 30, 189 Burnt Cabins [Pa.], 414 Burr, Aaron, 113 Bush Hill, 159, 161 Bushy R u n , 14g, 15s , Battle of, 86, 141, 150-53 , blockhouse at, 149, 150 Butler, Maj. Thomas, 176 Butler County, 280, 281 Butterfield, C. W., 23 Byerly, Andrew, 149, 150, 151, 153 Cadwalader, Maj. Gen. George, 226, 227 Caernarvon Township, 321 Caledonia, 122 Cambria County, 275 Campanius, Rev. Johan, 6, 11 Campbell, John, 91 Canals, 327-37, 386, 389-90, 392, 394-407 Canoes, 338, 339, 341 Canonsburg, 176 Canterbury, ship, 47 Cape François, 161, 164, 263 Capuchins, 253 Carantouan Indians, 22 Carbondale, 350, 354 Carey, Mathew, 159 Carlisle, 88, 131, 146, 178-79, 408, 409, 418 Carnegie, Andrew, 238, 239, 240, 241, 242, 246, 415, 416 Carnegie Steel Company, 238, 239, 240, 245 Carpenter's Mansion, 99 Carroll, Charles, of Carrollton, 277 Carroll, Bishop John, 273, 274, 276 Cashtown, 211 Casimir, Fort, 12, 13, 14 Cass, Lewis, 133 Catawba Indians, 26 Catholics, 271, 274 Cavet, James, 91 Cayuga Indians, 21 Celesta (Celestia), 3 1 1 - 1 5 Céloron; see Blainville Cemetery Hill, 213, 215 Cemetery Ridge, 213, 215, 219

449

Center Township, 227 Chadd's Ford, 100 Chambersburg, 178-79, 212, 274, 412, 414 Champlain, Samuel de, 22, 23 Chapín, Dyer L., 226 Chapman, Seth, 184 Charles II, 29-30, 33 Chauncey, Com. Isaac, 122, 123 Chautauqua, Lake, 53 Chemung River, 17, 19, 24, 25, 26, 337, 37* Chesapeake Bay, 18, 22, 90, 99, 376, 383 Chester, 98, ιοί Chevaux-de-frise, 97, 102, 104, 105, 106, 108 Chew House, 103 Chrisman, Jesse, 389 Christiana, 189, 193, 194 Riot, 189, 194-200 Christina, Fort, 5, 6, 12, 13, 14 Christina, Queen, 4, 8, 13, 14 Christina Creek, 5, 98 Chronicon Ephratense, 254 Cincinnati, 342, 344, 361, 362, 373 Civil War, 109, 131, 137, 206, 2 1 1 - 2 1 , 223, 363 Clapham, Col. William, 84 Clarion River, 374, 375 Clark, George Rogers, 93 Clarkson, Matthew, 158, 161 Clarksville, 402 Clay, Henry, 303 Clear Ridge Mountain, 417 Clearfield, 372, 383 Clermont, steamboat, 359 Cleveland, 93, 399, 405 Cleveland, Grover, 238, 246 Clinton, Sir Henry, log, 114 Clinton, Gen. James, 24 Coal, 233, 239, 327 S3. 335· 349 50, 354, 362, 364, 397, 402; see Anthracite Coal Hill, 81, 174 Coates, Lindley, 194 Cocalico Creek, 249, 250, 252 Codori farm, 219 Codorus, steamboat, 363 Coke, 239, 241 Cole, Ezekiel J., 228 , Leonard, 228 Coleman, Ann Caroline, 132 , Robert, 132

45°

INDEX

Coleman, Joseph, 4, 26, 53· 94 Irvine, Gen. William, 94, 1 1 s Irwin, 408, 40g, 421 Jackson, Andrew, 132 , Rep. George B., 314 Cross Roads; see Albion Township, 228 Jefferson, Thomas, 90, 190, 360 Jenkins, John, 85, 328 Jenkins, William, 133 Jenneseedaga Creek, 374 Jervis, John B., 350, 35», 353 Joerg, Dr. Karl, 308 Johnson, Robert, 173 Johnson, Samuel, 170 Johnson, Sir William, 144 Johnson, Gov. William F., 406 Johnstown, 232 37. 336, 385, 386, 387, 388, 389, 392, 393 Joncaire, Capt. Chabert, 54 Jones, Jesse, 416 Jones, Walter Α., 416 Jonsson, Anders, 13 Jumonville, Coulon de, 57, 58, 59, 60, 62, 64, 65 Juniata River, 148, 411, 417, 418 Kalmar Nyckel, Swedish ship, 4-5 Kane, Judge, 199 Keating, John, 263, 265, 269, 270 Kedar, 252, 255 Keelboats, 341-48, 360 Keepville, 402 Keith, Gov. William, 42, 45, 47 Kelpius, Johann, 251 Kenny, James, 81-82 Kentucky, 92, 178, 340, 358 Kiers, Samuel M., 203 King of Prussia Road, 114 King's Highway, 320, 321, 324, 325 Kingsessing, 8 Kinzua, 94 Kirkpatrick, Maj. Abraham, 175, 176, 177 Kittanning, 92 Kittatinny Mountain, 410, 420 Kline, Henry H., 195, 197, 199 Kline (Klein), John, 184 Kline, Samuel, 230

Kling, Lieut. Mäns, 12 Knights of the Golden Circle, 223, 226 Kraybill, Jacob, 322 Kuhn, Dr. Adam, 163 Kukyuskung, Chief, 150 Lackawaxen River, 350, 352, 353 Laet, Johan de, 9 Lafayette, Marquis de, 100, 262 La Force, Michel, 56, 58, 59 Laird, Dr. Warren P., 37 Lancaster, 102, 112, 130, 131, 134, 137, 144. 320, 358 County, 20, 249, 251, 320 Historical Society, 137 Lancaster Turnpike, 249, 319-326; see Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company Land Lighthouse, 126 Landingville, 331 Lane, Harriet, 133, 135, 136 La porte, 312 Laporte, Bartholomew, 262, 268, 269 La Salle, Chevalier de, 53 Laughlin, James, 374 Laurel Hill, 56, 61, 149, 180, 386, 410, 421 Laurens, Fort, 94 Lawrence, brig, 122, 123, 124, 125 League Island, 96 Le Boeuf, Fort, 54, 58, 60, 69, 80, 83, 120, 147 Lee, Gen. Henry, 179, 180 Lee, Gen. Robert £., 211, 214, 220 Lee, Thomas, 53 Lehigh Coal & Navigation Company, 337 Lehigh County, 182, 183 River, 185, 337 Le Mercier, Captain, 70, 71, 129 Lemke, Rev. Peter Henry, 277, 278 Lemons, John, 230 L'Enfant, Maj. Pierre Charles, 109, 110 Lenox, David, 174, 175 Leon, Count Maximilian de, 284-86 Lester, 15 LeTort, James, 412 Lewes, 5, 9, 97 Lewis, Andrew, 62, 73, 74, 75 Lewis, Elijah, 196, 198 Lewis, Joseph J., Jr., 19g

INDEX Lexington, brig, 98 Liebesmahl; see Ephrata Cloister Ligneris, François Marchand de, 72, 76 Ligonier, Fort, 73, 76, 83, 147, 149, 413, 414 Lime Kiln Road, 103 Lincoln, Abraham, 206, 223, 229, 231 Lincoln Highway, 319, 408, 417 Linn, William, 92 Little Bill, steamer, 243, 244 Little Conemaugh River, 232, 233, 287 Little Kettle Creek, 302, 304, 308, 309 Little Round Top, 215, 217, 218 Little Sewickley Creek, 411 Little Tinicum Island, 3, 16 Liverpool, frigate, 98 Lloyd, David, 41 Lloyd, William, 199 Lock Haven, 372, 376, 377, 380, 381, 383 Lockhart, Josiah, 25 Lockport; see Platea Locomotives, 352-55 Logan, Deborah, 50-51 -, Dr. George, 50 — , James, 33, 35, 36, 39-51 , Sarah, 49, 50 , Sarah Read, 43, 45, 49 , William, 50 Loganian Library, 49, 161 Log-driving, 381-83 Logstown, 54 Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, 309 Longstreet, Gen. James, 212, 214, 216 Loretto, 271, 274, 277, 278 Louis X V I , 260, 262 Louisiana, 142, 360, 373 Louisville, 95, 344, 361, 362, 374 L'Ouverture, Toussaint, 263, 269 Lower Tumbling R u n Reservoir, 332, 333 Loyalhanna Creek, 73, 76, 413 Loyalsock Creek, 265, 267, 268, 313, 373, 377 • Big, 377 — , Little, 377 Lumber rafts, 366, 369, 370 Luzerne County, 226, 229, 263 Lycoming County, 280 Creek, 373, 377 Lyttletown, Fort, 409, 414

455

Machault, Fort, 120; see Venango, Fort Mackay, Aeneas, 92 Mackay, Capt. James, 61, 62 Macungie, 183; see Millerstown Mahoning River, 94, 399 Main Line of Public Works, 386, 391-93, 406 Manayunk, 330, 3 3 1 . 333 Maple sugar, 267, 3 1 3 Marcy, William Learned, 133 Marie Antoinette, Queen, 260, 266 Marietta, 372, 377, 380 Marin, Pierre Paul, Sieur de, 120, 129 Markham, William, 30, 32 Marshall, Christopher, 254 Martyrs' Mirror, 254, 257 Mary, brig, 164 Maryland, 21, 47, 48, 175, 372, 383, 386 Mason and Dixon Line, 91, 193, 224 Mathewson, Maj. Elisha, 25 Matinicunk, 7, 15 McClure, George, 373 McFarlane, Maj. James, 175 McGaw, Col. William, 374 McGuire, Capt. Michael, 274 McHenry, Daniel, 226, 230, 231 , Elias Jackson, 226, 230 , James, 226 , Rohr, 230 Mcintosh, Fort, 94 Mcintosh, Gen. Lachlan, 93 McKinncy, John, 339 McLane, Col. Allen, 1 1 3 McPherson's Ridge, 212 McQuay, Daniel, 374, 375 Mead, Joseph, 375 Meade, Gen. George Gordon, 2 1 1 , 213, 214 Meadville, 398, 399, 404 Mennonites, 1 1 2 , 188, 189, 254 Mercer, Hugh, 73, 77, 78 Mercer, Fort, 97, 103, 104, 105, 106, 107, 108 Meredith, William, 133 Merlin, sloop, 105 Messenger, riverboat, 362 Meyers, Jacob, 342, 343 Meyers, John, 381 Middlesex, 408, 409, 420 Middletown, 334, 335

456

INDEX

Mifflin, Fort, gff-uo, s26, 227, 2*8, 229, »30 Mifflin, Thomas, 99, 157, 166, 176, 179, 185. 325> SS5 Miles, Frederick, 374 Miles, James, 396 , William, 396 Milford Rebellion; see Hot Water Rebellion Milford Township, 182, 183 Mill Creek, 251, 252, 329 Miller, Jacob, 184 Miller, Dr. James, 82 Miller, Peter, 254, 255, 256, 257, 258 Millerstown, 183, 186 Mingo Creek, 173, 174, 175, 176, 180 Indians, 82, 84, 150 Minquas Indians, 8 Kill, 5 Minuit, Peter, 4, 5 Mississippi River, 53, 92, 269, 360, 363, 373 Missouri Compromise, 223 Mohawk Indians, 21, 144 Mohican Indians, 21, 150 Monaca, 285 Monckton, Gen. Robert, 79, 80 Monongahela River, 56, 68, 70, 95, 172, 238, 242, 243, 339, 340, 341, 361, 363 Valley, 169, 170, 171, 179, 180 Monterey Gap, 221 Montour, Andrew, 55, 60 Montoursville, 378 Montpensier, Duke of, 260, 268 Montressor, Capt. John, 97, 106, 110 Montullé, M., 265, 267, 268 Moore, George, 395 Moorehead, Dr. Warren K., 19 Moravia, 402 Moravians, 251 Moré, Count de, 265 Morgan, Gen. Daniel, 176, 180 Morgan, J. Pierpont, 415, 416 Morris, Robert, 263, 264 Mortimer's Run, 174 Mott, Lucretia, 199 Mound Builders, 18 Mount Carbon, 329, 330, 331 Mount Joy, 111, 114, 116, 117, 118 Mount Misery, 111 Mount Pleasant Township, 227

Mount Vernon, 155 Mount Washington, 174 Tavern, 67 Mount Zion, 252, 255, 258 Mud Island, 96, g7, 99, 106 Mueller, Bernhart; see Leon, Count M. de Muhlbach Creek; see Mill Creek Munsey Indians, 21 Murray, Dr. Elsie, 20, 21 , Jessie Welles, 28 , Louise Welles, 18, 19, 21, τη, 262 Muse, Maj. George, 60 Muskingum River, 87, 88 Mysterien Anomias (Mystery of Lawlessness), 252 Nanticoke Indians, 21 Napoleon, 268, 359, 360 Nassau, Fort (near Albany), 23 , (on the Delaware), 7, 10, 12 National Park Service, 66 Nazareth [Pa.], 184 Necessity, Fort, 52-67, 71 Negro Mountain, 410, 420 NegToes, 162, 188-200, 263 Nelson, Nathan, 195 Nelsson, Michel, 6 Neshaminy Creek, 356 Neville, John, 91, 172, 174, 175, 176, 179, 180 , Col. Presley, 175, 176, 179, 180 Nevin, McKeown & Co., 203 New Amsterdam, 12, 13 New Bergen, 303, 308 New Castle [Del.], 12, 14, 35 New Castle [Pa.], 93, 397, 399, 402, 403 New Columbus, 226, 229 New Gothenburg, 10, 11 , Fort, 7, 14, 15 New Harmony, 284 New Jersey, 48, 92, 179, 209 troops, 179, 181 New Netherland, 4, 9 New Norway, 303 New Orleans, 92, 93, 95, 171, 270, 304, 340, 360, 361, 362, 371, 373, 374, 375, 405

INDEX New Orleans, riverboat, 347 New Stanton, 409, 4 1 1 New Sweden, 4, 5, 8, 10, 12, 13 New Sweden Company, 4, 14 New York, 162, 190, 372, 374 New York State Barge Canal, 395 New York Tribune, 2 1 5 Newcomen, Thomas, 351 Niagara, Fort, 24, 54, 78, 83, 144, 145 Niagara Region, 18 Niagara River, 122 Niagara, brig, 122, 123, 124, 125 Nicholson, John, 263 Nilsson, Jonas, 8 Noailles, Louis de, 259, 262, 263, 269 Norris, Isaac, 47 Norristown, 186, 331 North Mountain, 222, 224 Northampton County, 182, 184 Northumberland, 179, 337 Norwegians, 302, 306 Nova Scotia, 53 O'Donnell, Hugh, 242 Ogehage, 23 O'Hara, Col. James, 343, 347 Ohio, ship, 122, 125 Ohio and Erie Canal; see Erie Extension Ohio and Pennsylvania Canal Company, 396 Ohio Company, 53, 54. 55, 56, 6g Ohio Cross-cut Canal, 399, 405 Ohio Forks, 54-55, 59, 68-95, «*». '42. 145-46, 341. 4'«. 4>3 Ohio River, 18, 53, 95, 283, 335, 339, 340. 363, 373-75, 395. 399 Ohio River Valley, 65, 178 Oil Creek, 202, 205, 206, 207 Oil Industry, Development of, 201-10 Old Cannon Ball House, 1 1 0 Old Grape Hotel, 134 Old Swedes' Church (Gloria Dei), 15 Oleona, 300, 303-10 Oneida Indians, 21 Onesimus, Brother; see Israel Eckerlin Onondaga Indians, 21, 22 Op de Graefl brothers, 188 Optlandt, 7 Ormsby, John, 81

457

Orn, Swedish ship, 13 OruktOT Amphibolis, 351, 358 Ostend Manifesto, 130-31, 133 Ottawa Indians, 143, 150 Ourry, Capt. Lewis, 148 Outer Line Drive, 114, 1 1 5 Owego, 19, 372 Owen, Capt. H. T . , 215 Oxenstjerna, Axel Gustafsson, 4 Padgett, William M., 195 Paine, Thomas, 260 Paoli, 101 Papegoja, Armegot, 14, 15 , Johan, 6, 13 Paradise Point, 5 Paris, Treaty of, 142 Park, W. G„ 241 Parker, Hetty, 136 Parker, James, 208 Parker, William, 192-200 Parkinson, Benjamin, 178, 180 Parkinson's Ferry, 176, 178, 179 Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 188 Patterson, Benjamin, 25 Patti, Adelina, 304 Pax ton Massacre, 20 Road, 320 Peale Museum, 355 Pearce, Dr. Thomas, 195, 198 Penn, Hannah Callowhill, 33, 35, 37, 40, 41 . John, 35, 49 , Letitia, 33, 34, 35 — , Thomas, 36, 43 , William, 14, 29-37, 39"4>. 47 , William, Jr., 36 Penn-Logan Papers, 51 Pennsbury Manor, 29-38 Pennsylvania, Commonwealth of, 36, 66, 183, 258, 264, 288, 314, 386, 391, 39«. 396. 397- 406 Pennsylvania, Province of, 29-35, 4°' 47' 90-91, 144, 146, 190 Pennsylvania Act (of 1826), 191 Pennsylvania Canal, 233, 336, 337, 386, 395. 405 Pennsylvania Department of Highways, 416, 418 Pennsylvania Dutch; see Germans

45»

INDEX

Pennsylvania Freeman, 198 Pennsylvania Germans; see Germans Pennsylvania Historical Commission, 16, 32, 36, 38, 125. 288 Pennsylvania House of Representatives, .69 Pennsylvania Railroad, 385, 391-93, 407, 415 Pennsylvania Rock Oil Company, 204 Pennsylvania State College, 396 Pennsylvania State Legislature, 206, 258, 351. 397- 4 ' 6 Pennsylvania Turnpike, 408-21 Commission, 410, 416, 417, 418, 4 1 9 Pennsylvania-Pacific Railroad, 415 Penrose Ferry, 106, 1 1 0 Pequea Creek, 251 Perkins, James H „ 382 Perkiomen Creek, 101, 103 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 1 2 1 , 122, 123, 124, 125, 126, 395 Peters, Judge, 179, 180 Peterson, Lewis, Jr., 202 Petroleum, 201, 206, 208, 209, 210; see Oil Industry Petroleum Centre, 207 Peyroney, William Chevalier de, 64 Pheil, Louis, 281 Philadelphia, 29, 32, 41, 92, 96, 97, 98, 100, 101, 102, 103, 104, 108, 109, 114, 181, 190, 235. 330, 3 3 1 , 333, 358, 375 Philadelphia and Lancaster Turnpike Company, 324 Philadelphia 8c Reading Railroad, 332; see Reading Company Philadelphia, Germantown and Norristown Railroad, 355 Philadelphia ("Old Sal"), steamer, 360 Philadelphia's yellow fever epidemic (of 1793), 154-67 Philippe, Louis, 259, 260, 268 Phoenix, steamboat, 359, 360 Pickett, Gen. George Edward, 2 1 4 - 1 5 , 216, 217, 218, 219 Pierce, Franklin, 133 Pietists, 251, 279 Pigeon Creek, 173, 178 Pike County, 290, 299 Pinckney's Treaty, 347

Pinkerton, Robert Α., 242 Detective Agency, 238, 242, 244, 245 force at Homestead, 246 Pipe Creek, 2 1 1 , 274 Pipe Lines, 207, 208, 287 Pirogues, 339, 341 Pithole City, 207, 208 Pitt, Fort, 68-95, ' 4 ' . '44. '45- "46. 148, 150, 153 , , Blockhouse, 68, 87 Pitt, William, 73, 77 Pittsburgh, 80, 82, 91, 120, 1 2 1 , 145, 169, 1 7 1 , 172, 177. 180, 235,

243,

'47.

122, 238.

245. 33 6 · 339-48. 3 6 0 · 3 6 l > 3 6 *· 373· 386, 408, 414 Pittsburgh & Erie Railroad, 406, 407 Pittsburgh Gazette, 179-80 Platea, 397, 401, 402 Polk, James K., 133 Polk and Dallas, canalboat, 403-04 Poison, Capt. William, 62 Pontiac, Chief, 83, 142-45, 153, 414 Pontiac's Rebellion, 83, 87, 120, 1 4 1 - 5 3 Porch, Richard, 404 Porcupine, gunboat, 122 Port Carbon, 329, 331 Port Clinton, 331, 333 Port Kennedy, 1 1 4 Portage Railroad; see Allegheny Portage Railroad Post, Christian Frederick, 81 Potomac River, 59, 221, 335 Potter County, 300, 308 Potts, Isaac, 1 1 7 Pottstown, 331 Pottsville, 328 Pownall, Levi, 197, 198 Pratt, Silas, 401 Presque Isle, Fort, 54, 60, 76, 80, 83, 120, 147 Presque Isle Bay, 120 Furnace, 403 Lighthouse, 126-27 Peninsula, 1 1 9 - 2 9 Prince George, Fort, 70 Princeton, 92 Printz, Johan, 5, 7, 8, 10, n , 12, 13, 1 5 Province Island, 15, 106, 107 Provincial Assembly, 32, 34, 35, 41, 42, 45. 55' 6 l · 81, 89, 97

INDEX Provincial Council, 54, 35, 42, 320 Public Works Administration, 38, 416, 418 Pulteney, Dr. Richard, 46 Put-In Bay, 125 Pymatuning, 403 Quakers, 32, 47, 112, 188, 189, 197-98 Quakertown, 184, 186 Quarry, Robert, 34, 36 Quarrytown, 402 Quebec, 22, 54 Queen Esther's T o w n , 24 Queen of the West, packet, 397 Quemahoning Dam, 236 Mountain, 410 Quittapahilla Creek, 334 Rafting, 365-84 Raft-ships, 371-72 Raftsmen, 378-82 Railroads, 239, 305, 326, 349-55, 363, 364. Rantz, Rantz Rapp,

387-93. 4 1 0 John, 230 Meeting, 225 Frederick, 280-287 , George, 279-287 , Gertrude, 287 , John, 280, 282 Raven Creek, 224, 226 Rawle, William, 179, 180, 187 Rays Hill, 410, 418, 420 Raystown; see Bedford Raystown (or Traders) Path, 412 Reading, 112, 186, 329, 330, 331, 334, 335 Reading Company, 334; see Philadelphia Sc Reading Company Reconstruction Finance Corporation, 416, 418 R e d Bank, 97, 104, 105, 108 R e d Cross, 235, 258 Redman, Dr. John, 157 Redstone Creek, 56, 61 Redstone, Old Fort, 172 Redwood, Abraham, 45 Reed, C. M., 405 Reed, John M „ 199 Reed, Rufus, 397 Reed, R. S., canalboat, 397

459

Reichert, Frederick; see R a p p , Frederick Rettew, Mary, 138 Ridder, Peter Hollander, 5, 8 Ridgway, 374 Ripley, George, 292 Rising, John Claudius, 13 Robbins, Elizabeth, 229 Roberts, William, 230 Robinson, Lieut. J. Stewart, 224 Rochambeau, Count de, 263 Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, D u k e de la, 263, 265, 267 Roebling, John Α., 414 Roebuck, frigate, 98, 105 Rogers, David, 93 Rogers, Henry Huddleston, 206 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 237, 416 Roosevelt, J. Nicholas, 361 Roses of Sharon; see Ephrata Cloister Round Tops, 212, 213 Roundout, 350, 352 Rouseville, 206 Rousseau, Jean Jacques, 20, 21 Royal Americans, 73, 74, 150, 151 Rummerfield Mountain, 259 Rush, Dr. Benjamin, 156, 157, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164 Rutan, Rev. A. R., 226, 229 Saal, 250, 255, 258 Sacket t's Harbor, 122, 124 Saint Méry, Élie Moreau de, 263 St. Pierre, Legardeur de, 54, 58 Salem Creek (Varkens Kill), 6 San Domingo, 156, 164, 259 Sangmeister, Brother Ezekiel, 255 Sans Culotte, French privateer, 164 Satterlee, Col. Elisha, 25 Sauer, Christopher, 253 Scarlett, Joseph F., 197, ig8 Schaeffer, David, 186 Schenley, Mary E „ 69 Schlatter, J. L., 414 Schmet, Augustine; see Gallitzin, Demetrius Augustine Schmoyer, Michael, 186 Schneider, Jacob, 186 Schuylkill Canal, 327-37 Schuylkill Haven, 329. 331, 333

INDEX

460

Schuylkill River, 7,