the Quakers of Philadelphia in the earliest years of the Provincial
government of Penn, the first proprietary. Thomas Holme in bad rhyme
and not much better grammar tells about these schools in 1696. In what
the Germans would call the hinterland the school was at a low ebb.
There being no towns there were no facilities to get enough scholars
together to make the pay of a teacher worth the while. The Germans,
the dominant element, when educated at all, were under the tuition of
teachers of parochial schools of the evangelical denominations and
sects of their own, frequently pastors or missionaries in the language
of the Fatherland. In Pennsylvania among the emigrants who came over in
colonies there was a preacher and a schoolmaster. This was particularly
so among the Dutch, Swedes and Germans. The English Quakers began
schools in Philadelphia very soon after the foundation of that town. In
the interior schools were rare as the settlements were scattered.
Reading was not founded until 1748, therefore education had not made
headway at the time when the men prominent in Berks affairs during the
Revolution were at the educational age. Yet those who figured during
that period in prominent places held their own with any of their city
contemporaries. Among the people generally, according to the oath of
allegiance list, handwriting was evidently not widespread, judging
from the number of "his (cross) mark," substituted for signatures in
1777-1778.
In 1714 Christopher Dock, a German, opened a school at Skippach,
below what is now Pottstown, about thirty miles from this large
assemblage of educated young ladies. Christopher Dock was a man of real
learning, unexcelled by any outside of Pennsylvania in his time. His
"Schule Ordnung" written in 1750 and printed by Christopher Sauer, of
Germantown, 1770, was the first treatise on education produced in type
in the American colonies. The leaders in the German emigration prior
to the American Revolution were often men of the highest scholastic
training.
In New England began the earliest systematic preliminaries and
expansion in the line of schooling. It has the honor, as I have shown,
of founding the second institution of higher learning which survives
today. James Otis, Samuel and John Adams, foremost agitators on the
legal technicalities of opposition to England, were the best types of
the output of New England's educational opportunities of the times.
It is one of the greatest tributes to our forefathers that with these
limited and more frequently rude means of getting an education there
should have been so many examples of brain and culture to meet the
educational requirements of the conflict with the British Crown, the
preparation of documents which stood the most critical scrutiny, and
as well the preparation and negotiating of correspondence, conventions
and treaties to compare favorably with the most advanced university
educated statesmen of the Old World.
What I have said applies to men, but what about the young women of the
same period? Except in the few largest towns where some enterprising
woman was courageous enough of her own volition to establish a school
for young ladies, the education of women was not considered of
importance. The Moravians were the first and most notable exceptions.
The seminary at Bethlehem, almost in sight of where we are now
gathered, was famous in Revolutionary days.
In New York and Philadelphia there was an occasional fashionable
"school" for young ladies.
Abigail Smith, who became wife of John Adams, one of the earliest
agitators and leaders of the contest, one of the committee that drafted
the Declaration of Independence, first Vice-President and second
President of the United States, was a woman of education. Being the
daughter of a Congregational preacher and having a taste for books, her
father devoted much care to her instruction.
As John Adams, on account of his radical patriotism was the man the
British authorities most feared, and were looking for, the letters of
Mrs. Adams to her husband and his replies are valuable contributions to
American history.
They were perfect in writing, spelling, grammar and composition. I
may add, though, of a date long after, history is indebted to her
letters to her daughter for the only eye witness account we have of
the trials and tribulations of the journey of the President's family
from Philadelphia to Washington, in the fall of 1800, then the new
seat of government, getting lost in the woods and taking possession of
the unfinished President's palace, as it was called, without firewood
during bleak November days and nights with no looking glasses, lamps,
nor anything else to make a President's wife comfortable.
As a rule, young women were not educated in books, but taught to sew,
knit, spin, weave, cook, wash, iron and perform all other household
requirements. Her value in the scale of life was in proportion as she
was skilled in the duties of a housewife. This was the real type of
womanhood in those days, and should always be, with a cultivated mind
added.
When we read of their heroic maintenance of the home, care and training
of children, management of the farm, sale of its products and often
facing hardships in keeping the wolf from the door, while husbands,
sons and brothers were fighting for liberty and independence, we care
not whether they could read, write, spell, cast up accounts or not, but
think of their woman's contribution to the success of the contest.
It is positive that the fathers of the Revolution would not have been
successful but for the women, perhaps uneducated in books but competent
and self-sacrificing in maintaining the home, while the men were
fighting for liberty and free exercise of all its enjoyments. If this
great nation is a testimonial of what women without the aid of books
contributed in laying the foundation, what must now be expected of
women having every advantage of education from kindergarten and primary
schools to the woman's college?
I might mention sixteen colleges now exclusively devoted to the
education of young women in New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania,
Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, and Illinois
with a roll of eight thousand young women students.
The first seniority is Mount Holyoke, Mass., founded in 1837, having
755 scholars; the largest is Smith College, Northampton, Mass., 1,620
young women; next Wellesley, Mass., 1,375, and Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania,
1,125. To show the difference between now and the days of our
revolutionary fathers, the school houses were built of logs, one story
high, with bark roofs and puncheon or dirt floors, which on account
of incessant tramping usually became covered several inches deep with
dust. The teacher sat in the center of the room.
In the log walls around were driven wooden pegs upon which were laid
boards that formed the desks. The seats were rough stools or logs. All
sat with backs to the teacher. The windows to admit light were fitted
with white paper greased with lard instead of glass. The boy scholars
wore leather or dried skin aprons and buckskin tunics and leggins, when
they could not get woven materials. And the girls, coarsely woven flax
or wool bodices, skirts, kerchiefs, and aprons and footwear of wood,
coarse leather, not a few going barefoot.
The writing equipment in Revolutionary days consisted of ink which was
of home manufacture from an ink powder, quills and a pen knife, cutting
pens from goose quills being an art. The rest of the materials were
paper, pumice, a rule, wax, and black sand, shaken from a pepper box
arrangement, instead of blotting paper.
The earliest method of teaching before school text-books were known
was by what was termed the hornbook, a tablet of wood about 5 by 2
inches upon which was fastened a paper sheet containing the alphabet
in capitals and small letters across the top and simple syllables
like, ab, ad, etc.; below and underneath the whole the Lord's Prayer.
The paper containing this course of study was covered with a sheet
of transparent horn fastened around the edges. At the lower edge was
a small handle with a hole through it and a string to go around the
neck. By this means the advantages of a colonial education stayed by
the scholars if they wished to avail of them or not.
These hornbooks were made of oak, bound with metal for common folks,
but for the rich of iron and metal, often silver. Some were wrought
in silk needle work. Their popularity is shown by their advertisement
for sale in the Pennsylvania _Gazette_, December, 1760, and New York
_Gazette_, May, the same year. Battledore book was another name.
Another style was the printed cardboard battledore, about fifteen
inches long and folded over like a pocket book.
The primer succeeded the hornbooks, the New England Primer being one of
the earliest. It is recorded that three millions of these were sold, so
great was the desire for education in times preceding the Revolution.
These little books were five by three inches and contained 80 pages.
They gave short tables of easy spelling up to six syllables; also some
alphabetical religion in verse, as
K--for King Charles the good,
No man of blood.
In the Revolutionary days this was transposed to
K--for Kings and queens,
Both have beens.
Z appears to have been a poser in this alphabetical array of rhythmic
religion, rendered
Zaccheus he
Did climb a tree
His Lord to see.
The hours of study were eight a day.
There were also text-book writers in those early times.
Among the titles one reads: "A delysious syrup newly claryfied for
young scholars yt thurste for ye swete lycore of Latin speche."
Another: "A young Lady's Accident or a short and easy introduction to
English Grammar designed principally for the use of young learners,
more especially for those of the fair sex though proper for either."
Fifty-seven pages. It had a great sale.
It was the style of the time to set books of instruction in doggerel
verse, even spelling, grammar and arithmetic. The latter was taught
by means of "sum books," simply "sums" copied by the learner from an
original furnished by the teacher.
Alphabet lessons were similar to the alphabet blocks children play with
to-day, generally beginning with verses from the Bible. An interesting
fact is that we find the child's prayer, "Now I lay me down to sleep,"
in the New England Primer catechism as far back as 1737. A more
beautiful tribute could not be paid to this invocation of childhood
than the thought of the generations of American children who were thus
taught in their everyday lessons their dependence upon the Supreme
Being.
Some of the most interesting contributions we have to the literature of
the Revolutionary period are the letters of the educated women of the
time. They are the more pleasing because they relate to the affairs of
home and social life.
You, of this age of education of women are expected to exert a large
share in their extension and enjoyment.--_American Monthly Magazine._
NANCY HART.
Many people believe that Nancy Hart was a myth. But not so. In the
"Life and Times of William H. Crawford," by J. E. D. Shipp, of
Americus, the story is reproduced, as the Hart family lived not far
from the home of the Crawfords. Col. Shipp says:
On the north side of Broad River at a point about twelve miles
from the present city of Elberton, Ga., and fourteen from historic
Petersburg, in what is now Elbert County, was situated the log house
in which Benjamin Hart and his wife, Nancy Morgan Hart, lived at the
commencement of the Revolution. The spot is easily located to this day
as being near Dye's and Will's ferries, and on the opposite side of the
river from which Governor Matthews settled in 1784, near a small and
romantic stream known as "War Woman's Creek." This was the name given
to it by the Indians in honor of Nancy Hart, whom they admired and
feared. Her home was near the entrance of the stream into the river.
The State records show that Benjamin Hart drew 400 acres of land on
Broad River, and afterwards another body of land in Burke county. He
was a brother to the celebrated Col. Thomas Hart of Kentucky, who was
the father of the wife of Henry Clay. He was a well-to-do farmer, and
was compelled to take his stock and negroes to the swamp to protect
them and his own life from the unrestrained Tories. As captain of a
small company of 'Partisans,' he would sally forth from his hiding
place only whenever there was a chance of striking the enemy an
effective blow.
The Tories generally spared the women, but killed the men, though
unarmed. Nancy Hart, alone with six boys--Morgan, John, Thomas,
Benjamin, Lemuel and Mark--and her two girls, Sally and Keziah,
presents a unique case of patriotic fervor, courage and independence
of character. Rough, six feet tall, spare, bigboned and exceedingly
strong, she was highspirited, energetic and shrewd. The Whigs loved
her--the Liberty boys called her "Aunt Nancy." The Tories hated her.
When General Elijah Clark moved the women and children away from Broad
River settlement to a place of safety in Kentucky most of them were
anxious to go, but Nancy refused, and remained alone with her children
after her Whig neighbors had departed. Her house was a meeting place
for her husband's company. She aided as a spy and kept him informed of
the movements of the enemy. She always went to the mill alone and was
an expert equestrienne. One day while on her rounds she was met by a
band of Tories with the British colors striped on their hats. They knew
her and demanded her "pass." She shook her fist at them and replied:
"This is my pass; touch me if you dare."
Tories lived on the opposite side of the river from her, and she had
many trials with them. Some are noted. One night "Aunt Nancy" was
boiling a pot of lye soap in the big fireplace of her stack chimney.
Suddenly she noticed a pair of eyes and a bearded face at a crack
between the logs. Pretending not to see the prowler, she went on
stirring the soap and chatting with the children. Biding her time,
she deftly threw a ladleful of the boiling soap into the face of the
intruder, whom, blinded and roaring, Nancy bound fast and the next
morning marched him across the river, wading the ford, and delivered
him to Colonel Clark. She had many encounters, capturing Tories and
taking them to the commander.
But of all her acts of heroism this one eclipses all others. From
the detachment of British soldiers sent out from Augusta, and which
murdered Colonel Dooly, there were five who diverged to the east and
crossed Broad River to examine the neighborhood and paid a visit to
Nancy Hart. They unceremoniously entered her cabin. Being hungry,
they ordered her to cook food for them. She replied that the Tories
and the villains had put it out of her power to feed them, as she had
nothing. "That old gobler out there is all I have left." The leader
of the party shot down the turkey, brought it in and ordered Nancy
to prepare it without delay. She and her children went to work at
the task. Finally she heard her unwelcome guests boasting of killing
Col. Dooly. Then she appeared in good humor and exchanged rude jests
with them. Pleased with her freedom they invited her to partake of
their liquor, which she accepted with jocose thanks. While the turkey
was cooking Nancy sent her eldest daughter to the spring for water,
with directions to blow the conch shell, which sound her father would
interpret. The Tories became merry over the liquor, pouring it from the
jug with laughter, as they hurried up Nancy, anticipating a good feast.
They were at ease. They stacked their arms within easy reach, and Nancy
would ocasionally pass between the men and their muskets. The Tories
again called for water and Nancy again sent the daughter to the spring
for water--and to blow the signal for Captain Hart. Nancy was thinking
fast. Through a crack between the logs she slipped outside two of the
five guns. When the third was being put out she was discovered, and
the men sprang to their feet. In an instant Nancy brought the musket
to her shoulder, declaring she would kill the first man that moved.
Appalled by her audacity and fury, the men for a moment stood still;
then one of them made a quick movement to advance on her. She shot him
dead. Instantly seizing the other musket at her side she leveled it,
keeping the others at bay. By this time the daughter returned from
the spring and took the other gun out of the house, saying: "Father
and the company will soon be here." This alarmed the Tories and they
proposed a general rush. So Nancy fired and brought down another man
dead at her feet. The daughter handed her another gun and Nancy, moving
to the doorway, demanded surrender of the three living. "Yes, we will
surrender, and let's shake hands on the strength of it." But Nancy did
not shake hands. When Captain Hart and company arrived Nancy would
not let them shoot, saying: "These prisoners have surrendered to me;
they have murdered Colonel Dooly. I heard them say so." And George
Dooly, brother of Colonel Dooly, and McCorkle followed and saw that the
captured murderers were hanged.
John Hart, second son of Nancy, became an influential citizen of
Athens. Nancy lived with him after the death of Capt. Hart. In 1787,
when the two Virginia preachers, Thomas Humphries and John Majors, were
holding a great campmeeting in Wilkes County, Nancy became a staunch
adherent of the new faith and joined the church--Wesley's. She finally
moved to Kentucky, where her relatives, the Morgans, lived. Hart County
was named for her, and the town of Hartford, which in 1810 was the
county seat of Pulaski.
BATTLE OF KING'S MOUNTAIN.
BY MARION JACKSON HALL.
They heard the guns a-roaring,
They sounded far and wide;
They saw the rebels coming,
Up every mountain side.
The mountaineers, no longer tame,
From every hill and thicket came,
They rushed up every mountain side
To plunge into the swelling tide.
Ferguson knew, both good and well,
He would have to fight, on hill or dell,
But the number of rebels, he could not tell.
They were advancing, and walking fast,
When now they blew a long, shrill blast.
A smoke now covered the battlefield
With deaf'ning sound, of warlike peal.
The British flag was waving high,
When through the smoke there came a cry--
A cry from amidst the cloud did ring
From men that fought for England's king.
The English flag, they took it down,
Their leader was dead, and on the ground,
And panic stricken, they were found.
The rebels raged and charged again
And captured more than a thousand men;
They raised their flag up at top mast,
They saw and knew they were gaining fast.
The thunder roared, the lightning flashed,
And through the cloud some horsemen dashed,
The field was high, but there was mud,
For it was wet and red with blood.
It was a short, but bloody fight,
It filled the Tories all with fright--
They whipped the Tories, that was right.
The battlefield with blood was red,
And covered with wounded and with dead.
They smote and fell, who raised a hand,
To wipe the rebels from the land.
The Americans won that glorious fight
That put them all to thinking right,
They believed they should soon make their laws
And God was with their righteous cause.
WILLIAM CLEGHORN.
In the spring of 1728, a handful of sturdy Scotchmen started from
Chelmart, Scotland, for America, "The Land of the Free and the Home of
the Brave." Among these were the parents of the boy William Cleghorn,
whose true story is herein narrated.
He was a frail lad and partly for the love of the sea and partly for
his health, he enlisted in the Navy. We find him enrolled at Brunswick,
N. C., September 8th, 1748, as a member of Capt. Samuel Corbin's
Company. He proved a daring sailor, yet he was not so interested in
the Navy but that he had time to fall desperately in love with sweet
Thankful Dexter, of Falmouth.
Now, Thankful's father was a man of wealth, great wealth, for those
days, and a son-in-law, with nothing to recommend him but good looks
and a fine record as a daring sailor, did not appeal to him, but
demure, sweet Thankful had a will of her own. She saw that young
William was worthy of any woman's love, so never for an instant did she
even think of giving him up.
As time went on our hero began to be a power in the colonies. He was
interested in everything pertaining to their welfare. He soon began
to prosper financially, and on February 12, 1782, we find recorded
that he gave security for twenty thousand ($20,000.00) dollars, and
took command of the ten-gun ship "Virginia." Rickerton, the historian,
tells us in his history that our hero was "one of the earliest and most
intelligent ship masters" but "all the world loves a lover," and I
started to tell you chiefly about his love affair.
Thankful was always dreaming of William's bright, cheery face, and we
may be sure she lost no opportunity to say to her worldly, bustling
father, "Didn't I tell you so?" every time William brought new honors
upon himself.
As time went on this energetic young man conceived the idea of building
a sloop, which he did and named it the "Betsy." We wonder why he did
not call it "The Thankful" but perhaps Thankful had something to say
about that.
William loaded the "Betsy" with an immense cargo of oil and sailed
around Cape Horn. This was the very first voyage ever made around the
Cape, and can you not imagine how proud young William Cleghorn was? And
can you not almost hear Thankful telling her father about the wonderful
journey around Cape Horn?
The father was now convinced that William was not only valiant in war
and a persistent lover, but that he was an excellent business man as
well, so he withdrew his objections and Thankful Dexter became the
happy wife of William Cleghorn.
We can almost see the radiant Thankful in her homespun gown and pertly
poke bonnet, and the erect happy William with the air of a conquerer,
coming side by side from the little church, through the narrow paths
of Martha's Vineyard, to the home all ready for the happy couple, for
William was now a well-to-do young man.
We must not take them all through life's journey, for this is to be a
child's story, but alas for human joys, while on a visit to Boston in
1793, William Cleghorn was stricken with appoplexy and very suddenly
passed away.
When you go to Boston, go out to the old Granary Cemetery, so well
known by lovers of history, and inclosed in an iron railing you see a
white stone standing alone. Draw near and read the inscription and you
will see that there lies your hero, William, for on the stone you read:
Captain William Cleghorn
of
New Bedford.
Who died in a fit of appoplexy on a visit to this town,
February 24, 1793, in the 60th year of his age.
"Here lies entombed beneath the tufted clod,
A man beloved, the noblest of God.
With friendly throbs the heart shall beat no more,
Closed the gay scene, the pomp of life is o'er."
In the record of his will we find the following, which will show you
how our ancestors made their wills:
Two mahogony tables, 1 square table, 16 leather bottom chairs, 1
mahogony desk, 7 looking glasses, 1 set of china (42 pieces), 1 coffee
set (30 pieces), 34 linen sheets, 25 pair pillow cases, 1 pew in First
Congregational Meeting House, 1 pew in Second Congregational House,
etc., etc., besides a long list of notes and other properties.
This is very different from the wills of today, isn't it? I presume we
have many boys as brave and true as William, and many girls as dear and
sweet as Thankful, and perhaps one hundred years from now other boys
and girls will be reading about some of you. So let us live in such
a way that we may have our story written and enjoyed as is this true
story of Thankful Dexter and William Cleghorn.--EVELYN CLEGHORN DIMOCK
HENRY, Xavier Chapter, D. A. R., Rome, Ga.
THE BLUE LAWS OF OLD VIRGINIA.
Usually in discussion of blue laws, those very Draconian regulations
which have so aroused the ire or the respect of moderns, depending upon
which way they look at it, the debaters confine themselves mostly to
New England Puritan forms, or those of New York, Pennsylvania or New
Jersey.
In the days the Puritans formulated the blue laws, Virginia was looked
upon as the home of high living and frivolity. Even to this day few
would look for such measures among that old aristocratic colony.