Let us go westward across the Alleghenies by the Pennsylvania route.
East of the mountains it traverses a rich agricultural region,
limestone valleys, intersected by running streams and enclosed between
parallel ridges of hills, stretching, like the mountain ranges, across
the country from northeast to southwest. It is a land of prolific
farms and dairies, and for miles beyond Philadelphia the line is
adjoined by attractive villages and many beautiful suburban villas.
Three noted institutions of learning are passed--Haverford College,
the great Quaker College, standing in an extensive wooded park; the
Roman Catholic Augustinian College at Villa Nova, with its
cross-surmounted dome and twin church spires; and the Bryn Mawr
College for women, one of the most famous in the United States. This
is a region first settled by Welsh Quakers, and the name Bryn Mawr is
Welsh for the "great hill." It is a wealthy and extensive settlement,
and its College has spacious buildings and over three hundred
students. At the Commencements they all join in singing their
impressive College hymn:
"Thou Gracious Inspiration, our guiding star,
Mistress and Mother, all hail Bryn Mawr,
Goddess of wisdom, thy torch divine
Doth beacon thy votaries to thy shrine,
And we, thy daughters, would thy vestals be,
Thy torch to consecrate eternally."
A few miles beyond is Paoli, preserving in its name the memory of the
Corsican patriot Paoli, and the birthplace of the Revolutionary
General "Mad Anthony" Wayne. Here the British defeated the American
patriots in September, 1777. It stands on the verge of one of the
garden spots of Pennsylvania, the Chester Valley, a charming region of
broad and smiling acres, bounded on the northwest by the Welsh
Mountain and Mine Hill, and a veritable land of plenty. The Brandywine
and Valley Creeks water it, flowing out respectively to the Delaware
and the Schuylkill. Beyond the long ridge of Mine Hill is Lancaster
County, another land of rich farms, with many miles of grain and
tobacco fields. Mine Hill is the watershed between the Delaware and
the Susquehanna, the fertile Pequea Valley being at its western base.
This is a great wheat country, and from here was sent the first
American grain across the Atlantic to feed Europe, the Lancaster
County wheat, in the days before the railroads brought it from the
West, ruling prices for the American markets. It was hauled out in the
ponderous Conestoga wagons, named after the Indian tribe which
formerly ruled this region--their name signifying "the great magic
land." They were a quarrelsome people, fighting all the neighboring
tribes, and becoming deadly foes of the whites. Repeated wars
decimated them, until in 1763 their last remnant, being hunted almost
to death, took refuge in the ancient jail at Lancaster, and were
cruelly massacred by the guerillas called the "Paxton Boys."
In the midst of the wheat lands and bordering the broad Conestoga
Creek, flowing down to the Susquehanna at Safe Harbor, is the city of
Lancaster, its red sandstone castellated jail being a conspicuous
object in the view. This city was originally called Hickory Town, but
in the eighteenth century its loyal people christened it Lancaster,
and named the chief streets, intersecting at the Central Market
Square, King and Queen Streets, with Duke Street parallel to the
latter. Prior to 1812 it was the capital of Pennsylvania. Lancaster is
an attractive and comfortable old city of thirty-five thousand
population, with many mills and factories and large tobacco houses. It
has a splendid Soldiers' Monument in the Central Square, with finely
sculptured guards, representing each branch of the service, watching
at the base of the magnificent shaft. Upon the outskirts are the
ornate buildings of Franklin and Marshall College, a foundation of the
German Reformed Church, and it also has a Theological Seminary. The
charm of Lancaster, however, is Woodward Hill Cemetery, on a bold
bluff, washed by the Conestoga Creek, which forms a graceful circle
around its base. Upon the surface and sides of the bluff the graves
are terraced. Here is the tomb of James Buchanan, the only President
sent from Pennsylvania, who died in 1868, at his home of Wheatland on
the outskirts of the town. Another noted citizen of Lancaster was
Thaddeus Stevens, who long represented it in Congress, and was the
Republican leader in the House of Representatives during the Civil
War, and afterwards until his death in 1868. He was the great champion
of the emancipation of the negro race, and refused to be buried in the
cemetery because negroes were excluded. Upon the grave which he
selected in Lancaster are these words: "I repose in this quiet and
secluded spot, not from any natural preference for solitude, but
finding other cemeteries limited by charter rules as to race. I have
chosen it that I might be enabled to illustrate in death the principle
which I have advocated through a long life--equality of man before
his Creator." When Lancaster was the chief town of the Colonial
frontier in 1753, it was the place where Braddock's unfortunate
expedition against Fort Duquesne at Pittsburg was organized and
equipped, the work being mainly directed by Benjamin Franklin. Robert
Fulton was born in Lancaster County, and he grew up and was educated
at Lancaster, going afterwards to Philadelphia.
[Illustration: _The Susquehanna West of Falmouth_]