infuriated, armed mob, from the counties of Philadelphia, Lancaster,
Adams and other places, have assembled at the seat of government with
the avowed object of disturbing, interrupting and overawing the
Legislature of this Commonwealth and of preventing its proper
organization and the peaceful and free discharge of its duties. This mob
had entered the Senate Chamber and threatened the lives of the members
and it still remained in the city in force, etc.”
The Governor called upon the civil authorities, the military force of
the Commonwealth and the citizens to hold themselves in readiness for
instant duty.
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Troops Called Out in “Buck Shot War” on
December 5, 1838
Amid all the excitement of the first day of the “Buckshot” War, December
4, 1837, at the moment Governor Joseph Ritner had issued his
proclamation calling upon the people to disperse the lawless element and
to add further excitement, the State Arsenal was seized by friends of
the Governor, where large quantities of powder and cartridges were
stored. The proclamation and call for troops and the seizure of the
arsenal filled the city of Harrisburg with intense alarm.
William Cochran, Sheriff of Dauphin County, issued a proclamation in
which he stated that at no time had there been any riotous proceedings,
nor any disturbances which rendered necessary his interposition as a
civil officer to preserve peace.
The following day, December 5, the Governor made a requisition on Major
General Robert Patterson, commanding the First Division Pennsylvania
Militia to furnish sufficient of his command to “quell this
insurrection.”
General Patterson obtained from the Frankford Arsenal a supply of the
regular ammunition for infantry, which was then buckshot. About a
hundred of General Patterson’s command arrived in Harrisburg, on
Saturday night, December 8, and the next afternoon 800 troops arrived.
They were paraded through the streets to the public grounds in front of
the State Arsenal.
The general and his staff reported to the Governor. The door was locked
and barred, and the general could not gain admittance until the Governor
learned from a second-story window who was seeking an entrance.
The Governor sent for his Cabinet, and five responded. They asked the
General many questions, among others, if he would obey an order of the
Speaker of the Senate, to which he replied in the negative. He said he
had not come on a political mission, and anyway, would not sustain a
party clearly in the wrong.
He was asked if he would obey an order from the Speaker of the House. He
replied he would not, for two reasons: They had two Speakers, he did not
know the right one, and he would not obey the regular Speaker anyway, as
he had no right to give him an order. He said he would obey only the
Governor, and then only when the Governor gave him an order he had a
right to give.
General Patterson refused to help seat either Speaker. He said the House
alone could do that. If ordered to fire, he would refuse to issue the
order. Nor would he permit a single shot to be fired except in
self-defense, if assailed by the rebels, or in the protection of public
property. The conference ended abruptly.
The Governor had called upon Captain Sumner, then in command of the
Carlisle Barracks, for troops, but he refused to send them to interfere
in political troubles.
Governor Ritner also wrote to President Van Buren, laying before him a
full account of the affair, requesting the President to take such
measures as would protect the State against violence. The Governor named
several Government officials who were active in the trouble.
The Governor’s party finding they could not get General Patterson to
install them in power, his troops were ordered home and a requisition
was made upon Major General Alexander, of the Eleventh Division of State
Militia, a citizen of Carlisle, and an ultra-Whig in politics.
Out of three companies only sixty-seven men responded. The battalion,
under the command of Colonel Willis Foulk, marched from Carlisle to
Harrisburg, December 15, arriving on the following day.
There never had been occasion for soldiers and now as the Carlisle
troops arrived the disturbance in the Legislature was nearing an end.
The soldiers regarded the trip as a frolic.
On December 17 Messrs. Butler and Sturdevant, of Luzerne, and Montelius,
of Union County, three legally elected Whig members, abandoned their
Anti-Masonic associates and were sworn in as members of the “Hopkins
House,” which gave it a legal quorum over and above the eight Democrats
from Philadelphia whose rights the “Rump House” disputed.
Finally on December 27, Mr. Michler, of Northampton County, submitted a
resolution which recognized that the House was now legally organized,
and it was adopted, by the close vote of seventeen yeas to sixteen nays.
The committee called for in the resolution was named and waited on the
Governor, informing him the Legislature was organized.
With this reconciliation the returns were opened and read; the amendment
to the Constitution was declared carried and the election of David R.
Porter as Governor of the Commonwealth promulgated. However, the
animosity still existed, and resulted in the appointment by both Houses
of select committees to inquire into the causes of the disturbances and
other matters.
Mr. Stevens, the ring leader, refused at first to be reconciled, and
absented himself several months from the sessions of the House. It was
not until May 8 that his colleague in the House announced that Mr.
Stevens was now in his seat and ready to take the requisite
qualifications.
Objection was made, and a resolution offered declaring that Mr. Stevens
had “forfeited that right by act in violation of the laws of the land,
by contempt to the House, and by the virtual resignation of his
character as a representative.” Action was postponed.
On the following day Mr. Stevens again appeared, and, through his
colleague, demanded that the oath be administered. This was on motion
postponed by a vote of forty-eight to thirty. Two days afterward Mr.
Stevens appeared a third time, but by a vote of fifty-three to
thirty-three the question was postponed, and a committee appointed to
examine whether he had not forfeited his right to a seat as a member.
On the 20th this committee reported that he was “not entitled” to his
seat.
The House, however, by declaring his seat vacant, caused an election,
when Mr. Stevens was again returned and appearing, was duly qualified.
Mr. Penrose, the Speaker of the Senate, issued a manifesto “To the
People of the State,” explaining his participation in the proceedings of
December 4.
Subsequently a number of pamphlets appeared, chiefly of the facetious
class, which attempted to make a farce of what might have resulted in a
very serious affair. One of these severely criticized Secretary Burrowes
for withholding the correct and legal returns; Speaker Penrose for the
violation of his duty; the six Senators who were denounced as traitors
and the last paragraph was:
“Finally, if the leaders of the party who claimed to be ‘all the
decency,’ and were the first to cry out mob, had behaved themselves
honorably and honestly there would have been no ‘Buckshot War,’ and
perhaps they would not have so soon been compelled to witness the 'Last
Kick of Anti-Masonry.'”
The piper was now to pay and it took many years to heal the political
sores. The Anti-Masonic crusade had come to an end, and from that date
Masonry and Odd Fellowship, those “twin sisters of iniquity,” as
Thaddeus Stevens designated them, thrived more than ever. The term
“Buckshot War,” was a thorn in the side of its leaders.
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De Vries Finds Entire Dutch Colony Destroyed,
December 6, 1632
The Dutch were the first Europeans to pursue explorations in the New
World, and as early as 1609, sent Henry Hudson on an expedition to
America, where he arrived at the head of Delaware Bay, August 28 of that
year. Hudson later sailed up the New Jersey Coast and anchored off Sandy
Hook, September 3; nine days later entered New York Bay through the
Narrows, and entered the great river that since has borne his name.
The Dutch East India Company received glowing reports from its navigator
and immediately set in motion other expeditions to the New Netherlands.
Before 1614 a fleet of five vessels, under command of Captain Cornelius
Jacobson Mey, arrived in Delaware Bay, and two years later Cornelius
Hendrickson sailed up the Delaware and discovered the mouth of the
Schuylkill, the present site of Philadelphia.
In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was chartered and in 1623 Captain
Mey built Fort Nassau about five miles above Wilmington, Del., on the
eastern shore. Another settlement of a few families was made farther
north upon the same side of the river, but in 1631 no white man had made
a settlement on the west bank of the Delaware River.
In that year there came to the southern cape, now Henlopen, a party of
colonists from Holland, under David Pieterson De Vries, of Hoorn, “a
bold and skillful seaman,” and the finest personage in the settlement of
America.
On December 12, 1630, a ship and a yacht for the Zuydt Revier (South
River) were sent from the Texel “with a number of people and a large
stock of cattle,” the object being, said De Vries, “as well to carry on
a whale fishery in that region, as to plant a colony for the cultivation
of all sorts of grain, for which the country is well adapted, and of
tobacco.”
These colonists made a settlement near the present town of Lewes and
called it Swanendael, or the Valley of the Swans. They built a
substantial house, surrounded it with palisades, and began their
settlement. A few weeks later the Walrus sailed on its return to Holland
with De Vries aboard, who left the colony in charge of Gilles Hosset,
who had come out as “commissary.” This colony was destined to be the
most unfortunate and of short duration.
Early in 1632 De Vries agreed with his associates in Holland to go out
to Swanendael himself. He fitted out two vessels, and with them set sail
from the Texel, May 24, 1632, to be in good time at his colony, for the
winter fishery. The whales, he understood, “come in the winter, and
remained until March.”
As he was leaving Holland the bad news reached him that Swanendael had
been destroyed by the Indians. The expedition proceeded, however, and it
was December 5 when they reached Cape Cornelius and found the melancholy
report only too true.
On the 6th De Vries went ashore to view the desolate place. He says:
“I found lying here and there the skulls and bones of our people, and
the heads of the horses and cows which they had brought with them.”
No Indians were visible, so he went aboard the boat and let the gunner
fire a shot to see if he could find any trace of them. The next day some
Indians appeared.
In the conferences which followed, De Vries obtained some explanation of
the disaster. It seems to have been the result of a misunderstanding. An
Indian, who was induced to remain on board all night December 8,
rehearsed the story. Commissary Hosset set up a pole, upon which was
fastened a piece of tin bearing the arms of The Netherlands, as an
evidence of its claim and profession.
An Indian, seeing the glitter of the tin, ignorant of the object of this
exhibition and unconscious of the right of exclusive property,
appropriated to his own use this honored symbol “for the purpose of
making tobacco pipes.”
The Dutch regarded the offense as an affair of state, not merely a
larceny, and Hosset urged his complaints and demands for redress with so
much vehemence that the perplexed tribe brought him the head of the
offender. This was a punishment which Hosset neither wished nor had
foreseen, and he dreaded its consequences.
In vain he reprehended the severity of the Indians, and told them had
they brought the delinquent to him, he would have been dismissed with a
reprimand. The love of vengeance, inseparable from the Indian character,
sought a dire gratification; and, though the culprit was executed by his
own tribe, still they beheld its cause in the exaction of the strangers.
Availing themselves of the season in which many of the Dutch were
engaged in the cultivation of the fields, at a distance from their
house, the Indians entered it, under the amicable pretense of trade, and
murdered the unsuspicious Hosset, also a sentinel who attended him. They
proceeded to the fields, fell upon the laborers and massacred every
individual.
De Vries did not put the blame on Hosset, but the colony was ruined.
Neither did he chastise the natives nor send out a punitive expedition
against them; more bloodshed would not heal the wounds already made.
With a view to future fishing, he exchanged some goods with the Indians,
and made an engagement of peace.
On January 1, 1634, he proceeded up the river and on the 6th arrived at
Fort Nassau. It was now deserted, except by Indians. He was suspicious
of these, and traded with extreme caution. He remained in the vicinity
of the fort for four days, ever on the alert. He nearly fell a victim
here to the perfidy of the natives.
They directed him to haul his yacht into the narrow Timmer-Kill, which
furnished a convenient place for an attack, but he was warned by a
female of the tribe of their design, and told the English crew of a
vessel which had been sent from Virginia to explore the river the
September previous had been murdered. De Vries then hastened to Fort
Nassau, which he found filled with savages.
On January 10 he drifted his yacht off on the ebbtide, anchored at noon
“on the bar at Jacques Island” and on the 13th rejoined his ship at
Swanendael.
Jacques Island has been identified as Little Tinicum, opposite the
greater Tinicum which is now part of Delaware County. The kill in which
he lay was therefore Ridley, or perhaps Chester Creek. In either case,
it seems, De Vries was then within the State of Pennsylvania.
In April De Vries returned to Holland. Thus at the expiration of
twenty-five years from the discovery of the Delaware by Hudson, not a
single European remained upon its shores.
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Fires of Early Days; First Fire Fighting
Company Organized December 7, 1736
The City of Philadelphia had not been laid out one year until it was
visited by a fire, the sufferers being some recently arrived Germans and
for whose relief a subscription was made.
From this time until 1696 no public precautions seem to have been taken
against fire. In the latter year the Provincial Assembly passed a law
for preventing accidents that might happen by fire in the towns of
Philadelphia and New Castle, by which persons were forbidden to fire
their chimneys to cleanse them, or suffer them to be so foul as to take
fire, under a penalty of forty shillings, and each house owner was
required to provide and keep ready a swab twelve or fourteen feet long,
and a bucket or pail, under a penalty of ten shillings.
No person should presume to smoke tobacco in the streets, either by day
or night, under a penalty of twelve pence. All such fines were to be
used to buy leather buckets and other instruments or engines against
fires for the public use.
An act was passed in 1700, applying to Philadelphia, Bristol,
Germantown, Darby and Chester, which provided for two leather buckets,
and forbade more than six pounds of powder to be kept in any house or
shop, unless forty perches distant from any dwelling house, under the
penalty of ten pounds. A year later the magistrates were directed to
procure “six or eight good hooks for tearing down houses on fire.”
As the city grew, fires became more frequent, through faulty constructed
chimneys and the general use of wood for fuel. Mayor Samuel Preston in
1711 recommended the purchase of buckets, hooks and an engine. In
December, 1718, the City Council purchased of Abraham Bickley a fire
engine he had imported from England for £50. This fire engine was then
in Bethlehem. It was the first fire engine purchased by the city of
Philadelphia.
The first “great fire” took place between 10 and 11 o’clock on the night
of April 24, 1730. The fire started in a store along the wharf and
burned several stores under one roof, two cooper shops and an immense
quantity of staves on King Street, and two new tenement houses, all
owned by Mr. Fishbourne; a new house of Mr. Plumstead’s; John
Dickinson’s fine new house, and Captain Anthony’s house. Several other
buildings were damaged and much property fell prey to thieves.
This disastrous fire made the whole population realize that new
fire-fighting apparatus was needed. The City Council at once ordered
three fire engines and 400 leather buckets to be purchased in England
and provided twenty ladders and twenty-five hooks and axes.
A year elapsed, however, before two of the engines and 250 buckets were
received, and Mayor Hassel directed one to be stationed in the yard of
the Friends’ Meeting House, Second and Market Streets, and the other on
the lot of Francis Jones, corner Second and Walnut Streets.
The old Bickley engine was stationed in the yard of the Baptist Church,
on Second near Arch Street. As late as 1771 only six fire engines
comprised the entire force of the city.
A third engine was built in Philadelphia by Anthony Nichols, in 1733,
and other buckets were manufactured there. This is the first fire engine
ever built in Pennsylvania.
At a fire in January, 1733, this engine threw a stream higher than any
other engine had been able to do, but Nichols was not given another
order because his price was too high, he had “used wood instead of brass
and they feared it would not last long.”
In December, 1733, there appeared in Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette an
article on fires and their origin, and the mode of putting them out.
Another article suggested that public pumps should be built, and gave a
plan for the organization of a club or society for putting out fires,
after the manner of one in Boston.
Franklin was the author of both articles, and they caused such interest
that a project of forming such a company was soon undertaken. Thirty
joined the association, and every member was obliged to keep in order
and fit for service a certain number of buckets. They were to meet
monthly and discuss topics which might be useful in their conduct at
fires.
The advantages of the association were so apparent they became so
numerous as to include quite all the inhabitants who were men of
property.
Out of this movement started by Benjamin Franklin was organized the
Union Fire Company, December 7, 1736, this being the first fire company
in Philadelphia. Among the early members were Franklin, Isaac Paschal,
Philip Syng, William Rawle and Samuel Powell.
The second company was the Fellowship Fire Company, organized March 1,
1738; the third the Hand-in-Hand, organized March 1, 1742; the fourth
the Heart-in-Hand, organized February 22, 1743; the fifth the
Friendship, organized July 30, 1747; the sixth the Britannia, organized
in 1750.
Richard Mason in 1768 manufactured engines which were operated by levers
at the ends instead of the side of the engine. These were successful,
and he continued to produce his engines until 1801.
Patrick Lyon, about 1794, became the greatest fire-engine builder, when
he invented an engine which would throw more water and with greater
force than the others. He built fire engines as late as 1824. The
“Reliance” and “Old Diligent,” built by him, performed useful service
until the introduction of steam fire engines in 1855.
The first truly great fire in Philadelphia occurred July 9, 1850, when
367 houses were destroyed on Delaware Avenue, near Vine Street.
On November 12, 1851, three lives were lost in a fire which destroyed
Bruner’s cotton factory.
The borough of Somerset was almost totally destroyed in 1833, and again
on May 9, 1872. In the latter conflagration 117 buildings were
destroyed.
On April 10, 1845, the city of Pittsburgh was visited by its first great
fire, which burned over a space of fifty-six acres of the business and
residential section.
December 15, 1850, the greater portion of the borough of Carbondale was
wiped out.
Chambersburg suffered first in Stuart’s rebel raid, October 10, 1862,
and again when General McCausland destroyed the beautiful Franklin
County seat, July 30, 1864.
Selinsgrove was visited by a terrible fire February 22, 1872, and
another fire almost wiped out the town October 30, 1874.
Mifflintown suffered by a great fire in 1871, again on August 23, 1873,
and the borough of Milton was almost destroyed May 14, 1880, when 644
houses and business blocks were burned from noon until 4 o’clock in the
afternoon.
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Washington’s Headquarters in Several Bucks
County Mansions Began December
8, 1776
During the Revolution General Washington established his headquarters in
no less than three of the old-time dwellings of Bucks County.
When Washington crossed the Delaware into Bucks County, Pennsylvania,
with the rear guard of his army, Sunday, December 8, 1776, he took up
his quarters in the country house of Mrs. Berkley, while the troops were
stationed opposite the crossing.
This dwelling was built in 1750, in the village of Morrisville. The
house is still in a fine state of preservation, occupies a commanding
situation, with a farm of one hundred and sixty-two acres belonging to
it, and is within the site once selected by Congress for the capital of
the United States.
In this house, George Clymer, a signer of the Declaration of
Independence, lived and died. It was then owned by his son, Henry
Clymer, afterwards it became the property of the Waddells.
Local tradition, seldom at fault in such cases, points this house out as
Washington’s quarters immediately after he crossed the river, and
mementos of the troops have been found in the adjacent fields.
After Washington had placed his troops in position to guard the fords of
the Delaware and prevent the enemy crossing, the headquarters of the
army, and the quarters of the commander-in-chief’s most trusted
lieutenants, were fixed at farm houses in the same neighborhood in Upper
Wakefield Township, where they were always within easy communication.
General Washington occupied the dwelling of William Keith, on the road
from Brownsburg to the Eagle Tavern; General Green was at Robert
Merrick’s, a few hundred yards away across the fields and meadows;
General Sullivan was at John Hayhurst’s; and Generals Knox and Hamilton
were at Doctor Chapman’s over Jericho Hill.
The troops belonging to the headquarters were encamped in sheltered
places along the creeks, and not far removed from the river.
This position for headquarters was selected on account of its seclusion,
its nearness to the river and because of its proximity to Jericho
Mountain. From the top of this mountain in the winter, signals may be
seen a long distance up and down the river.
Here, too, Washington was near the fords, at which the enemy would
attempt to cross, if pursuit was intended, and he was also within a half
hour’s ride of Newtown, the depot of supplies.
The three old mansions in which Washington, Greene and Knox quartered,
are still standing.
The Keith mansion was a two-story, pointed-stone house, twenty-four by
twenty-eight feet in size, built by William Keith in 1763.
The pine door, in two folds, set in a solid oaken frame, is garnished
with a wooden lock, fourteen by eighteen inches, the same which locked
out intruders when Washington occupied the house. The interior is
finished in yellow pine. At the time Washington used the dwelling the
yard was inclosed with a stone wall. The property, containing two
hundred and forty acres, and purchased by William Keith, of the London
Company, December 3, 1761, has never been out of the family.
The Merrick house, a quarter of a mile distant to the east, on the road
from Newtown to Neely’s Mill, is a pointed-stone dwelling, twenty by
twenty feet, and kitchen adjoining. It was bought by Samuel Merrick in
1773, and was for many years owned by Edward, a descendant.