that dyed as they thought by witchcraft and Boyled it whereupon the
Prisoner at the Barr came in and asked them what they were doing, they
said boyling of flesh, she said they had better they had boyled the
bones with severall other unseemly Expressions.
“Margaret Mattson saith that she values not Drystreets Evidence but if
Sunderlin’s mother had come she would have answered her also denyeth
Charles Ashcoms attestation at her soul and saith where is my daughter
lett her come and say so.
“Annakey Coolin’s attestation concerning the Gees she denyeth, saying
she was never out of her conoo, and also that she never said any such
things concerning the calves heart.
“The Prisoner denyeth all things and saith that ye witnesses speake only
by hear say.
“After which the Govr. gave the jury their charge concerning ye Prisoner
at ye Barr.
“The jury went forth and upon their Returne brought her in Guilty of
having the common fame of a witch but not Guilty in the manner and forme
as she stands indicted.
“Neels Mattson and Anthon. Neelson Enters into Recognizance of fifty
pounds apiece for the good behavior of Margaret Mattson for six months.”
In 1695 Robert Roman, presented by the grand inquest of Chester County
for practicing geomancy according to Hidon, and divining by a stick. He
submitted himself to the bench and was fined £5, and his books, Hidon’s
Temple of Wisdom, Scott’s Discovery of Witchcraft, and Cornelius
Agrippa’s Geomancy, were ordered to be taken from him and brought into
Court.
In 1701 a petition of Robert Guard and his wife was read before Council,
setting forth “That a certain strange woman lately arrived in this town,
being seized with a very sudden illness after she had been in their
company on the 17th instant, and several pins being taken out of her
breasts, one John Richards Butler and his wife Ann charged the
petitioners with witchcraft and as being the authors of the said
mischief.” A summons was issued accordingly, but the matter, being
judged trifling, was dismissed.
Even as late as 1719, the Commissions to the justices of Chester County
empowered them to inquire of all “witchcrafts, enchantments, sorceries
and magic arts.”
George Shrunk, of Germantown, known as “Old Shrunk,” was a great
conjuror and many persons from Philadelphia and elsewhere went to him to
learn where stolen goods were secreted and to have him tell their
fortunes. They believed he could make any thieves stand still, while
they desired to run away. They believed he could tell them where to dig
for money and hidden treasures, and this brought “Old Shrunk” much
business, for the idea was very prevalent that the pirates of
Blackbeard’s day had deposited treasures along the Delaware and
Schuylkill Rivers.
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Towns Laid Out in Erie County by Act of
Assembly, February 28, 1794
The frontiers of Pennsylvania had not been seriously harassed by the
Indians since the close of the Revolution, but late in 1793 they again
became restive and early in the following year so many depredations had
been committed along the western frontier of the State that the Assembly
on February 28, 1794, passed an act for enlisting soldiers for the
defense of the Delaware River and the western frontiers. At the same
time efforts were made toward the laying out of a town at Presqu’ Isle,
“in order to facilitate and promote the progress of settlement within
the Commonwealth and to afford additional security to the frontiers
thereof.”
Governor Mifflin transmitted to the President of the United States a
copy of this act, apprehending the difficulties which soon manifested
themselves. Prior to this he had sent to Captain Ebenezer Denny a
commission, giving him command of the Allegheny Company, which was
ordered to protect William Irvine, Andrew Elliott and Albert Gallatin,
who had been appointed Commissioners to lay out the town. For the same
object a post had been established at Le Boeuf, two miles below the old
French fort of the same name.
The three Commissioners were instructed to lay out 1,600 acres for town
lots and thirty-four acres for out-lots at Erie, the town lots to
contain about one-third of an acre and the out-lots to contain five
acres. In addition, sixty acres were reserved for the use of the United
States near the entrance of the harbor for forts, etc. Upon completion
of the surveys the Governor was authorized to offer at auction one-third
of all the lots, conditioned upon the building upon the lots within two
years of a house with a stone or brick chimney.
The troops were busily employed to protect the surveyors from the
incursions of the Indians. Miss Sanford in her History of Erie County
says:
“Thomas Rees, Esq., for more than half a century a citizen of Erie
County, made a deposition in 1806 as follows: ‘Thomas Rees of Harbor
Creek Township, in Erie County, farmer, being sworn according to law,
etc. I was appointed deputy surveyor of District No. 1 north and west of
the rivers Ohio, Allegheny and Connewango Creek, now Erie County, in
May, 1792, and opened an office in Northumberland County, which was the
adjoining. The reason of this was, all the accounts of the country north
and west of the rivers, Ohio, Allegheny, and the Connewango Creek,
represented it as dangerous to go into the country. In the latter part
of said year I received three hundred and ninety warrants, the property
of the Penn Population company for land situated in the Triangle and
entered the same year in my book of entries. In 1793 I made an attempt
to go; went to the mouth of Buffalo Creek to inquire of the Indians
there whether they would permit me to go into my district to make
surveys. They refused and added that if I went into the country I would
be killed. At the same time I received information from different
quarters which prevented me from going that year.
“‘In 1794 I went into District No. 1, now Erie County, and made surveys
on the three hundred and ninety warrants, mentioned above in the
Triangle, except one or two for which no lands could be found. Among the
surveys made on the warrants above mentioned, was that on the warrant in
the name of John McCullough.
“‘Before I had completed I was frequently alarmed by hearing of Indians
killing persons on the Allegheny River, in consequence of which, as soon
as the surveys were completed, I moved from the country and went to
Franklin, where I was informed that there were a number of Indians
belonging to the Six Nations going to Le Boeuf to order the troops off
that ground. I immediately returned to Le Boeuf. The Indians had left
the place one day before I arrived there. I was told by Major Denny,
then commanding at that place, that the Indians had brought General
Chapin, the Indian agent, with them to Le Boeuf; that they were very
much displeased, and told him not to build a garrison at Presqu’ Isle.
“‘There were no improvements made, nor any person living on any tract of
land within my district during the year 1794.
“‘In 1795 I went into the country and took a number of men with me. We
kept in a body, as there appeared to be great danger, and continued so
for that season. There was no work done of any consequence, nor was any
person, to my knowledge, residing on any tract within my district. In
the course of the summer the Commissioners came on to lay out the town
of Erie, with a company of men to guard them.
“There were two persons killed within one mile of Presqu’ Isle, and
others in different parts of the country. Such were the fears that
though some did occasionally venture out to view the lands, many would
not. We all laid under the protection of the troops. I sold, as agent of
the Penn Population Company, during that season, 79,700 acres of land,
of which 7,150 acres were a gratuity. The above quantity of land was
applied for and sold to 200 persons. That fall we left the country,’”
Captain Martin Strong, of Waterford, who had arrived at Presqu’ Isle the
last of July, 1795, said:
“A few days previous to this a company of United States troops had
commenced felling the timber on Garrison hill, headed by General
Elliott, escorted by a company of Pennsylvania militia commanded by
Captain John Grubb, to lay out the town of Erie. We were in some degree
under martial law, the two Rutledges having been shot a few days before
(July 26 or 27) by the Indians near the present site of the present
railway depot.
“In 1795 there were but four families residing in what is now Erie
County. These were the names of Reed, Talmadge, Miles and Baird. The
first mill built in the Triangle was at the mouth of Walnut Creek; there
were two others built about the same time in what is now Erie County;
one by William Miles, on the north branch of French Creek, now Union;
the other by William Culbertson, at the inlet of Conneautte Lake, near
Edinboro.”
In spite of all these preparations, the Legislature suspended the laying
out of a town at Presqu’ Isle, and it was not until April 18, 1795, the
difficulties were removed and the Assembly authorized the laying out of
the towns at Le Boeuf, at the mouth of Conewango Creek, at the mouth of
French Creek and at Presqu’ Isle.
July 25, 1796, the Harrisburg and Presqu’ Isle Company was formed “for
the settling, improving and populating the country near and adjoining to
Lake Erie.”
Erie County was erected March 12, 1800, and Erie named as the place for
holding courts of justice, but it was not organized judicially until
April, 1803, when Judge Jesse Moore held the first court near French and
Third Streets.
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Commissioners Appointed to Purchase Last
Indian Lands, February 29, 1784
William Maclay, Samuel John Atlee and Francis Johnson were appointed
February 29, 1784, by the Supreme Executive Council to be Commissioners
to treat with the Indians claiming the unpurchased territory within the
acknowledged limits of the State.
At the close of the Revolution, in 1783, the ownership of a large area
of the territory within the charter boundaries of Pennsylvania was still
claimed by the Indians of the several tribes that were commonly known as
the Six Nations.
The last purchase of lands from these Indians by the Proprietaries was
made at Fort Stanwix, November 5, 1768. The Indian claim, therefore,
embraced all that part of the State lying to the northwest of the
purchase lines of 1768.
As early as March 12, 1783, the General Assembly had passed an act
setting apart certain lands lying north and west of the Ohio and
Allegheny Rivers and Conewango Creek to be sold for the purpose of
redeeming the depreciation certificates given to the officers and
soldiers of the Pennsylvania Line, and for the purpose of making
donations of land to the same officers and soldiers in compliance with a
resolution adopted in 1780.
At the time this resolution was adopted the Indian claim of title to
these lands was still in force, but the authorities were fully alive to
the necessity of securing the right to all the lands within the
State—about five-sixteenths of its area—that remained unpurchased after
the treaty of 1768.
September 25, 1783, the General Assembly placed itself on record in the
form of a resolution which recommended the appointment of a committee to
devise ways and means for this acquisition.
The three persons named as commissioners acknowledged their appointment
to the trust May 17, and recommended that Samuel Weiser, a son of
Colonel Conrad Weiser, a proper person to notify the Indians of the
desire to treat with them, as he was familiar with their language and
customs and could also act as interpreter.
The Continental Congress had likewise appointed Commissioners to meet
the Six Nations for the purpose of purchasing lands beyond the limits of
Pennsylvania, and these arranged for the meeting at Fort Stanwix. The
Commissioners of Pennsylvania reached Fort Stanwix early in the month of
October, where they found some of the tribes already assembled, and with
them the Commissioners of the Continental Congress.
The negotiations continued until the twenty-third of the month, and on
that day ended in an agreement by which the Indian title to all the
lands within the boundaries of the State that remained after the title
of 1768 was extinguished. The consideration agreed upon for this
surrender of their rights was $5,000.
This deed, dated October 23, 1784, is signed by all the chiefs of the
Six Nations and by the Continental Commissioners as witnesses.
The territory thus acquired included a part of the present Bradford,
Tioga, Clinton, Center, Clearfield, Indiana, Armstrong, Allegheny and
Beaver Counties, and all of the land within Crawford, Mercer, Lawrence,
Butler, Venango, Clarion, Forest, Jefferson, Elk, Warren, McKean, Potter
and Cameron Counties and all of Erie County, excepting the small portion
of the Erie triangle which did not become a part of Erie County until
1792.
After the Commissioners had accomplished in so satisfactory a manner the
object for which they journeyed to Fort Stanwix, it became necessary to
appease the Western Indians, the Wyandot and the Delaware, who also
claimed rights to the same lands.
The same Commissioners were therefore sent to Fort Mcintosh, on the Ohio
River, at the site of the present town of Beaver, where in January,
1785, they were successful in reaching an agreement with those Indians
for the same lands. This deed, signed by the chiefs of both tribes, is
dated January 21, 1785, and is in the same words (except as to the
consideration money, which is $2,000) and recites the same boundaries as
the deed signed at Fort Stanwix.
The Indian claim of right to the soil of Pennsylvania, within its
charter limits, had thus, in a period of a little more than one hundred
years ceased to exist.
This large and important division of our great Commonwealth, now teeming
with population and wealth, thriving villages, busy towns and great
cities, was, in 1784, largely an uninhabited and untraversed wilderness.
After the purchase of 1768 a disagreement arose between the Proprietary
Government and the Indians as to whether the creek flowing into the West
Branch of the Susquehanna, and called in the deed “Tyadaghton” was
intended for Lycoming Creek or Pine Creek. The Indians said it was the
former, the proprietaries claimed the latter stream to be the extent of
the purchase, but in order to avoid any trouble that might arise from
the dispute, it was wisely determined that no rights should be granted
for lands west of Lycoming Creek.
This determination, however, did not deter or prevent adventurous
pioneers from making settlements within the disputed territory.
These settlers, being classed as outlaws, were compelled to enter into
an agreement for their government and protection. This resulted in an
organization known as Fair Play Men.
It is handed down as a tradition that they met when and where the
exigencies arose, and on short notice, tried the case at hand.
It is related that when a squatter refused to abide by the decision of
the court, he was immediately placed in a canoe, in which was a small
quantity of food, then rowed to the mouth of Lycoming Creek, the
boundary line of civilization, and there sent adrift down the river.
These Fair Play courts were composed of three commissioners as they were
termed, and after hearing a case and making a decision, there was no
appeal.
After the purchase of 1784 it was discovered that the trouble was likely
to arise with the original squatters and the Legislature passed an act
entitling those who had made actual settlement prior to 1780, the
benefit of pre-emption to their respective possessions.
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First Law to Educate Poor Children Signed
March 1, 1802
The same earnest solicitude for public education which made itself
manifest in the settlement of the New England Colonies in an unusual
degree does not run through the early history of Pennsylvania, yet,
outside of the Puritan settlements, there was no other colony which paid
so much attention as Pennsylvania to the mental training of youth.
During the seventeenth century the general character of the province, as
regards the intelligence of its people, stood deservedly high. The
school-house, with its inevitable concomitant, the printing-press, never
at any time ceased to exert its wholesome influence in training up a
population which as regards sobriety, thrift, and all the substantial
qualities that flow from instructions, has never been surpassed by any
other great community.
William Penn, who was one of the most accomplished scholars of his time,
never wearied in pointing out to the colony the advantages of public
education. The Constitution which he proposed for the infant
Commonwealth contains the direction that virtue and wisdom must be
propagated by educating the youth, and that after ages would have the
benefit of the care and prudence of the founders in this respect.
It was one of the provisions of the great law of April 25, 1683, that
“schools should be established for the education of the young” and those
in authority did not long delay in carrying it into practical effect.
On December 26, 1683, the subject of education was brought up in the
Provincial Council, when it was agreed that there existed a great
necessity for a schoolmaster. Accordingly an agreement was entered into
with Enoch Flower, who promised that in conducting such an establishment
as was needed he would charge only four shillings for teaching English
each quarter, six shillings for reading, writing and costing accounts. A
scholar who boarded with him would receive his tuition as well as his
lodging, meals and washing for £10 a year.
This was the first regular English school in Pennsylvania. There had
been schools during the ascendancy of the Swedes and the Dutch. The
former are known to have maintained schools at Chester and Tinicum as
early as 1642, and the Dutch records show that in 1657 Evert Pieterson
came over from Holland, and in the capacity of “schoolmaster, comforter
of the sick and setter of Psalms,” sought twenty-five pupils.
In 1689 George Keith was engaged at a salary of £50 a year, the use of a
house, and the profits of the school for one year, to open a grammar
school in Philadelphia. This institution was a flourishing one for many
years. Here the children of the poor were instructed free of charge, the
schoolhouse being located on Fourth Street, below Chestnut, and
conducted under a charter which had been procured by Edward Shippen,
David Lloyd, John Jones, Samuel Carpenter, Anthony Morris, James Fox,
William Southby and others.
Darby became the seat of a school in 1692. One was established in
Germantown in 1701, with the learned Pastorius at its head.
No church or sect was more active in education than the Moravians, and
schools were established at Germantown, Nazareth, Bethlehem and Lititz.
Christopher Dock, “the pious schoolmaster of the Skippack,” taught a
Moravian school in Germantown, and is the author of the first book on
school teaching published in America.
During the sixty years following the establishment of Keith’s school
there was no attempt made to start schools that would be free to all and
not marked by the distinction between the rich and poor children. This
democratic principle was not clearly formulated and advanced until it
was taken up by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, when he distributed gratis a
pamphlet which soon became productive of important results in the
establishment of the future University of Pennsylvania. Prior to that
time most of the schools in the province were conducted either under
strictly private auspices or under the patronage of religious
denominations.
March 1, 1802, Governor Thomas McKean signed the first law for the
education of the children of the poor gratis, although both the
Constitution of 1776 and that of 1790 provided for the establishment of
“a school or schools in every county.” Owing to the lameness of this
law, it remained a dead statute so far as some of the counties of the
State were concerned.
The City and County of Philadelphia had been erected into “the first
school district of Pennsylvania” in 1818, and in 1822 the City and
County of Lancaster were erected into “the second school district.”
These, termed the Lancasterian methods, were the beginnings of that
glorious system of free education which has been a blessing to our great
Commonwealth.
Up to 1830, the great free-school system, as we now have it, was still
in embryo. The people began to awaken; public meetings were held all
over the State, resolutions were adopted, comparisons with other States
were made. The result was that on March 15, 1834, “An Act to Establish a
General System of Education by Common Schools” was passed. Only a single
member of the House and three Senators voted nay.
Late in 1834 the enemies of free schools attacked the measure all over
the State, and the Senate voted to repeal the act of 1834, but Thaddeus
Stevens saved the measure in the House. By 1848 this school law had
grown much in favor, but it was not until 1874 that the last district in
the State accepted the law. State Superintendent Wickersham then said in
his annual report: “For the first time in our history the door of a
public school house stands open to receive every child of proper age
within the limits of the State.”
The progress of education after 1850 was very rapid. The crowning acts
to make elementary education universal were the free textbook law of
1893 and the compulsory attendance law of 1895.
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Pennsylvania on Paper Money Basis When
Bills of Credit Are Issued
March 2, 1722–23
The first bills of credit, or paper-money, issued in the English
American colonies were put forth by Massachusetts, in 1690, to pay the
troops who went on an expedition against Quebec, under Sir William
Phipps.
It was Governor Sir William Keith who first introduced the people of
Pennsylvania to the pleasures and benefits of an irredeemable paper
currency.
There had been great and long-standing complaint about the deficiency of
a circulating medium, for the use of wampum had ceased, and foreign coin
had never become plenty. The course of exchange ran heavily against the
Province, and those who possessed money made enormous profits by the
purchase and sale of bills.
The merchants of England did not ship bank-notes or coin to the
Provinces. They paid for the produce which they purchased here with
English goods, and settled the balances by shipments of sugar, rum,
etc., from Barbadoes and other places in the West Indies, and by Negroes
and indentured servants.
There seems to have been more hard money in Philadelphia than in New
England, for Franklin, a paper-money man, notes in his autobiography how
his fellow-workmen in Boston were surprised when he returned to his
brother’s place in 1724 from Philadelphia. Franklin displayed a handful
of silver, which was a rare sight, for they only had paper-money in
Boston.
When Franklin first visited Philadelphia, in 1723, he noticed with
surprise the free circulation of metallic money among the people of
Pennsylvania. The whole of his own money then consisted of a Dutch
dollar and a shilling’s worth of coppers.
But this condition soon changed for James Logan, in writing to the
Proprietaries late in 1724, says, “No gold or silver passes amongst us.”
The Proprietary demanded sterling money in payment of quit-rents, no
matter what the depreciation of the provincial currency. This was their
right since they had nothing to do either with the emission of the
currency or its depreciation.
As early as 1729 Logan wrote, “I dare not speak one word against it. The
popular phrenzy will never stop till their credit will be as bad as they
are in New England, where an ounce of silver is worth twenty shillings
of this paper. They already talk of making more, and no man dares appear
to stem the fury of popular rage.” Logan at that early date thought the
king should arrest the delusion by proclamation.
The peltries, grain, flour, ships, cooper-stuff, and lumber of
Philadelphia were always good for hard money with a good mercantile
system. But the people were not satisfied.