CHAPTER XIX

MANNERS AND CUSTOMS – HOW INHABITANTS OF DELAWARE COUNTY LIVED IN FORMER YEARS

Houses. The progress of a nation is traced not in the life of an individual, who, from some personal or fortunate circumstance, was elevated for the time being above his fellows, but is found in the narrative of the daily lives of the people, whereby we learn how they were sheltered, fed, and clothed, and the manners and customs which marked them as a whole. Hence, believing as I do that civilization means nothing more than advanced cultivation, which brings as its results comforts and luxuries before unknown, as well as the general diffusion of knowledge in the arts and sciences, constituted the true annals of a people, I purpose, as briefly as I can, to present a sketch of how the inhabitants of Delaware County lived from the early settlement until within recent years.

We have little record of the Swedish settlers along the Delaware previous to the coming of Penn in 1682, but from these meagre accounts we learn that the houses of the early Swedish settlers were built of logs, and the doors were so low that a person of ordinary stature was compelled to stoop in entering or leaving the buildings, while the apartments within had low ceilings, hardly over six feet in the clear, and the roughly-hewed rafters supporting the roof were devoid of laths and plaster. The windows were small, mere frames set in the logs, and although the families who indulged in more costly luxuries than their neighbors had the openings glazed with isinglass, in general only a rough board slide shut out the cold on extreme winter days, and was usually closed during the night. The chimneys, with huge fireplaces, were occasionally built of gray sandstone, but often the stacks were erected of turf on the outside of the houses. In many of the early dwellings small rooms just large enough to spread a bed were partitioned off from the main lower apartments, and the floors were laid in stone, or, oftener, simply clay, which by constant use became very hard.

With the English settlers came many of the improvements which the progressive age between 1640 and 1680 had introduced into general use, but so rapid was the influx of immigrants, mostly Friends, fleeing from the religious oppression they had been subjected to in the mother-country, that habitations could not be erected quickly enough to supply the demand, even where the simple form of building suggested by Penn* was constructed, and many families sought shelter in great trees, while others of the new-comers were compelled, in many instances, to dig caves in the ground, near. the river-bank and those of the creeks, wherein they took up their abode until they could construct permanent habitations. These caves were mere excavations or cellars in the bank, and were about three feet in depth, while over these openings brush was placed so as to form an arched roof about six feet in the clear, which was covered with sods. In such a cave as this Emanuel Grubb was born, near Upland, in 1682. The sufferings of these settlers were great, for it should he remembered that most of them were “not people of low circumstances, but substantial livers,” and in the work of constructing these rude habitations women who had been used to all the refinements and comforts of English life at that day were compelled to take part, and aided their husbands and fathers therein, for hired labor was scarce and could hardly be had at any price.

The log cabins of the early settlers were generally built on low ground for a twofold purpose, to be near a spring of water and for protection from the bleak and piercing winds of winter. In the construction of these habitations the logs were notched together at the corners, which after being raised were hewn down both inside and outside, while the spaces between the logs were filled in or “chinked” with stones or wood, and then plastered over with mortar or clay. The roofs were covered with oak shingles. Locks in ordinary use were unknown; the doors were opened by strings, which on being pulled from the outside raised heavy wooden latches within, to which they were made fast, and intrusion was prevented when the inmates pulled the latch-strings in at the outer doors. From this common practice originated the ancient saying descriptive of generous hospitality, “The latch-string is always out.” The chimneys of the English settlers, as well as those of the Swedish houses, were of immense size, frequently capable of receiving a cord-wood stick, in those days when wood was abundant and the cold intense. Frequently, too, benches would be placed at each side of the chimney so that persons could seat themselves near to and enjoy the blaze, particularly when the heat therefrom to a large percentage was drawn up the stack and discharged-into the atmosphere outside.

As heretofore stated, a number of the English settlers were in good circumstances, and before many years brick and stone dwellings were erected. In the towns this was noticeably the case, and as bricks were made at Chester**as early as 1684, and previous to that date at Burlington and Philadelphia, the wealthier classes employed that material for building purposes. The houses then erected were generally large and roomy, giving the inmates almost all the comforts, so far as the buildings were concerned, then known to the mother-country. The old Porter house in Chester, built by David Lloyd thirty-nine years after Penn first landed in Pennsylvania, was an imposing structure even to the hour of the explosion which destroyed it, and affords to the present generation the Opportunity to learn with what stability the buildings were constructed in the early time.

Early Schools, The settlers were not unmindful of intellectual training, and in the act of March 10, 1683, which set forth that “to the end that the Poor, as well as the Rich, may be instructed in good and commendable learning, which is to be preferred above wealth,” is given the first outline of the public-school system which promises to be in the future, as it has been in the past, the anchor of safety to the nation in times of public peril. It is difficult to determine when the first school was established in our county, but certain it is that at the middle of the last century there were quite a number scattered throughout the territory now included within our boundaries. These structures were generally of logs, and the urchins sat on frames fashioned in every case from the side slabs from the saw-mills, while books were scarce. Townsend Ward *** describes the manner of teaching practiced towards the end of the last century by no less a person than Alexander Wilson. “His scholars were instructed in the mode of those days, which has become so obsolete now that the very first steps in it are a puzzle to the adult. The alphabet in the form of a cross was called the Christ Cross Row. Each vowel had to be sounded ‘by itself,’ when it was reached, and the word ‘by itself’ repeated. The rapidity of pronunciation, however, soon turned ‘by itself’ into ‘bisself,’ so the anxious urchin rushed through his alphabet in this way, ‘A, bisself a, B,C,D,E bisselfe, F,G,H,I bisselfi, etc. He ended with a z as now, but called it izard, and the flourish at the end, Ampeisand, he called Ann pussy Ann.”

In a letter (4*)dated Chester township, Tenth month, 1725, from Richard Park to his sister, Mary Valentine, then in Ireland, the writer states that “Uncle Nicholas Kooper lives very well, he rents a Plantation & teaches School and his man doe his Plantation work,” which is the first mention of a pedagogue by name since Evans Petterson, in 1672. The schoolmaster of that day was a local despot; the children were under his absolute sway from the time they left their homes until they returned thereto again in the afternoon. His sceptre was the birch, and often would he wield his emblem of power to the discomfiture of the unhappy lad who had aroused his wrath.

Household Duties of the Women. At home the matron and her growing daughter had their daily routine of labor, which, beginning oftentimes long before daybreak, extended into the night until the old saw,

“A man’s work is from sun to sun,
But a woman’s work is never done,”

was often proved a truth. Her household duties were severe and varied, demanding some knowledge of medicine sufficient to open a vein in a case of emergency, or the preparation of certain infallible remedies to cure intermitting, remitting, and bilious fevers and children’s disorders, composed of the most nauseating herbs, simmered to a sickening decoction, which was doled out to the unfortunate patients in generous potation. With the exception of her husband’s Sunday coat, which was the one, carefully preserved, that he had worn at his wedding, the mother had to make all the garments worn by the father and boys from the flax and wool; all the bedding and household linen had to be made at home, as well as the beds, which required that a goodly flock of geese be kept to supply the feathers, which had to be steamed and cured for that purpose; the poultry came under the supervision of the women, as did also the care of the young calves; cheese and butter had to be made for the market; frequently, too, the gardening for the family table was left to the care of the females of the household, and the gathering and drying of herbs always was a part of their duty. In the butchering season pork and salt meat must be cured sufficiently for the whole year, sausage and lard made for the winter. These were extra matters just thrown in to fill out the odds and ends of the matron’s time, for the duties mentioned did not include the every-day work of cooking, milking, carrying water, scrubbing, darning, and for the first twenty odd years of her married life to still the crying babe or nurse it, and often then, as she hushed the sobbing child asleep, her busy fingers plied the knitting-needles, so that not a moment of her time should be idled away, and the weekly washing and ironing, nor yet the day set apart for dipping candles, which entered into the domestic economy with the regularity of the annual county taxes. It was an interesting and intellectual occupation on candle day, when several huge kettles filled with melted tallow were suspended from the crane over the blazing logs, while at the opposite side of the kitchen two or more long poles, about two feet apart, stretched their full length from one chair-seat to another, the abutments on which the ends of the rods rested. Across these poles were pendent strands of tow at designated distances, for at the time of which I now write candle-wick had not been invented. Near these poles were great kettles containing melted tallow, which floated on the top of hot water, and into the kettles the women would dip the strands of tow and hang them, each in its place, on the stick to dry. Before the proper amount of tallow was deposited by this slow process on the wick – for the thicker the candle the more brilliant the light – the weary dipper would walk many a mile before her work was finished. After the candles were made they had to be carried on the poles to a dry, sunny spot in the garret, where they could harden and become thoroughly dry. The good wife, however, had to see that the best room was sprinkled with clean white sand, and it was a matter of pride to draw various figures thereupon with the broom. The high-backed walnut, and (after the introduction of the wood as appropriate for furniture during Queen Anne’s reign) mahogany chair and tables were waxed and polished till they reflected like a mirror. In every house there were the warming-pans of brass, which must be kept scoured and hung in easy reach, so that they could be used to take the chill off the sheets in bedrooms that were as cold “as Greenland’s icy mountains.” And when flax was prepared for spin-fling the matron sat early and late; particularly during the long winter evenings the humming noise of the big wheel was constantly heard.

To be sure, the lads and lasses of that day had their merry-making, although their sports to us seem somewhat like hard work. Flax-pulling, when the boys and girls pulled along together and bound it into small sheaves, was regarded as fun, while the “husking” parties at night were looked forward to with great expectations and much preparations; quilting and carpet-ball sociables – the latter after the Revolution, when people discovered that from rags a strong, serviceable covering for floors could be made – were much in vogue, and were concluded usually with dancing and boisterous games.

Evening Amusements. Usually at night, when the winter evening meal was ended and the room had been put to rights, the family would assemble round the open-mouthed fireplace in the kitchen, where on the hearth the massive andirons sustained a crackling mass of hickory-wood, lapped by the flaming tongues as the blaze “went roaring up the chimney wide.” Along the heavy, unplastered joists of the floor above, darkened with age and smoke, from iron hooks were suspended a goodly number of portly hams, dried beef, long ropes of onions, and dried apples. On the deal table, without a cover, a tallow candle shed a dim, uncertain light around the apartment, and often the black and crisped wick required to be snuffed, while not unfrequently a thief would get in the candle, and the tallow on one side would run to the base of the stick in a rivulet of melted grease. In one of the angles of the room a large corner cupboard afforded through its glass doors glimpses of an array of blue china which at this day would have been the idol of the collection craze, and an eight-day clock in a tall mahogany case ticked in the chilly hall, while the moon moving along the opening in the dial, represented usually by a cherub’s face, plump and florid-cheeked, told the farmer when and when not to plant his crops. Around the cheery fire the family, seated on hard, uncushioned chairs, gathered, the females spinning, or perchance Miss-in-her-teens, who had paid a visit to her relatives in the city, would be busily employed working in crewel geometrical figures of a dog, sheep, or other fabulous animal or plant, the like of which never existed “in the heavens above, the earth below, or the waters under the earth.” The hunting- or watch-dog, curled close to the fire, dozed as his owner smoked, talked of the weather, the crops, the state of the market, his or others’ stock, or laid out the next day’s work.

Perchance, when a neighbor dropped in, the conversation would relate to the social happenings of the vicinity, or at intervals of that great world, the city, but it usually drifted into recollections of the old people, narrations of hunting adventures, and marvelous tales of witches, goblins, and haunted places. The old people would relate traditionary stories of Margaret Mattson, the witch of Ridley Creek, and her divers ill-doings; they would tell how it was recorded by Hesselius, the Swedish priest, that in the early time of the settlement rain fell on a particular black oak for fifteen days, while not a drop of moisture touched the other trees in the neighborhood; and how a captain of a certain ship, noted for his profanity and crimes, while sailing up the Delaware, was seized bodily by the devil, who hurled him into the river, where he was drowned, in full sight of many lookers-on.(5*) But, strange as it may seem, no stories of men suddenly and mysteriously changed into wolves, the were-wolf of Swedish folk-lore, seem ever to have taken root in this soil. There would be, however, narration of the terrible and supernatural. It would be told how Blackbeard, the pirate, used to anchor his vessel off Marcus Hook, where, at the house of a Swedish woman whose name, Margaret, he transformed into Marcus, because of the locality of her dwelling, he and his crew held mad revels there, and the expression “Discord Lane” became so connected with the town’s story that it has ever since been preserved as the title of one of its streets. So, too, would they describe the Bloody Tree, near Chester, on the King’s Highway, whose leaves were spotted with gore, and from whose branches, if a twig was cut or broken off, oozed a sap-like blood,(6*) the indelible mark of a brutal, Unatoned murder that nature would not permit to be effaced. Sometimes a swaggering braggart would declare that as he rode along the White Horse level, on the Queen’s Highway, through Ridley, he had encountered the ghost of Luke Nethermarke, who, about the middle of the last century, in galloping his horse at night amid the storm and the darkness as he hastened homeward, rode into a tree which had been blown down by the gale and was killed; while others would tell the story of the phantom sentinel, who when an English vessel of war was lying off Tinicum during the British occupation of Philadelphia, was stationed to walk post over one of the boats sent ashore with a foraging party, was shot and killed by the Whigs in the neighborhood, and whose spectre annually reappears on the anniversary of the night on which he was slain. Sometimes the tradition was of Moggey,(7*) who refused to rest quietly in her grave; of the phantom white steed and rider, who dashed semi-occasionally on dark and stormy nights through the streets of Chester; of the murdered peddler at Munday’s Run, who showed the ragged cut in his brawny throat; or the slain woman who made the archway of the old granary at Chester a spot to be avoided after dusk; while the mere school-lads in the vicinity of Chester would tell of the evil spirit, a caco-demon,(8*) who inhabited the cellar of the old school house at Welsh and Fifth Streets.

Sometimes the stories would relate to money buried along the shores of the Delaware and its tributary streams by pirates, who had slain a comrade or a captive that the murdered man should guard the blood-stained treasure ever from all save the hands of those who had sold themselves to perdition for the accursed gold. I can remember as a lad how some of the old people told me as a truth the adventures of three men from the neighborhood of Chester, who strove to obtain a hidden treasure buried on the river-shore on Laws’ or Jeffery’s farm (I do not remember the exact location); how they dug in silence until the top of a large iron box thickly covered with bosses was uncovered; how one of the men in the exuberance of his joy spoke, and the box sank out of sight, amid heavy thunder, which growled and muttered overhead, and strange lights which flashed and danced through the darkness as the disappointed men hastened away. This was only one of the number of narratives of treasure-diggers in various locations, while along Chester and Ship Creek, Darby and Marcus Hook Creeks, many places were designated where treasures had been buried. The belief in witchcraft had not died out absolutely thirty years ago, for a case occurred in this county wherein charms were used to thwart the evil eye of an old woman, whom it was believed had cast a spell over the cattle of a person of the same township; and the myth of the divining rod was accepted as true by many persons. Samuel Breck, as late as 1820, states that Alexander Wilson, a Quaker preacher, was noted as possessing “the gift of finding water with a divining rod.(9*)

Snake stories then as now were much relished by the rustic populace, and awakened general interest. William Morahey (10*)relates that “In a Wood near a Place called Ophoginomy (Appoquinimink, New Castle Co., Del.), I espied a Snake lying in a Pathway; endeavoring to shun it by going out of the Road, I accidentally trod upon another, which immediately twined itself about my Right Leg and squeezed it so hard that I was afraid it would have broken. After I had stood sometime, expecting to be bit, the snake dropped upon the Ground and I came off unhurt. I viewed it and found I had tread upon the Head, which prevented its Biting. I look’d upon this as a Mercy, and return’d Thanks to the Author of Good for my Deliverance. It was a Horn Snake, Six Foot Long.”

The latter statement, of course, brings Moraley’s adventure within the line of snake stories, for most persons of the present day would believe he saw a unicorn, if he said so, as readily as they do that he saw a horn (?) snake. But Capt. Heinrichs, of the Yager Corps, in l778,(11*) writing from Philadelphia to friends in Germany, records a snake story that fills the measure to overflowing. He says, “There is nothing more terrible than the big rattlesnake, which is from twelve to sixteen feet long, and which, as it is believed here, kills at its glance. A countryman in my quarters lost a relative of his in this way some years ago. He had gone hunting, and seeing a bear standing still, aimed at and shot it; scarcely had he reached the bear when he too was obliged to stand motionless, remaining thus awhile, fell and died; all this was caused by a rattlesnake, which was perched in a high tree.”

Marriages. Governor Printz recognizes the Biblical injunction in his report for 1647(12*) to the West India Company, wherein he set forth the wants in the infant colony of certain skilled labor, adding, “All these are of great necessity here, and, above all, a good number of unmarried women for our unmarried freemen and others;” but whether this request was complied with by the home authorities does not appear, so far as I have ascertained. After the territory had passed into the ownership of the English crown, and subsequently under Penn’s, we learn that spinsters were one of the rarities of the province, for quaint old Gabriel Thomas informs us that “old maids were not to be met with, for all commonly marry before they are twenty years of age.”

The state of marriages soon became the subject of legal enactment, which, under the Duke of York laws, was not to be entered into unless the bans had been asked in the church three several days, or a special license had been procured, and the marriage must be registered. If there was no church or meeting-house in the locality where the parties lived, notice must be given by posting the names on the door of the constable’s house, and on those of two of the overseers of the poor. The legal age for females was as now, twenty-one years, excepting in cases when the parents were dead, when it was eighteen years.

Among the laws agreed upon in England by Penn before he came to the province were the following regulating marriages:
“That all marriages (not forbidden by the law of God, as to the nearness of blood and affinity by marriage) shall be encouraged; but the parents or guardians shall be first consulted, and the marriage shall be published before it be solemnized, and it shall be solemnized by taking one another as husband and wife before credible witnesses, and a certificate of the whole, under the hands of parties and witnesses, shall be brought to the proper Register of the county, and shall be registered in his office.”

To prevent clandestine marriages, the person performing the ceremony in violation of law, by the act of March 10, 1683, was fined twenty pounds, while the parties married were fined ten pounds. Under the administration of Governor Fletcher the notice of an intended marriage must be posted on the meeting- or court-house door one full month before the ceremony was performed, and when solemnized it must be in the presence of at least twelve persons. By the act of 1693 a justice of the peace was required to be present at every marriage, and the certificate must be signed by twelve persons who were present on the occasion. This requirement was, however, not applicable to parties who were married according to the form of the Church of England. The act of 1700 imposed a fine of five pounds on all persons present at a clandestine marriage, and they were also liable to pay to the party aggrieved all damages that they may have sustained by reason of such marriage. Under this law a servant who married without the consent of his or her master being first had thereto was compelled to serve one year after the expiration of his or her indentured term, and if a free man married a bonded servant woman, he was required to pay whatever damages the master could prove he had suffered by the act, and where a free woman married a bonded servant man, she was subject to make payment to her husband’s master for the damage her marriage had occasioned the latter, the sum to be assessed by the justices.

Robert Wade, a good man and true, who lived up to the law, and so far as was in his power insisted that others should do so, at the court held first and second days of first week, Tenth month, 1684, presented Joseph Cookson “for taking a wife contrary to the good and wholesome Laws of this Province,” and the court ordered that Cookson should find security for ten pounds.

At the court held 3d day of Tenth month, 1685, a case was tried that showed that practical jokes were played in early times which, as now, resulted to the disadvantage of some person. The circumstances in the instance mentioned were briefly these: Matthew Risley was at the public-house of Henry Hollingsworth, on Edgmont Avenue, Second Street, Chester, when a company “came from Maryland to the inn. Some of the latter knew Risley, and the conversation turned on marriage, when one of the Marylanders asked Risley whether he could marry a couple now?” to which interrogation he replied, “Yes, for twenty pounds;” but afterwards said that he would do it for two pieces of eight. The former then stated “she was an heiress.” Risley, however, declared that for a pot of beer he would clear them even if she was an heiress. Thereupon the Marylanders called for two pots of beer and gave them to Risley, who told the woman she must get up very early in the morning and mount the horse first, and then take the man she desired for her husband up behind her on the horse. If she did this he promises “to clear them all.” The arrangement, however, seemed not to meet their approval, but they earnestly insisted on being married that night. Whereupon Risley “went and got a Bible, and so proceeded as far as they thought they could well let him, and then one of the company untied a morning gown, as the man had on, and so he discovered him to he a man and not a woman that he was marrying.” This circumstance coming to the ears of the grand jury, that body presented Rishey, who, at the next court, on being arraigned, acknowledged the facts as herein stated, whereupon the court sentenced him to receive thirteen lashes, pay the costs and be for the term discharged. The clerk records (the only instance I find where such an entry is made), “which said number of lashes were laid on his bare back.” Under what law this corporal punishment was inflicted I have failed to learn.

At the December court in the previous year the grand jury presented “Edward Beyer and Jeane Collett for being unlawfully married about the 13 of the 7th month last 1697.” The defendant, Edward Beyer, “came into Court and proffered a petition and declared it was thro’ ignorance, and the Court, considering of the same, moved that he pay the charges of the Court and to make his address to the Governor.”

The court records afford several instances of the violation by and punishment of indentured servants under the act of 1700 for marrying without the consent of the masters having been had thereto; but I will refer only to one interesting case, which was heard Feb. 26, 1633-34. Job Harvey, by petition, informed the court that Joseph Fisher, his servant, had married Mary Jones, a free woman, without his consent, and asked that the offenders may be dealt with according to law. “Therefore it is considered by the Court whereby adjudged that the said Joseph Fisher for his said Offence Serve his sd Master or his Assigns one year after the Expiration of his former Servitude and that the sd Mary Jones (or by what other name she may be now called) pay the sd Job Harvey for her said offence the sum of Six pounds or serve the said Job Harvey or assigned one year in Lieu thereof.”

Dr. Smith states(13*) that at a meeting of Friends at Haverford, in 1699, it was ordered, in respect to courtship in the future, “that all young men among Friends make known their intentions to their parents or guardians before they acquaint the young woman’s relations, and to make it known to the woman’s parents or guardians, before they speak to them, and if they do otherwise, that they shall condemn the same before they proceed any further.” This restriction, at this time, was general in the society. The records of Friends’ meeting in those early days is largely composed of matters appertaining to marriages among the members, and in faded ink is noted these matters which, to the then living, was the most momentous step in life. In the minutes of Chester Meeting, under date of Sixth month 27, 1705, is recorded the wise act of a young woman, who learned before, not after the ceremony was performed, that there was wanting on her part that true affection without which marriage life is utterly miserable. In the case alluded to, Thomas Martin and Jane Hent had passed meeting, but for some reason the ceremony had not followed this approval, and the woman’s meeting, where matters of that kind would more likely be talked about, briefly informs us “the above sd marriage not being accomplished, two women Friends, viz.: Alice Simcock and Rebecca Faucett spoak to Jane Hent to know the Reason thereof and her answer was that shee could not Love him well enough to bee her Husband. She also said that shee was very sorry that shee had proceeded so far with him.”

In the early part of the last century the wedding-day was held as a festival, and William Moraley informs us that, about 1735, among the Pennsylvania colonists, “Their marriages are very chargeable, many times Wife’s Fortunes being expended at the Celebration of the Nuptials.” At that time the bride going to church, or after the ceremony to her future home, wore a long black hood over her head instead of a bonnet. Two yards of rich paduasoy, Watson tells us, was required to make this hood, and it was the custom to loan this article of apparel, so that one hood covered the heads of many brides before it was discarded as too shabby for further use. Towards the middle of the last century marriages were usually celebrated about noon, and generally at the house of the bride’s parents. The utmost good feeling prevailed, and the cheer made up in its abundance whatever it might lack, according to our modern notions, in variety or display of the confectioner’s skill. About the beginning of this century it may be questioned whether any person then residing within this county of Delaware had ever tasted ice cream, but the wedding dinner was something to gladden the eyes of a hungry man, while punch was dealt out in profusion. In addition to the feast at home, it was the custom to send out cakes, meats, and punch to everybody in the neighborhood, rich or poor alike, whether visitor or not of the family. In the evening usually the bride and groom were escorted to their home by a long procession, of old-fashioned chairs or gigs containing their friends or relatives, and, if the family permitted such vanities as dancing, after the supper had been cleared away an old negro, who played by ear on a sharp, rasping violin, would strike up the music of some contra (country) dance or jig, keeping time to the air with his feet, the beat of which on the bare floor could be heard above the squeaking sounds of his fiddle. When the company formed in two long rows and the smiling musician played “Sir Roger de Coverley,” or, as we of this generation term it, the “Virginia Reel,” each couple at the head of the line knew it was their turn to begin by a signal from the dusky Orpheus, which consisted of a profouud bow, accompanying the motion by an emphatic stamp on the floor. The gentlemen, in their pumps, would then exhibit some extraordinary figures, interspersing the merriment with the double-shuffle or cutting the pigeon-wing, while the smiling girls would bounce about on the tips of their toes very much as they do in this year of grace, 1884. Sometimes, when a few of the more ambitious young people, who had visited the city, desired to astonish the natives, they would go through the mazy movement of the minuet to the astonishment of the rustics. Many games of forfeit filled in the hours, while the elders would have a rubber at whist with something depending on the result to add zest to play, or try their fortune at high-low-Jack and the game. About nine o’clock, or ten at the latest, the bride would he spirited away by her maids, and shortly after the groomsmen would conduct the newly-made husband to his wife. At a later hour the company would ascend to the bridal chamber, taking with them refreshments to the married couple, generally in the form of liquor. Then one of the bride’s stockings would be thrown across the bed among the guests, and the person that it struck, it was believed, would be the next one of the company to be married. After good wishes for the future welfare of the wedded pair, and a kiss to the bride by every man present, the assembly would depart to their respective homes.

Burials. Death is surer even than taxes, hence it is to be expected that early in our county annals we should learn of provisions being made to inter the dead. As far back as 1746, Campanius records that at the Swedish graveyard at Tinicum “the first corpse that was buried was Andrew Hansan’s daughter, Catherine, and she was buried on the 28th of October, which was Simon’s and Jude’s day.”

In the Duke of York’s laws it is stated that the private burial of servants and others had occasioned much scandal, that by such a custom it could not be ascertained if death had resulted from natural causes or violence, “for remedy whereof, and for the greater decency of burials,” it was provided that a public burial-place should be set apart and fenced in each parish, and before any corpse should be buried three or four of the neighbors should be called in, one of whom must be an overseer of the poor, whose duty it was to view the body, and if there were not suspicious circumstances, “yet according to the decent custom of Christendom they may accompany it to the grave.” The burial of a free person or an indentured slave in any localities other than the public graveyard was interdicted by law, unless in their lifetime the deceased had signified their desire of being interred elsewhere.

Funerals in the early days were as extravagantly costly, the circumstances of the people considered, as at the present day; not in the undertaker’s bill or carriages used, for the corpse was borne to the place of interment, we are told by William Worrall, during the greater part of the last century on men’s shoulders, the coffin being swung on poles, so that the funeral procession, generally walking, might wind along the pathways with more ease, for they often followed the footpaths over the fields to the place of sepulture, but in the feasts given to those who attended the ceremonies. The poles spoken of by Mr. Worrall must have been the primitive bier, which are alluded to in the records of Chester meeting, under date of Seventh month 30, 1706, in which “it is agreed at this meeting that a decent bear bee Keept att every Grave Yard, and that every preparative (meeting.) within the limits of this meeting do get one made speedily.”

As soon as a death occurred in a family the neighbors came in and made arrangements for the funeral, scouring the brass-work until it shone like new coin, for the old furniture was decorated with many brass ornaments, scrubbing, the uncarpeted floors, dusting, baking, and cooking, until the house of mourning was fairly put to rights and the repast prepared for the funeral day. Warners were started out on horseback to ask persons to be present at the burial services, who on riding to the door of the dwelling would announce in monotonous tones, “Thyself and family are respectfully invited to attend the funeral of Thomas Smith, Fourth day next at two o’clock,” while others would make frequent visits to the cross-road store to lay in groceries and other necessary articles needed for the table. Others of the neighbors would take their place as watchers over the body, which, stretched on a cooling board with a sheet over it, was never left alone. At night lighted candles were placed in the room, and refreshments provided for those who were sitting up with the corpse. The pictures and looking-glasses in the room where the body lay were covered with white muslin, so that the dead figure would not be reflected therein.

After the body was interred, in the case of the death of a man of means, all the company would return to the house and the will would be read. The disposition of his estate by the deceased would afford a topic of conversation in the neighborhood for a week at least.

The following is a bill for funeral services of one John Middleton, of Delaware County, Pa., in 1719. The original copy is in the possession of Taylor Thompson, undertaker, in New Garden township, Chester Co. It is as follows, verbatim:

“5 mo 1 1719 paid to the doctor gandr wit for £00 16 6.”

The custom then was, and it was continued until the beginning of this century, when a young unmarried woman died, the body was borne to the graveyard by young girls, doubtless introduced by the early Irish settlers, and a like custom prevailed at the funeral of a child. Miss Sarah Eve,(14*) in her journal, under date of July 12, 1773, records: “In the evening, B. Rush, P. Dunn, K. Vaughan, and myself carried Mr. Ash’s child to be buried; foolish custom for Girls to prance it through the streets without hats or bonnets.” The custom of young girls acting as pallbearers at the funeral of their female companions and young children seems to have continued in Philadelphia during the second decade of this century, for in the diary of Miss Hannah M. Wharton, under date of Dec. 19, 1813, it is recorded: “We have had a melancholy occurrence in the circle of our acquaintance since I last wrote, in the death of the accomplished and amiable Fanny Durdin. Six young ladies of her intimate acquaintance, of which I was one, were asked to be the pall-bearers. We were all dressed in white, with long white veils.” Mrs. Catharine Ulrich informs me that she can remember, about 1825, when the grandchild of the tenant, then occupying the old Brobson house, at the northeast corner of Third and Penn Streets, Chester, died, that four young girls, dressed in white, bore the corpse on a bier to the graveyard.

Food and Dress. The Swedes on the Delaware River, we are told, in a letter addressed by one of themselves, in the year 1693, to John Thelin, of Gottenberg, (15*) “were almost all husbandmen, and our meat and drink is after the old Swedish custom. The country is very rich and fruitful, and we send out yearly to our neighbors on this continent and the neighboring islands bread, grain, flour, and oil. We have here, thank God, all kinds of venison, birds, and fishes. Our wives and daughters spin wool and flax, and many of them weave.” The Swedish clergyman, Rev. Eric Biork, a few years afterwards, states that there were “no poor in the country, but all provide for themselves, without any cases of want.”

The first English settlers give us an interesting account of the sturdy race of the North which had preceded them in subduing the wilderness of the Western World. Thomas Parker, under date of Feb. 10, 1683, (16*) writes,
“There are Swedes and Finns who have lived here forty years, and lived an easy life through the abundance of commodities, but their clothes were very mean before the coming of the English, from whom they bought good ones, and they begin to show themselves a little proud. They are an industrious people. They employ in their buildings little or no iron. They will build for you a house without any other implement than an axe. With the same implement they will cut down a tree and have it in pieces in less time than two other men would spend in sawing it, and with this implement and some wooden wedges they split it and make boards of it or anything else they please with much skill. The most of them speak English, Swedish, Finnish, or Dutch. They plant a little tobacco and a little Indian corn. The women are good housekeepers. The most of the linen they wear they spin the flax and make themselves.”

In the early part of the last century among the English settlers, under ordinary circumstances, bread and milk and pie formed the breakfast meal, or often only pop-robbin, a combination of eggs and flour made to a batter and boiled in milk, appeased their wants. For dinner a bountiful dish of pork or bacon with a wheat-flour pudding or dumplings, with butter or molasses, was the bill of fare, while mush or hominy, with milk and butter and honey, sufficed for the evening repast. On important occasions, when venison and other wild game was in season, chocolate, which was sweetened with maple-sugar, formed the basis of the entertainment. William Worrall, of Ridley, stated that he never saw tea or coffee until about 1750, when his father brought some tea from Philadelphia, and his aunt, who then lived with them, and had charge of the house, did not know how to use it until she had received the proper information from one of her neighbors who had been instructed in the art of tea-drawing in the city. The prudent conduct of Worrall’s aunt was not imitated by one of her friends, residing in the vicinity, who, when she first had tea introduced into her house, boiled the leaves and served them with butter. It was at this time such a rarity that even in the houses of the wealthy the hostess would measure with scales the amount of leaf necessary to draw tea for the company, or as in modern days we put it, “count the noses” of her guests. Later on in the rural districts, before and after the Revolution, the daily fare consisted of salt pork or beef, fresh meat was an occasional dainty, rye bread, potatoes, cabbage, hominy, and turnips, while in summer-time beans and peas made their appearance on the table. The latter were eaten with the knife, no one having the patience to chase peas over a dinner plate with the wide-spreading, two-tined forks, with massive buck handles, which were then in general use.

During the latter part of the last century silver plate was in every household, and each article had its history, as it was handed down from parents to child as heirlooms, and was often made the subject of disposition by will. But for ordinary use pewter platters, porringers, and tankards were employed, and were kept so bright that they shone like a mirror, while pewter pots filled the place of our modern glass tumblers and goblets. In many instances it was customary for the family, including the domestics and hired men, to gather around the same board, the slaves at the bottom of the table. If perchance some acquaintance came to tea, which was a popular custom among the women of the wealthier class in town and country just previous to the Revolution, the party always dispersed so that the company might get home before it was time for candle-lighting, and to put their children to bed.

In 1745, Dr. Franklin invented the open stove, which he called the Alter Idem, but which is still known by his name, and it won its way almost immediately to popular favor. At one time all the old houses in this section of the country, whose owners were in easy circumstances, had in the parlor a Franklin stove. In the ancient stone dwelling standing on the left-hand side of the Queen’s Highway, about five hundred feet above where the mill, race, and quarry railway crosses the road at Leiperville, is still to be seen one of these stoves.

On the night of the battle of Brandywine, after writing a letter from Chester to Congress, apprising that body of the defeat of the American army, Washington joined his troops, that had gathered “back of Chester,” between Leiperville and Darby. Tradition states that the general sat for some time in the old house, before the stove, silently watching the fire that burned brightly on the iron hearth, for the night was chilly and the autumnal equinox was then threatening which broke so violently five days thereafter as to compel a suspension of hostilities in the pitched battle which Washington tendered to Gen. Howe near Goshen meeting-house. Perhaps that night in Ridley, in the firelight, the whole plan of the proposed but interrupted battle was digested and arranged in the mind of the commander-in-chief, whose mental balance no disaster could disturb.

Less than seventy years ago the usual cooking utensils in a well-regulated kitchen consisted of a large iron stewing-pot, a tea-kettle, Dutch oven, a frying-pan, skillet, a gridiron, and earthen dishes for baking bread and pies, while on the window-sill or on the floor was the mark which told by the sunlight the hour of noon.

The usual dress of the Swedish people on the Delaware in early days was strongly but rudely fashioned of skins of animals, and their heads were covered with caps of the same material, the hair clinging to the hide. Their shoes, very similar in form to the Indian moccasins, were made from the skins of animals slain in the chase. The women were all compelled to employ the same material in making their jackets and petticoats, and the beds were covered with deer-, wolf-, and bear-skins. Many of the heads of families had the apparel they had worn at home in Europe safely packed away, which, on occasions of public festivals, were ceremoniously brought forth and donned by the owner, to the admiration of the young folks born in the colony.

The dress of the great body of the people previous to the Revolution, those, I mean, who had their daily labor to do, was very simple, many of the descendants of the first settlers clinging tenaciously to the buckskin of the early days of the province, out of which material their breeches and jackets were made. In 1725, from the letter written from Chester township, by Robert Park to Mary Valentine, already mentioned, we find the writer stating that “In Summer they wear nothing but a skirt and linnen drawers. Trowses, which are breeches and stockings, all in one made of Linnen; they are fine Cool wear in Summer.” Underclothing such as we now require was at that time seldom worn. Oznaburg, a cheap, heavy shirting, made of hemp-tow, was the material of which boys’ shirts, and often those worn by men, were made, and a coarse tow-cloth was used for trousers. Shoes, which were seldom worn in summer-time, were generally, in the country, made of neat leather, fastened by large brass buckles on each instep, unless that was more costly than the wearer could afford, when shoe-strings answered instead. The men and boys from the rural districts were easily recognized on the streets in Philadelphia, because, in winter and on unusual occasions, they wore leather breeches and apron. Almost all mechanics before the Revolution – carpenters, masons, coopers, painters, and similar tradesmen wore, when at work, great leather aprons, which covered the most of their breast and reached down below their knees, such as blacksmiths now use at the forge, and their ordinary apparel was yellow buckskin breeches, check shirts, and red flannel jackets. All of them wore real beaver hats, an article that then formed a part of their freedom outfit. Hired women dressed in linsey-woolsey or worsted petticoats, and wore coarse leather shoes, of which they were particularly careful. It is often related of those “good old days,” when people deemed it a mark of effeminacy to ride to church, that it was not uncommon to see both men and women trudging along the highway barefooted, their shoes and stockings in their hands, and when they came near to their place of destination they would seat themselves by the road, put on their shoes and stockings, and adjust their apparel into proper trim to enter the church, meeting, or dwelling-house.

As previously stated, about the middle of the last century wealth began to manifest itself among the inhabitants of the cities, towns, and in the country immediately under the influence of the centres of trade. The education of the people, of course, largely reflected the aristocratic tone of the mother-country, hence special privileges and offices of honor and profit came to be monopolized by a few families, who soon learned to regard themselves as better than the general public. This class dressed in a style which peculiarly marked them as of the higher order of society. Wigs, which were in use in Penn’s time, continued to be worn until the disaster at Braddock’s field, when the British and colonial officers, in fleeing from that fatal place, cast aside in their flight their wigs as incumbrances, and afterwards appearing in public with their natural hair, the fashion soon changed to the queue. In the days of big wigs it was no infrequent incident at the dinner-table for the large buttons on the sleeve of the servant’s livery to catch in the mass of horse-hair, leaving the bare pate of the guest exposed, while the wig dangled from the servant’s arm. The dress of gentlemen at that period was of varied colors. It was no uncommon sight to see a scion of the aristocratic families attend in a black velvet coat, green waistcoat embroidered with silver figures, yellow velvet breeches fastened at the knee with diamond buckles, and the legs incased in blue stockings. The calf-skin shoes were clasped with large silver buckles, studded with imitation or, in some cases, real diamonds. Fine lace neckerchief and wristbands, with a cocked hat, completed the costume, saving when a dress sword hung at the left side, the scabbard protruding between the stiffened skirts of the coat. After and during the Revolution white coats, embroidered with gold, were fashionable, but the prevailing color among all classes was indigo blue, and, as the dyer’s art was indifferently understood, it is said that in a hasty shower the color would often wash-out or be transferred to the skin of the wearer, and, in addition, when the rain caused the powder in the hair to trickle down the back in a pasty mass, the plight of the individual must have been extremely disagreeable. Those persons whose duty required them to be abroad in all kinds of weather used oil-cloth cloaks, and a like covering protected their hats from the wet.

The dress of society women in the olden times was as much the subject of fashion’s capricious whims as it is to-day. I here propose briefly to mention a few articles of apparel worn during the last century, and notice some of the demands the mode made upon its votaries. When elaborate hair-dressing (requiring several hours to be consumed in curling, crisping, and arranging one’s head) was in vogue it was no unusual circumstance for a lady to have her hair dressed forty-eight hours before a ball, and to sit dozing in a chair during the intervening nights, for it would have utterly destroyed her toilet had she lain down. Hoops were enormous during the greater part of the last century, until shortly before the Revolution; not the light elastic skirt worn recently, but heavy clumsy affairs which had to be tilted to one side in passing through a narrow doorway. When they began to subside, callimanco padded with wool, made into petticoats, took their places, while over the latter were worn finely-quilted Marseilles, silk, or satin petticoats, the gown open and without a front, so that it might be displayed. Caps were generally used, and the style which is now known as “The Martha Washington” was at that day called “The Queen’s Night cap.” Stays were worn by the wealthy, as a rule; costly affairs they were, finished in quilted silk or satin. Worsted dresses, with a plain white apron reaching almost to the ground, were used for ordinary every-day life, and matrons and maids had long, large pockets strapped around their waist beneath their gowns (Lydia Locket, we remember, lost her pocket), and a round pin-cushion, inclosed in a silver rim, and a pair of scissors were pendent from the girdles with silver chains. Large cloaks of red cloth were very fashionable, and for many years no bonnets for ladies were made of any other material than black silk or satin. During the early part of this century beaver bonnets were much worn, and when that addition was made to a lady’s toilet, like a camel’s-hair shawl of to-day; she was expected never again as long as she lived, to need another best hat for winter. All women in moderate circumstances wore pattens in 1772, and as they stamped over the streets the racket of these unwieldy affairs’ could be noticed a long way off and going late to church the delectable clatter they made drew eyes on the tardy corners and aroused the sleeping Christians. Women in middle life in the last century wore worsted dresses and check aprons to church, and very few females, unless the wife or daughter of a lawyer, doctor, or, clergyman, or merchants in large business, thought of wearing silks, satin, or velvet. The servants wore short gowns and petticoats of coarse domestic goods, and their dress indicated at once their station in life. They stood in awe of their employer, and called him usually master and his wife mistress.

Use of Liquors. The custom of drinking, so far as we have information, was generally indulged in by all classes throughout Christendom (Mohammed forbade the use of intoxicating liquors among his followers as a religious obligation) until within a comparatively recent period, for, as is well known, in the first quarter of this century it was a reproach to a man among the upper class if he could not drink his three bottles of sherry after dinner without falling beneath the table, while “the four-bottle man” was looked up to as a social hero. Hence it is not surprising that we find in our earliest annals that among the Swedes who settled on the Delaware both men and women were addicted to an over-indulgence in intoxicating beverages. We are told by Peterson De Vries that Governor Printz “weighed upwards of four hundred pounds, and drank three drinks at every meal,” and the same writer describes the Swedes “as not very sober, as they bought from the captain of the vessel a good quantity of wine and sweetmeats, and that neither here nor in Virginia was intoxication punished by whipping.” Of Dominie Laurence Lock, the Swedish chaplain, we learn his “great infirmity seems to have been an overfondness for intoxicating drinks,” but he certainly must have gotten over this weakness, for Campanius records “that he died in the Lord in 1688.”

After the coming of Penn, from the court records it appears that drunkenness was of frequent occurrence. At the court held 3d day of 1st week, Tenth month, 1686, “Haunce Urian was fined five Shillings for being drunk upon Tinicum Island,” while at the court held at Chester, 3d day of 1st week, Seventh month, 1687, many cases of drunkenness were tried. I give extracts from the records of that session as a few instances of the manner in which infractions of the law against intemperance were punished in these early days:
“Robert Stephens was presented by ye Grand Inquest for being Drunk at Chester since ye last Court for which he was fined by Ye Court 5s. James Sandelains was fined 5s. for suffering Robert Stephens to be Drunk in his House.”
“John Chard was Presented by Ye Grand Inquest for being Drunke about ye beginning of July last, for which he was fined by Ye Court 5s.”
“John Edge being convicted before John Blunstone and George Maris for being Drunke was fined by Ye Court 5s.”
“Neales Quist paid 5s. for being Drunk at Chester.”

The two following cases, which I cite at large from the old court records (tried at the session just mentioned), will present a general idea of the importance given to the breaches of the law against intemperance:
“Thomas Bowles being summoned to appear att this Court to answer ye Complaint of our Sovereign Lord ye King and Chiefe Proprietary for suffering the King’s Leidge People to be drunk att his house was upon the same Indicted. The Grand Inquest find the Bill, Whereupon he is Called toys Barr and Pleads not Guilty and refers himself to God and ye Country.
“John Taylor being attested declareth that Thomas Bowles told him that he lett Lasie Coleman have soe much rum till he was soe drunk that he was forct to be carried to his canow. Albertus Henrickson being attested declareth that he did see Harmon Johnson soe drunk att Thomas Bowles’ that . . . Thomas Usher being attested declareth that Samuel Weight did call for tife (15*)att Thomas Bowles’ house and he heard Thomas Bowles say why might he not have it since he doe pay for it. Andrew Friend being attested declareth that Thomas Bowles sold him and William Cob two bowles of Punch and att another time he sold ye Trumpeter’s soune (son) a Cann of Tife.
“The jury’s verdickt know this that we doe finde Thomas Bowles Guilty according to ye Indicktment. Hereupon Judgment is granted that he pay lOs.and costs of suit.”

At the same court Thomas Bowles was also “Presented by ye Grand Inquest for selling rum by small measures without lysence. Remitted upon condition that he doe soe no more and that he pay his fees.”

The second case is as follows:
“Richd. Crosby being sumoned to appear at this Court to answer the Complaint of our Sovereign Lord the King and the Chiefs Proprietary for being Drunke and committing other misdemeanors, was for ye same Indicted. The Grand Inquest find the bill. The testimony of Anne Sanderlaine declareth that upon ye 29th day of ye 4th month last, Richard Crosby was in Drink att Chester and very unruly. Philip Denning declareth that ye same day Richard Crosby was very much disordered by thinke and that he was very abusive. William Goford declareth that Richard Crosby being much in Drink Challenged ye Sweads or English or any other man att Cudgells, Wrasling or any other such violent exercise and further more did strike him upon ye head and did trip up his heels twice and yt he heard him say ye Sweads were rogues and did take part with ye Indians. John Clue declareth ye same. Johannes friend declareth that he heard Richard Crosby call ye Sweads Rogues and that they did take part with ye Indians against ye English.
“Before ye Petty Jury went out upon ye cause, he submitting himselfe unto ye Court, was fined 5s. and ordered to pay Court charges, and soe to be acquitted.”

Crosby was not simply an arrant braggart in his liquor, for the court records show that he kept the settlers in fear by his prowess, and was not choice of his words in expressing his opinion of the justices before whom he was frequently required to appear. But Crosby was not the only person who was belligerent in his cups in that early day, for at the court held at Chester on 3d day of 2d week, Seventh month, 1688, “Thomas Robins and Thomas Wood mans being convickted before John Bristow for Drunkeness, breach of Peace, breaking ye great Cabin doore and ye head of Samuel Harrison, mate on board of ye ship Tryall, was for ye same called to ye Barr. But upon their submission to ye Court was ordered to pay 5s. with all Court charges.”

Dr. John Watson strives to account for the immoderate use of liquor among the early settlers by arguing that rum and tobacco were regarded as preventives of dumb agues, fever and ague, and similar disorders, and that the people, imagining the air and water of “this hot climate” to be unwholesome, employed the luxuries named as antidotes. From the immediate ill effects of drinking cold water when overheated with labor in the summer-time, and the fevers and agues which attacked them in the fall of the year, the populace became confirmed in the opinion that liquor, at least, was essential for their well being, and as they had no conveniences to make beer that would keep in hot weather, they adopted the practice of the laboring people in the West Indies and drank rum. Hence he ascribes the general and continued use of intoxicating liquors to this opinion, which having “once so far gained ground as to influence general habits and customs on an erroneous principle, it requires much labor and a long time to wear them (the customs) out.” (16*) The true reason was that each of the settlers brought with him the manners and customs of his native land, and, as stated before, all Christian people at that period used liquor to excess.

To the Society of Friends the first protest against the immoderate use of liquor can be traced, and to them is justly due the credit of curtailing much that was certainly injurious in the custom during the last century.

At taverns in the colonial days it was not the rule as now to hand the bottle to the guest to help himself according to his capacity, but the landlord filled small glasses, known as “jiggers,” and if the party was not satisfied therewith, he was compelled to pay for his second drink. At that time, 1730, we are told by William Moraley that “Cyder is the most plentiful here of all Liquors, besides which they have Mead, Methlegin, Perry, and Peach Drink. The Beer not good. Madeira Wine is the only Wine used. Rum is sold for Three pence the Half Pint, or Ten pence a Quart. Half a Pint of Rum being mixed with three Half Pints of Water or Small Beer, makes Bombo, but mixed with Cyder, makes Sampson, an Intoxicating Liquor.”

In the early part of the last century nothing, it seems, could be done without liquor. At the birth of an infant the women of the neighborhood collected at the house, and wine or cordial waters was distributed to the guests, while rum, either buttered or made into hot tiff was given to the mother, as it was then deemed to be essentially necessary for her speedy recovery.

At the raising of houses and barns liquor was an important element, and the cedar branch on the top of the building announced that good cheer would supplement the work. No crop, it was thought, could be garnered without a liberal use of stimulants, and in 1700 at funerals it was then the custom for a servant (usually a negro) to carry around among those assembled sugar cakes, hot liquor, and wine, of which all present, both young and old, partook. It was given to every person, those as well standing in the street or sitting at the door. It was then not an unusual thing for a person fond of his glass to take a position so that he might be served among the first, and then to take another station so that he would receive, like Benjamin, a double portion. The abuse of this hospitality became so marked that Chester’s Monthly Meeting (Twelfth month 22, 1724-25) took definite action thereon, as follows:
“At our Quarterly Meeting it was desired ye friends take care at Burralls not to make great provision as to provide strong Liquors & hand it about; but lett Every one take yt is free to take it as they have ocation and not more than will doe them Good.”

Notwithstanding this testimony against the absurd custom, it continued to be practiced almost to the beginning of this century, and often families, to furnish “the funeral baked meats,” cramped themselves to such an extent that in many households where death had intruded the most rigid economy was entailed on the survivors for months to discharge the costly hospitality of the funeral day.

For years at public sales it was the practice to hand bottles of liquor and hot rum round among the crowd, until it had grown such an evil that in 1750 the General Assembly took notice of it, and gave the reason for the then enactment, that “inasmuch as a pernicious custom has prevailed in many places of giving rum and other strong liquors to excite such as bid at vendues to advance the price, which, besides the injustice of the artifice, leads to great intemperance and disorder.” Hence it was declared a penal offense for any person in the future to give or sell liquor on such occasions, subjecting the party convicted thereof to a fine of four pounds for the first, and five pounds for every subsequent violation of the law.

Justice, too, it seems, must needs invoke the use of liquor to rightly adjust the scales. At the Court of Oyer and Termiuer, held at Chester, November, 1752, James Rice, alias Dillon, and Thomas Kelly were tried and convicted for the murder of Eleanor Davis and John Thomas. The following bill paid the commissioners for “the Justices’ Expenses at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, November, 1752,” gives an idea of the entertainment required by the judges of the Supreme Provincial Court while making their circuit:

No public business, it seems, could be properly done without the use of liquor. It was customary to allow jurors in capital cases the use of liquor when deliberating on their verdict. In the commissioners’ office, at West Chester, the following bill, dated 1745, is on file paid by the county:

“For commissioners, assessors, justices, and grand jury

The Origin and Brief Notice of the Temperance Movement in Delaware County. As stated before, Friends, as early as February, 1725, gave testimony at Chester Meeting against the inordinate use of liquor at funerals, and from time to time thereafter they moved in the endeavor to check the widespread habit of drinking to excess, until by degrees their influence extended beyond their own society, and gradually a general sentiment was aroused, until much of the evil was done away by the force of public opinion. There was at that time no effort looking to a prohibition of the manufacture or sale of liquors, and it is doubtful whether the latter movement extends backward in our national history half a century. In this county, so far as I have knowledge, the first society organized for temperance work was known as “The Darby Association for Discouraging the Unnecessary Use of Spirituous Liquors;” and from the address issued by that body on the 17th of Sixth month, 1819, I find they protested against the fashionable custom of treating, and called upon farmers to discard liquor from the harvest-fields and meadows, which, if done, they say in a few years workingmen would cease to expect it as a privilege or claim it as a right. The association advised the formation of similar associations throughout the land.

A Delaware County temperance society was organized in 1835, and strongly urged the formation of auxiliary societies in each township. So rapidly did the movement develop, that on Monday, Oct. 5,1835, a temperance harvest home was held at Zion meetinghouse, Darby, while at the county meeting of the organization, in the Methodist Church, Chester, March 22, 1837, there were delegates from Waterville, Leiperyule, Marple, Lima, Chester, Wesleyan, Haverford, Haddington, and the Union Society of Shoemakerville present. Lodges in Lower Chichester, Darby, and other townships were also established.

The movement had so spread in 1842 that many merchants throughout the county announced that they kept “temperance grocery-stores;” and in August, 1844, John Hawkins, in Upper Darby, on the West Chester road, opened a temperance hotel, the Howard House, on which occasion the temperance people of the county assembled in large numbers, and appropriate services were held, while in the same year the Washington Hotel, in Chester, ceased to be a license house. When it was opened as a temperance tavern flags were suspended across Market Street, a great concourse of people gathered, a brass band furnished music, and speeches were made by prominent tee-totalers.

The question of license soon became a political issue, and so concentrated was the pressure brought upon the Legislature that that body passed a bill, which was approved by Governor Porter April 7, 1846, authorizing a vote by the people of the State, by which the electors of cities, boroughs, and townships could determine whether liquor should legally be sold therein. On March 19, 1847, the following vote was cast for and against license in the localities named:

As will be seen in Bethel, where there had never been license granted, so far as I have ascertained, and where the only application ever made to the court of Delaware County, in 1802, was rejected, the majority was for license, and in Ridley the vote was a tie. In the western part of the State a case was made and carried to the Supreme Court to test the law, and at the September term, 1847, Judge Bell delivered an opinion holding the act unconstitutional, inasmuch as it delegated to the people part of the functions of the Legislature, which the fundamental law had reposed solely in the latter body. This decision absolutely paralyzed the “Sons of Temperance,” their organizations disbanded, and for some years only a desultory contest against license was continued by a few individuals, noticeable in Upper Darby, until finally even their protest ceased.

After the war of the Rebellion terminated an organization known as Good Templars was formed in Delaware County, and grew rapidly, until in August, 1869, a mass meeting was held at Media. The courtroom was crowded by members from the various lodges in the county. So formidable had the roll become in numbers that they demanded and procured the passage by the Legislature of the special act for Delaware County of March 9, 1872, better known as the “Holiday Law,” which was followed by a movement throughout the State, on the part of the temperance associations, resulting in the act of March 27, 1872, providing that every three years thereafter, at the cities, boroughs, and township elections, the electors therein should vote whether liquor should or should not be sold in such cities and counties, which act is better known as the “Local Option Law.” The following is the vote in this county in the spring of 1873, when the question was submitted to the people:

Majority against license, 418, exclusive of Chester City.

Subsequently the Legislature by the act approved by Governor Hartranft, April 12, 1875, repealed the Local Option Law of 1872, and the special law for Delaware County, of March 9, 1872, was repealed by the act of April 18, 1878.

In concluding this chapter I have written to little purpose if I have failed to show that the present age is much better than “the good old times of Adam and of Eve.” It is only by throwing in bold contrast the past with the present that we mark the great progress of mankind. I unhesitatingly state my belief that in morals, in education, in general health, the people of today are as much improved over those who lived and acted during our Revolutionary struggles as the latter were superior in that respect to the early settlers.

If we could place the old manners of life side by side with those of the present generation, we would be easily convinced that the comforts which now surround the families of moderate means far exceed that maintained among the comparatively wealthy classes of our land a century ago. When we remember that in Penn’s time not a floor in the province was covered with a carpet, that tooth-brushes were unknown, and, in fact, that it was regarded as a mark of effeminacy for I many years after his day to clean the teeth at all, that personal cleanliness was not considered essential either to comfort or health, that less than a hundred and fifty years ago, among the aristocratic ladies, their enormous head-dresses when once fixed were not disturbed or altered for a month, until they became as intolerable to the wearer as they had long been offensive to all who drew near; when women wore scratch-backs suspended at their girdles (a pretty picture it must have been to watch these big head-dresses bobbing about as the wearer twisted and pulled one of the scratch-backs up and down, to allay the intolerable itching on that part of the body); when pewter plates were used in place of china or delft, a miserable tallow candle, or at best a wax taper, at night alone shed a flickering uncertain light; when only the wealthy could buy books, and when the young high-born lady pored over the pages of “Tom Jones,” “Joseph Andrews,” or “Roderick Random,” unrestrained, and the farmer, if he could read, was restricted to the almanacs, which, stitched together as the years passed by, hung suspended on a nail near the chimney-place; when the pious church-goers sat bolt upright in an uncushioned pew, and for two or three hours in midwinter remained shivering in the church without a fire, while the tedious clergyman hurled weighty sermons on doctrinal points, which he himself did not comprehend, at his unfortunate audience; when on cold mornings the fire was out, the dismal housewife gouged great pieces of flesh out of her fingers in trying to procure a spark from the flint and tinder, while men among us now of middle age can recall when they as boys sat in an out-house breaking great lumps of coal with a hammer to make it fit the stove, until they cursed the day that gave them birth.

Notwithstanding our comforts, those who follow us in a hundred years will be thankful that they have not to endure the hardships of the present age, and that they enjoy many things conducive to man’s happiness which are now unknown.

* “To build there an House of thirty foot long and eighteen foot broad, with a partition neer the middle, and an other to divide one end of the house into two small Rooms, there must be eight Tree of about sixteen Inches square, and cut off to Posts of about fifteen foot long, which the House must stand upon, and four pieces, two of thirty foot long and two of eighteen foot long, for Plates, which must lie upon the top of these Posts, the whole length and breadth of the House for the Gists to rest upon. There must be ten Gists of twenty foot long to bear the Lofts and two false Plates of thirty foot long, to lie upon the ends of the Gists for the Rafters to be fixed upon, twelve pair of Rafters of about twenty foot, to bear the Roof of the House, with several other small pieces, as Wind-beams, Braces, Studs, etc., which are made out of the Waste Timber. For covering the House, Ends and Sides, and for the Loft, we use Clabboard which is Rived feather-edged of five foot and a half long, that well Drawn, lyes close and smooth. The Lodging Room may be lined with the same and filled up between, which is very Warm. These houses usually endure ten years without Repair.

“The lower floor is the Ground, the upper Clabboard. This may seem a mean way of Building, but ‘tis sufficient and safest for ordinary beginners.” (Direction to such persons as are inclined to America, 1682, Penn. Mag. of Hist., vol. iv. p. 334.)

** vice-Director Alrichs, under date of Sept. 1, 1657, wrote to Stuyvesant from New Castle, and among other things states, “Since Sr Cornelius Hogeboom, a brick-maker, has arrived here, and his son and brother’s son are living at Fort Orange (Albany) or on the road to Mrs. Hutter’s, therefore he goes there to visit the same and to speak (with them), also to see if he can persuade them to come with him.” Alrichs urges Stuyvesant to use his influence to have Hogeboom locate on the Delaware. (Penna. Archives, 2d series, vol. vii. p. 516.) May 14, 1659, Airichs states that Cornelis Herperts de Jager had “established in the country near hear a brick-kiln and employed 4 persons at it.” (Ib., p. 561.)

*** “A Walk to Darby,” Penna. Mag. of History, vol. iii. p. 258.

(4*) Penna. Mag. of History, vol. v. p. 361.

(5*) Acrelius, “History of New Sweden,” pp. 279 – 80.

(6*) This story is really of Maryland origin, and was transplanted here as such narratives are usually transitory in character. The legend of the “Bloody Holly-Bush” is as follows: “There is also a legend current among the old citizens of Elk Neck, which may properly be called the legend of the ‘Bloody Holly-Bush,’ which originated from a murder committed on the Ferry farm while it was occupied by Hans Rudolph, the proprietor of the ferry. Rudolph had a negro slave, who for some reason was confined in jail at the point, and who made his escape and swam across the river, and procured a gun and hid himself beside a log about a mile from the old ferry-house. His master, while hunting for him, approached his place of concealment and shot him, his blood be-spattering the green leaves of a holly-bush near where he stood. The leaves of a holly-bush still growing there are flecked with crimson spots, as is alleged, from some supernatural cause. There is no doubt of the red spots being on the leaves of the holly-bush, but they are caused by some peculiarity of the soil in which it grows.” – Johnson’s History of Cecil County, Md., p. 200.

(7*) “The site of Knowlton, up to the year 1800, was a perfect wilderness. Near the head gates of the mill there was formerly the mark of a grave the occupant of which tradition named Moggey, and from that circumstance the crossing of the creek was named Moggey’s Ford. As Moggey had the reputation of making her appearance occasionally, it required no little courage in the traveler in early times to cross the ford at night.” – Dr. Smith’s history of Delaware County, p. 399.

(8*) Sketches of Public Schools of Chester, by W.B. Broomall, Delaware County Republican.

(9*) Breck’s “Recollections,” p. 303.

(10*) “The voyages and Adventures of William Moraley,” written by himself. Newcastle (England), 1743.

(11*) Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. i. p. 43.

(12*) lb., vol. vii. p. 276.

(13*) History of Delaware County, p. 198.

(14*) Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. v. p. 194.

(15*) “Tiff, or flipp, is made of small beer, rum, and sugar, with a slice of bread toasted and buttered.” – Acrelius’ History of New Sweden, p. 162.

(16*) Watson’s Annals, vol. ii. p. 521.

(16*) Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. vi. p. 324.

Source: Page(s) 178-192, History of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, by Henry Graham Ashmead, Philadelphia: L.H. Everts & Co. 1884

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