a single purpose. The Committee of Correspondence took charge of the
meeting and its authority was recognized and accepted.
Only one resolution was proposed and adopted, to “associate together, to
defend with arms their property, liberty and lives against all attempts
to deprive them of it,” and then, with impatience and eagerness, to
action. The time for words was passed. The time for organization,
arming, drilling and marching had come.
The enrollment began at this meeting. The committee besought all who had
arms to let them know, so that they might be purchased and secured. The
associates availed themselves of their existing organization to turn
themselves forthwith into military companies.
It was agreed that two troops of light horse, two companies of riflemen
and two companies of artillery, with brass and iron field pieces, should
be formed immediately.
Drilling was started at once, and the progress was so marked that the
companies were ready to parade by May 10, when they turned out to
receive Continental Congress, and also to honor John Hancock.
The foot company and riflemen turned out to meet the Southern delegates
to Congress at Gray’s Ferry. The officers of all the companies mounted,
went out to meet the Eastern delegates and Hancock.
The associators’ organization was officered as follows: First Battalion,
John Dickinson, colonel; John Chevalier, lieutenant colonel; Jacob
Morgan and William Coates, majors. Second Battalion, Daniel Roderdeau,
colonel; Joseph Reed, lieutenant colonel; John Cox and John Bayard,
majors. Third Battalion, John Cadwallader, colonel; John Nixon,
lieutenant colonel; Thomas Mifflin and Samuel Merideth, majors.
Peter Markoe was captain of the light horse, Joseph Cowperthwait of the
Quaker Blues, James Biddle, Benjamin Loxley, Thomas Proctor and Joseph
Moulder, were officers of the artillery, and Richard Peters, Tench
Francis, William Bradford and Lambert Cadwallader were in command of the
Greens. John Shee, John Wilcocks, Thomas Willing, Francis Gurney and
others were of the staff.
The battalions, mustering 1500 men, all uniformed and equipped, and 500
artillerymen and troops of horse, gave a drill early in June in the
presence of the “honorable members of the Continental Congress and
several thousand spectators.”
The troops were reviewed by General Washington on June 20 and next day
he set out for Boston escorted across New Jersey by the cavalry troop.
On June 23, the associators listened to an eloquent sermon by the
Reverend Dr. William Smith.
They petitioned the Assembly, setting forth a full and detailed account
of their organization into companies, etc., and asked that they be put
into service at once. Neither the Governor nor the Council had the power
or funds to comply, and even the Congress had no direct authority as yet
to raise an army.
Franklin had returned from England May 5, and the next morning he was
elected to Congress. But his work on the Committee of Safety is really
the history of the defense of Philadelphia during the first year of the
war.
It was late in June before the Committee of Safety was given power to
employ the associators, and the city and counties were called upon to
provide arms and equipment, the House agreeing to pay for the service of
the troops.
A committee was named whose duty it was to call troops into the service
as necessity demanded and to provide for the defense of this Province
against insurrections and invasion.
The Committee of Safety met July 3. Franklin was unanimously chosen
president, and William Govett, clerk. It proceeded to business with
energy and dispatch.
----------
Frame of Government Written by William
Penn, April 25, 1682
Penn’s remarkable frame of Government, dated April 25, 1682, was so far
in advance of the age that, as Bancroft says, “its essential principles
remain to this day without change.” Another competent critic has said
that in it was “the germ if not the development of every valuable
improvement in Government or legislation which has been introduced into
the political systems of more modern epochs.”
The government was to consist of the Governor, a Provincial Council, and
a General Assembly. These bodies, which were to make laws, create
courts, choose officers and transact public affairs, were to be elected
by the freemen by ballot. By freemen, were meant not only handholders,
but “every inhabitant, artificer, or other resident that pays scot or
lot to the Government.” Penn believed that “any government is free to
the people under it, whatever be the frame, where the laws rule and the
people are a party to those laws, and more than this is tyranny,
oligarchy or confusion.”
The “Frame of Government” and the “Laws Agreed Upon in England” were the
final products of all Penn’s best thinking and conferences, and were
brought with him to the Colony. Though changed in form many times, they
shaped all future Constitutions of Pennsylvania, of other States and
even the Federal Union.
This frame was published by Penn, together with certain laws agreed on
between himself and the purchasers under him, entitled “The Frame of the
Government of the Province of Pennsylvania, in America; together with
certain laws, agreed upon in England by the Governor and divers of the
Free Men of the aforesaid Province. To be further Explained and
Confirmed there, by the First Provincial Council and General Assembly
that shall be held, if they seem meet.”
James Claypoole called it in one of his letters, “the fundamentals for
government.” In effect it was the first Constitution of Pennsylvania. It
was the work of William Penn and reflects precisely some of the
brightest and some of the much less bright traits of his genius and
character.
The “preface” or preamble to this Constitution is curious, for it is
written as if Penn felt that the eyes of the court were upon him. The
first two paragraphs form a simple excursus upon the doctrine of the law
and the transgressor as expounded in St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans:
“For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am carnal, sold under the
sin,” etc. From this Penn derives “the divine right of government,” the
object of government being two-fold, to terrify evildoers and to cherish
those who do well “which gives government a life beyond corruption (i.
e., divine right), and makes it as durable in the world as good men
should be.” Hence Penn thought that government seemed like a part of
religion itself, a thing sacred in its institution and end.
“They weakly err,” continues Penn, “that think there is no other use of
government than correction; which is the coarsest part of it. * * * Men
side with their passions against their reason, and their sinister
interests have so strong a bias upon their minds that they lean to them
against the good of the things they know.”
The form, he concludes, does not matter much after all, “Any government
is free to the people under it (whatever be the frame) where the laws
rule and the people are a party to these laws.” Good men are to be
preferred even above good laws. The frame of laws now published, Penn
adds, “has been carefully contrived to secure the people from abuse of
power.”
In the Constitution which follows the preamble, Penn begins by
confirming to the freemen of the province all the liberties, franchises
and properties secured to them by the patent of King Charles II.
After stating how the government was to be organized, he directed that
the council of seventy-two members, was to be elected at once, one-third
of the members to go out, and their successors elected each year, and
after the first seven years those going out each year shall not be
returned within a year. Two-thirds of the members constituted a quorum
on all important matters, but twenty-four would suffice on minor
questions.
The Governor was to preside and to have three votes. All bills should be
prepared and proposed by the Council for presentation to the General
Assembly, which body, on the ninth day should pass or defeat such
measures as presented.
To be sure the Provincial Council also was an elective body, but the
difference was in the fact that it was meant to consist of the
Governor’s friends; it was an aristocratic body, and therefore not
entirely representative.
Aside from this fatal defect there is much to praise in Penn’s
Constitution and something to wonder at, as being so far in advance of
his age.
Besides carefully defining and limiting the executive functions of the
Governor and Council a wholesome and liberal provision was made for
education, public schools, inventions and useful scientific discoveries.
The Constitution could not be altered without the consent of the
Governor and six-sevenths of the Council and the General Assembly, which
rule, if enforced, would have perpetuated any Constitution, however bad.
On May 15, 1682, Penn’s code of laws, passed in England, to be altered
or amended in Pennsylvania, was promulgated. It consisted of forty
statutes, the first of which declared the character or Constitution,
which has just been analyzed to be “fundamental in the Government
itself.”
Regulations as to taxes, trials, prisons and marriage were clearly set
forth in the code. It was also arranged that every child of twelve
should be taught some useful trade. Members of the Council and General
Assembly, as well as Judges, were to be professing Christians. Every one
was to be allowed to worship God according to the dictates of his own
conscience and this not as a mere matter of toleration, but because it
was an inherent right.
The penalty of death was to be inflicted sparingly; some 200 offenses
which were named as capital by English law were to be punished in a
lighter manner.
During Penn’s absence there was clashing, dissension and tumult. If he
could have kept his hand in person on the Government for a generation
there would have been a wonderful difference in the results attained.
----------
Indians Captured James McKnight, Assemblyman,
April 26, 1779
In the spring of 1779 conditions along the frontier became more serious
than in any time past. The Indians were more active and destroyed
growing crops and burned the homes and outbuildings of the settlers,
whom they murdered or took away in captivity.
The condition was so alarming it was reported to the Supreme Executive
Council. One such letter, dated “Fort Augusta 27th April, 1779” written
by Colonel Samuel Hunter, was in part: “I am really sorry to inform you
of our present Disturbances; not a day, but there is some of the Enemy
makes their appearances on our Frontiers. On Sunday last, there was a
party of Savages attact’d the inhabitants that lived near Fort Jenkins,
and had taken two or three familys prisoners, but the Garrison being
appris’d of it, about thirty men turned out of the Fort and Rescued the
Prisoners; the Indians collecting Themselves in a body drove our men
under Cover of the Fort, with the loss of three men kill’d & four Badly
Wounded; they burned several houses near the Fort, kill’d cattle, &
drove off a number of Horses.
“Yesterday there was another party of Indians, about thirty or forty,
kill’d and took seven of our militia, that was stationed at a little
Fort near Muncy Hill, call’d Fort Freeland; there was two or three of
the inhabitants taken prisoners; among the latter is James McKnight,
Esqr., one of our Assemblymen; the same day a party of thirteen of the
inhabitants that went to hunt their Horses, about four or five miles
from Fort Muncy was fired upon by a large party of Indians, and all
taken or kill’d except one man. Captain Walker, of the Continental
Troops, who commands at that post turned out with thirty-four men to the
place he heard the firing, and found four men kill’d and scalped and
supposes they Captured ye Remaind’r.
“This is the way our Frontiers is harrassed by a cruel Savage Enemy, so
that they cannot get any Spring crops in to induce them to stay in the
County. I am afraid in a very short time we shall have no inhabitants
above this place unless when General Hand arrives here he may order some
of the Troops at Wyoming down on our Frontiers, all Col. Hartley’s
Regiment, our two month’s men, and what militia we can turn out, is very
inadequate to guard our Country.
“I am certain everything is doing for our relief but afraid it will be
too late for this County, as its impossible to prevail on the
inhabitants to make a stand, upon account of their Women and Childer.
“Our case is Really deplorable and alarming, and our County on ye Eve of
breaking up, as I am informed at the time I am writing this by two or
three expresses that there is nothing to be seen but Desolation, fire &
smoke, as the inhabitants is collected at particular places, the Enemy
burns all their Houses that they have evacuated.” The bearer of this
important letter was James Hepburn.
It is a matter of interest that the James McKnight captured at Fort
Freeland had secured 300 acres of land, April 3, 1769, in what is now
Union County, where he brought his family. In 1774 they purchased three
tracts of land “contiguous to and bounded on each other,” on Limestone
Run, in Turbut Township, Northumberland County.
In 1776 William McKnight was chosen a member of the Committee of Safety,
and was a most zealous and active patriot.
Both he and his wife perished at the hands of the Indians, when they
attempted to make a trip from Fort Freeland, where they had sought
refuge from the savages. Their only son, James, carried their bodies
from Fort Freeland to the graveyard now known as Chillisquaque, and
there buried them himself.
James McKnight had three sisters. He married Elizabeth Gillen, and was
regarded as a man of great courage and rectitude. In 1778 he was elected
to the General Assembly, but did not long survive to enjoy the honor.
The McKnight family had frequent and terrible experiences with the
Indians. In the autumn of 1778 Mrs. James McKnight and Mrs. Margaret
Wilson Durham, each with an infant in her arms, started on horseback
from Fort Freeland to go to Northumberland. Near the mouth of Warrior
Run, about two miles from the fort, they were fired upon by a band of
Indians, lying in ambush. Mrs. Durham’s child was killed in her arms,
and she fell from her horse. An Indian rushed out of the bushes, scalped
her and fled.
Alexander Guffy and two companions named Peter and Ellis Williams rushed
to the scene of the shooting and when they approached Mrs. Durham, whom
they supposed dead, they were greatly surprised to see her rise up and
piteously call for water. With the loss of her scalp she presented a
horrible appearance. Guffy ran to the river and brought water in his
hat. They then bound up her head, as best they could, and placed her in
a canoe and hastily paddled down stream fifteen miles to Sunbury, where
Colonel William Plunket, also a distinguished physician, dressed her
wounded head, and she recovered. She died in 1829, aged seventy-four
years.
Mrs. McKnight escaped unhurt from the surprise attack. The shots
frightened the horse she was riding, it turned and ran back to the fort.
Mrs. McKnight came near losing her child, when the horse wheeled and the
child fell from her arms, but she caught it by the foot and held to it
until the fort was reached.
Two sons of Mrs. McKnight, who were accompanying the party on foot,
attempted to escape by hiding under the bank of the river, but were
taken by the Indians.
James Durham, husband of Margaret, was taken at the same time. The three
prisoners survived their captivity in Canada, and returned to their
homes at the close of the Revolution in 1783.
On the eventful day that the little stockade was next attacked, April
26, 1779, Hon. James McKnight, was captured by the Indians.
William McKnight and his wife and James and his wife are interred in the
old Chillisquaque burying ground.
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Steam Boat Susquehanna, in Effort to
Navigate River, Starts Fatal Trip,
April 27, 1826
Even before the advent of canals or railroads the enterprising merchants
of Baltimore sensed the importance of facilitating the commerce along
the great Susquehanna River.
They believed it would materially enhance their volume of business,
especially in lumber, iron, grain, and whiskey, if the river would be
freed of such obstructions as impeded or hindered navigation.
Large sums of money were expended in removing rocky channels in the
river below Columbia, so as to admit the passage of arks and rafts down
stream, on their way to tide water. A canal had been constructed from
Port Deposit, northward, in order that the returning craft might avoid
the shoals and dangerous reefs along the first ten miles above tide
water.
Yet in spite of all these improvements no satisfactory way had been
found which would return to the producers of the Susquehanna Valley such
articles of commerce and merchandise as they would naturally require in
return for the raw products of the forest, field and mine.
The authorities of Pennsylvania were also awake to the situation, as
were the citizens. Several attempts had been made to have complete
surveys of the river and estimates of the cost of the work required to
make the great river navigable.
To Baltimore, more than to Pennsylvania, belongs the credit of an actual
attempt to establish steamboat navigation.
In 1825 a small steamboat, named the Susquehanna, was built in Baltimore
and, when launched, was towed up to Port Deposit.
The Harrisburg Chronicle said:
“The Susquehanna was expected at Columbia on Sunday night, Tuesday’s
reports were, that she had not got to Columbia. Eye-witnesses to her
progress put the matter to rest on Wednesday; they had seen her a short
distance above the head of the Maryland Canal, with a posse of men
tugging at the ropes, and when they had tugged nine miles gave up the
job. So ended all the romance about the Susquehanna. She drew too much
water (22 inches) for the purpose and started at the wrong point.
Watermen say that the crookedness of the channel, with the rapidity of
the current, makes it utterly impossible for a steamboat to ascend the
falls between the head of the canal and Columbia.”
The Chronicle article says further: “We have a report that Mr.
Winchester, of Baltimore, has contracted for the building of a steamboat
at York Haven. We also learn that the York Company are making great
progress with the sheet-iron steamboat, and that she will be launched
about the 4th of July.”
This sheetiron boat was called the Codorus, and early in April of the
next year ascended the river as far as Binghamton, after which she
returned to York Haven. Her captain, a Mr. Elger, reported that
navigation of the Susquehanna by steam was impracticable.
Either the original Susquehanna renamed or another steamboat built by
the Baltimore promoters, and named Susquehanna and Baltimore was put on
the river and operation above Conewago Falls by Captain Cornwell, an
experienced river pilot.
She was accompanied on her trial trip on this portion of the river by a
board of Commissioners of the State of Maryland, Messrs. Patterson,
Ellicott and Morris, three distinguished citizens of Baltimore. Capt.
Cornwell had already in March made several successful trips as far up as
Northumberland and Danville on the North Branch and to Milton on the
West Branch, returning to York Haven without accident.
April 17, 1826, the boat started from York Haven, having in tow a large
keel boat capable of carrying a thousand bushels of wheat, and proceeded
on her fatal trip, arriving at the Nescopeck Falls at 4 o’clock on May
3. At these falls there was an outer and an artificial inner channel of
shallow water for the accommodation of rafts and arks. Capt. Cornwell
decided after consulting with other river men on board, to try first the
main, or deep water channel, and the captain argued that if the boat
would not stem it, that he could then drop back and try the other one.
The boat made a halt in a small eddy below the falls on the east side of
the river and some of the passengers went ashore; this was the case with
the Maryland Commissioners.
The boat was directed into the main channel, and had proceeded perhaps
two-thirds of the distance through the falls, when she ceased to make
further progress, the engine was stopped and she was permitted to drift
back to the foot of the rapid, where she struck upon a wall dividing the
artificial from the main channel, and at that instant one of her boilers
exploded.
The scene was as awful as the imagination can picture. Two of the
passengers on board, named John Turk and Heber Whitmarsh, raftmen from
Chenango, N.Y., were instantly killed; William Camp, a merchant from
Owego, was fatally scalded by escaping steam. Dave Rose, of Chenango, N.
Y., was fatally injured. Quincy Maynard, the engineer, as stated in the
account published in the Danville Watchman, one week after the
occurrence, was not expected to recover. Christian Brobst, of Catawissa
and Jeremiah Miller, of Juniata, were seriously injured. Messrs.
Woodside, Colt and Underwood, of Danville, were more or less injured, as
were Messrs. Barton, Hurley, Foster and Colonel Paxton, of Catawissa,
and Benjamin Edwards, of Braintrim, Luzerne County.
It was said by somebody on board that at the time of the explosion, a
passenger was holding down the lever of the safety valve, but why this
should be done after the boat had ceased her efforts to pull through is
difficult to conjecture. Thus ended the second attempt to navigate the
Susquehanna by steam power.
----------
Shawnee Indians Murder Conestoga Tribesmen
April 28, 1728
Two Shawnee Indians cruelly murdered a man and a woman of the Conestoga
tribe, April 28, 1728. John Wright, of Hempfield, wrote from Lancaster,
May 2, advising James Logan of this murder, and that the Conestoga have
demanded of the Shawnee the surrender of the murderers. He further wrote
that some Shawnee had brought the Shawnee murderers as far as Peter
Chartier’s house, but there the party engaged in a drinking bout and
through the connivance of Chartier the two murderers escaped.
Chartier was an Indian trader among the Shawnee and was himself a
half-blood Shawnee. He had traded for a time on the Pequea Creek and at
Paxtang. Later he settled at the Shawnee town on the west side of the
Susquehanna, at the mouth of the Yellow Breeches Creek, the present site
of New Cumberland. He later removed on the Conemaugh, then to the
Allegheny, about 1734.
The action upon the part of Chartier incensed the Conestoga so much that
they threatened to wipe out the whole section of the Shawnee.
John Wright further states in his letter, “Yesterday there came
seventeen or eighteen of the young men, commanded by Tilehausey, all
Conestoga Indians, painted for war, all armed. We inquired which way
they were going. They would not tell us, but said they or some of them
were going to war, and that there were some Canoy to go along with them.
But we hearing the above report, are apt to think that they are going
against the Shawnee.”
Almost contemporary with this murder, the whites along the Schuylkill
had their safety threatened from another quarter. Kakowwatchy, head of
the Shawnee at Pechoquealon, claimed to have heard that the Flatheads,
or Catawba from Carolina, had entered Pennsylvania to strike the Indians
along the Susquehanna. He sent eleven warriors to ascertain the truth of
this incursion of the Southern Indians, and as they approached the
neighborhood of the Durham Iron Works, at Manatawny, their provisions
failing, forced the inhabitants to give them victuals and drink.
The people did not know these Indians and believing the chief of the
band to be a Spanish Indian, caused great alarm.
Families left their plantations, and the women and children were in
great danger from exposure, as the weather was cold. About twenty white
men took arms, approached the band, and soon a battle was in progress.
The whites said that the Indians refused a parley and fired first,
wounding several of the inhabitants. The red men made off into the woods
and were not seen again. Their leader was wounded, but escaped.