America Volume I Part 6

FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS.

Philadelphia, excepting to the southward, is surrounded by a broad belt of attractive suburban residences, the semi-rural region for miles being filled with ornamental villas and the tree-embowered and comfortable homes of the well-to-do and middle cla.s.ses. Down the Schuylkill is "Bartram's Garden," now a public park, where John Bartram established the first botanic garden in America, and where his descendants in 1899 celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of his birth on June 2, 1699. His grandfather was one of the companions of William Penn, and John Bartram, who was a farmer, mastered the rudiments of the learned languages, became pa.s.sionately devoted to botany, and was p.r.o.nounced by Linnaeus the greatest natural botanist in the world. Bartram bought his little place of about seven acres in 1728, and built himself a stone house, which still exists, bearing the inscription, cut deep in a stone, "John and Ann Bartram, 1731." He wrote to a friend describing how he became a botanist: "One day I was very busy in holding my plough (for thou seest I am but a ploughman), and being weary, I ran under a tree to repose myself. I cast my eyes on a daisy; I plucked it mechanically and viewed it with more curiosity than common country farmers are wont to do, and I observed therein many distinct parts. 'What a shame,' said my mind, or something that inspired my mind, 'that thou shouldst have employed so many years in tilling the earth and destroying so many flowers and plants without being acquainted with their structure and their uses.'"

He put up his horses at once, and went to the city and bought a botany and Latin grammar, which began his wonderful career. He devoted his life to botany, travelled over America collecting specimens, and died in 1777. At the mouth of the Schuylkill River is League Island, where the United States has an extensive navy yard, and a reserve fresh water basin for the storage of naval vessels when out of commission.

The attractive Philadelphia suburban features spread westward across the Schuylkill, and are largely developed in the northwestern sections of Germantown and Chestnut Hill, Jenkintown and the Chelten-hills. In this extensive section the wealth of the people has of late years been lavishly expended in making attractive homes, and the suburban belt for miles around the city displays most charming scenery, adorned by elaborate villas, pleasant lanes, shady lawns and well-kept grounds.

The chief rural attraction of Philadelphia is Fairmount Park, one of the world's largest pleasure-grounds. It includes the lands bordering both sides of the Schuylkill above the city, having been primarily established to protect the water-supply. There are nearly three thousand acres in the Park, and its sloping hillsides and charming water views give it unrivalled advantages in delicious natural scenery. At the southern end is the oldest water reservoir of six acres, on top of a curious and isolated conical hill about ninety feet high, which is the "Fair Mount," giving the Park its name. The Schuylkill is dammed here to retain the water, and the Park borders the river for several miles above, and its tributary, the Wissahickon, for six miles farther. The Park road entering alongside the Fairmount hill pa.s.ses a colossal equestrian statue of George Was.h.i.+ngton, and beyond a fine bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, and also an equestrian statue of General Grant. The roadways are laid on both sides of the river at the water's edge, and also over the higher grounds at the summits of the sloping bordering hills, thus affording an almost endless change of routes and views. The frequent bridges thrown across the river, several of them carrying railroads, add to the charm. An electric railway is constructed through the more remote portions, and displays their rustic beauty to great advantage. All around this s.p.a.cious Park the growing city has extended, and prosperous manufacturing suburbs spread up from the river, the chief being the carpet district of the Falls and the cotton-mills of Manayunk, the latter on the location of an old-time Indian village, whose name translated means "the place of rum." In this Park, west of the Schuylkill, was held the Centennial Exposition of 1876, and several of the buildings remain, notably the Memorial Art Gallery, now a museum, and the Horticultural Hall, where the city maintains a fine floral display. William Penn's "Let.i.tia House," his original residence, removed from the older part of the city, now stands near the entrance to the West Park.

A large part of the northeastern bank of the Schuylkill adjoining the Park is the Laurel Hill Cemetery. Its winding walks and terraced slopes and ravines give constantly varying landscapes, making it one of the most beautiful burial-places in existence. In front, the river far beneath curves around like a bow. Some of its mausoleums are of enormous cost and elaborate ornamentation, but generally the grandeur of the location eclipses the work of the decorator. Standing on a jutting eminence is the Disston Mausoleum, which entombs an English sawmaker who came to Philadelphia without friends and almost penniless, and died at the head of the greatest sawmaking establishment on the Continent. At one place, as the river bends, the broad and rising terraces of tombs curve around like the banks of seats in a grand Roman amphitheatre. Here is the grave of General Meade who commanded at Gettysburg. In a plain, unmarked sepulchre fronting the river, hewn out of the solid rock, is entombed the Arctic explorer who conducted the Grinnell expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, Dr. Elisha Kent Kane. A single shaft on a little eminence nearby marks the grave of Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress that made the Declaration of Independence. Some of the graves are in exquisite situations, many having been chosen by those who lie there. Here are buried Thomas G.o.dfrey, the inventor of the mariner's quadrant; General Hugh Mercer, who fell at the head of the Pennsylvania troops in the Revolutionary battle of Princeton, the Scots' Society of St. Andrew having erected a monument to his memory; Commodore Isaac Hull, who commanded the American frigate "Const.i.tution" in the War of 1812 when she captured the British frigate "Guerriere;" Harry Wright, the "father of base-ball," who died in 1895; and Thomas Buchanan Read, the poet-artist. At the cemetery entrance is the famous "Old Mortality" group, carved in Scotland and sent to Philadelphia. The quaint old Scotsman reclines on a gravestone, and pauses in his task of chipping-out the half-effaced letters of the inscription, while the little pony patiently waits alongside of him for his master and Sir Walter Scott to finish their discourse.

The peculiar charm of Philadelphia suburban scenery, however, is the Wissahickon--the "catfish stream" of the Indians. This is a creek rising in the hills north of the city, and breaking through the rocky ridges, flowing by tortuous course to the Schuylkill a short distance above Laurel Hill. It is an Alpine gorge in miniature, with precipitous sides rising two to three hundred feet, and the winding road along the stream gives a charming ride. Populous suburbs are on the higher ridges, but the ravine has been reserved and carefully protected, so that all the natural beauties remain. A high railway bridge is thrown across the entrance of the gorge at the Schuylkill, and rounding, just beyond, a sharp rocky corner, the visitor is quickly within the ravine, the stream nestling deep down in the winding fissure. For several miles this attractive gorge can be followed; and high up on its side, in a commanding position near the summit of the enclosing ridge, one of the residents has placed a statue of William Penn, most appropriately bearing the single word at its base--"Toleration." This splendid gorge skirts the northwestern border of the popular suburb of Germantown, and the creek emerges from its rocky confines at the foot of Chestnut Hill, where it rends the ridge in twain, and the hillsides are dotted with attractive villas.

This is a fas.h.i.+onable residential section whose people have a magnificent outlook over the rich agricultural region of the upper Wissahickon Valley and the hills beyond.

In Germantown is the historic Chew House, bearing the marks of cannon b.a.l.l.s, which was the scene of the battle of Germantown in October, 1777, when the British under Lord Howe, then holding Philadelphia, defeated General Was.h.i.+ngton, and the darkest period of the Revolution followed, the Americans afterwards retiring to their sad winter camp at Valley Forge. This suburb of Germantown is almost as old as Philadelphia. It was originally settled in 1683 by Germans who came from Cresheim, a name that is preserved in the chief tributary of the Wissahickon. Their leader was Daniel Pastorius, who bought a tract of fifty-seven hundred acres of land from William Penn for a s.h.i.+lling an acre, and took possession on October 6th. Their settlement prospered and attracted attention in the Fatherland. In 1694 a band of religious refugees, having peculiar tenets and believing that the end of the world was approaching, determined to migrate to Germantown. They were both Hollanders and Germans, and came from Rotterdam to London, whence, under the guidance of Johannes Kelpius, they sailed for America upon the s.h.i.+p "Sara Maria." They were earnest and scholarly men, and Kelpius, who was a college graduate, was a profound theologian. They called themselves the "Pietists." Upon their voyage they had many narrow escapes, but every danger was averted by fervent prayers. Their vessel ran aground, but was miraculously floated; they were nearly captured by the French, but, mustering in such large numbers on the deck of the "Sara Maria," they scared the enemy away; they were badly frightened by an unexpected eclipse of the sun; but in every case prayers saved them, and on June 14th they safely landed in Chesapeake Bay, marching overland to the Delaware and sailing up to Philadelphia, where they disembarked.

In solemn procession, on June 23, 1694, led by Kelpius, they walked, two and two, through the little town, which then had some five hundred houses. They called on the Governor, William Markham, representing Penn, and took the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. In the evening they held a solemn religious service on "the Fair Mount," at the verge of the Schuylkill. In it they celebrated the old German custom of "Sanct Johannes" on St. John's eve. They lighted a fire of dry leaves and brushwood on the hill, casting into it flowers, pine boughs and bones, and then rolled the dying embers down the hillside as a sign that the longest day of the year was past, and the sun, like the embers, would gradually lose its power. The next morning was the Sabbath, and they went out to Germantown, where they were warmly welcomed. They built their first house, since called the Monastery, near the Wissahickon Creek, where they worked and wors.h.i.+pped. Their house they called "The Woman of the Wilderness," and upon its roof, day and night, some of them stood, closely observing the changing heavens. With prayers and patience they watched for the end of the world and the coming of the Lord, and they obeyed the ministry of Kelpius. He lived in a cave, and as his colony of enthusiasts gradually dwindled, through death and desertion, he came to be known as the "Hermit of the Wissahickon." Here he dug his well two centuries ago, and the "Hermit's Pool" still exists. He constantly preached the near approach of the millennium, and exhibited his magical "wisdom stone." Finally, wearying yet still believing, he gave up, cast his weird stone into the stream, and in 1704 he died, much to the relief of the neighboring Quaker brethren, who did not fancy such mysterious alchemy so near the city of Penn. These "Pietists," or "Kelpians," as they were afterwards called, dispersed over the country, and had much to do with guiding the religious life and mode of wors.h.i.+p among the early German settlers in Pennsylvania. Everywhere in German Pennsylvania there are traces of their influence, and especially at Ephrata and Waynesboro they have had pious and earnest followers.

After the death of Kelpius, their last survivor in Germantown was Dr.

Christopher DeWitt, famed as a naturalist, an astronomer, a clock-maker and a magician. He was a close friend of John Bartram, lived an ascetic life, became blind and feeble, and finally died an octogenarian in 1765, thus closing with his life the active career of the Kelpian mystics.

THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER.

One of the romances of Fairmount Park is attached to the little stone cottage, with overhanging roof, down by the Schuylkill River bank, where tradition says that the Irish poet, Tom Moore, briefly dwelt when he visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1804. This cottage tradition may be a myth, but the poet when here composed an ode to the cottage and to the Schuylkill, which is as attractive as the bewitching river scene itself. The famous ballad begins:

"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled Above the green elms that a cottage was near, And I said, 'If there's peace to be found in the world, A heart that was humble might hope for it here.'"

Tom Moore's letters written at that time generally showed dislike for much that he saw on his American journey, but he seems to have found better things at Philadelphia, and was delighted with the Quaker hospitality. His ode to the Schuylkill shows that its beauties impressed him, and gives evidence of his regard for the people:

"Alone by the Schuylkill, a wanderer roved, And bright were its flowery banks to his eye; But far, very far, were the friends that he loved, And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.

"The stranger is gone--but he will not forget, When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known, To tell with a sigh what endearments he met, As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!"

The Schuylkill River is the chief tributary of the Delaware, an Allegheny Mountain stream about one hundred and twenty miles long, coming out of the Pennsylvania anthracite coal-fields, and falling into the Delaware at League Island in such a lowland region that its mouth is scarcely discernible. In fact, the early Dutch explorers of the Delaware pa.s.sed the place repeatedly and never discovered it; and when the stream above was afterwards found by going overland, and traced down to its mouth, they appropriately called it the Schuylkill, meaning the "hidden river." The Indian name was the "Gans-howe-hanne,"

or the "roaring stream," on account of its many rapids. The lowest of these, which gave the name of the "Falls" to a Philadelphia suburb, was obliterated by the backwater from the Fairmount water-works dam.

The river valley is populous, rich in manufactures and agriculture, and, as it winds through ridge after ridge of the Allegheny foothills, displays magnificent scenery. Both banks are lined with railways, which bring the anthracite coal from the mines down to tidewater.

Journeying up the Schuylkill, we pa.s.s the flouris.h.i.+ng manufacturing towns of Conshohocken and Norristown and come into the region of the "Pennsylvania Dutch," where the inhabitants, who are mostly of Teutonic origin, speak a curious dialect, compounded of German, Dutch, English and some Indian words, yet not fully understood by any of those races. These industrious people are chiefly farmers and handicraftsmen, and they make up much of the population of eastern Pennsylvania, while their "sauerkraut" and "sc.r.a.pple" have become staple foods in the State. Twenty-four miles above Philadelphia, alongside a little creek and almost under the great Black Rock, a towering sandstone ridge, was the noted Valley Forge, the place of encampment of Was.h.i.+ngton's tattered and disheartened army when the defeats at Brandywine and Germantown and the loss of Philadelphia made his prospects so dismal in the winter of 1777-78, one of the severest seasons ever experienced in America. The encampment is preserved as a national relic, the entrenchments being restored by a patriotic a.s.sociation, with the little farmhouse beside the deep and rugged hollow, near the mouth of the creek, which was Was.h.i.+ngton's headquarters. Phoenixville and Pottstown are pa.s.sed, and Birdsboro', all places of busy and prosperous iron manufacture, and then the river valley leads us into the gorge of the South Mountain.

READING AND POTTSVILLE.

The diminutive Schuylkill breaks its pa.s.sage through this elevated range, with Penn's Mount on one side and the Neversink Mountain on the other, and here is located the most populous city of the Schuylkill Valley--Reading, with seventy thousand population, a seat of iron-making and extensive railway shops, having a fertile agricultural region in the adjacent valleys. This expanding and attractive city gives its name to, and obtains much of its celebrity from the "Philadelphia and Reading Railway," the colossal financial inst.i.tution whose woes of bankruptcy and throes of reconstruction have for so many years occupied the attention of the world of finance. This great railway branches at Reading, and its western line runs off through red sandstone rocks and among iron mills and out upon a high bridge, thrown in a beautiful situation across the Schuylkill, and proceeds over the Lebanon Valley to the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg. This rich limestone valley, between the South Mountain and the Blue Ridge, is a good farming district, and also a wealthy region of iron manufacture. The Reading system also sends its East Pennsylvania route eastward to Allentown in the Lehigh Valley, and thence to New York.

Factory smokes overhang Reading, through which the Schuylkill flows in crooked course, spanned by frequent bridges, and puffing steam jets on all sides show the busy industries. A good district surrounds Reading in the mountain valleys, and the thrifty Dutch farmers in large numbers come into the town to trade. The high forest-clad mountains rise precipitously on both sides, with electric railways running up and around them, disclosing magnificent views. The "old red sandstone"

of these enclosing hills has been liberally hewn out to make the ornamental columns for the Court House portico and build the castellated jail, and also the red gothic chapel and elaborate red gateway of the "Charles Evans' Cemetery," where the chief townsfolk expect, like their ancestry, to be buried. The visitor who wishes to see one of the most attractive views over city, river, mountain and distant landscape can climb by railway up to the "White Spot," elevated a thousand feet above the river, on Penn's Mount. This point of outlook is an isolated remnant of Potsdam sandstone, lying, the geologists say, unconformably on the Laurentian rock.

[Ill.u.s.tration: _Loop of the Schuylkill from Neversink Mountains_]

Beyond Reading, the Schuylkill breaks through the Blue Ridge at Port Clinton Gap, eighteen miles to the northwest. The winding and romantic pa.s.s is about three miles long, and just beyond there is, at Port Clinton, a maze of railway lines where the Reading Company unites its branches converging from various parts of the anthracite coal-fields.

The Little Schuylkill River here falls into the larger stream, and a branch follows it northward to Tamaqua, while the main line goes westward to Pottsville. The summit of the Blue Ridge is the eastern boundary of the coal-fields, and the country beyond is wild and broken. The next great Allegheny ridge extending across the country is the Broad Mountain beyond Pottsville, though between it and the Blue Ridge there are several smaller ridges, one being Sharp Mountain. The country is generally black from the coal, and the narrow and crooked Schuylkill has its waters begrimed by the ma.s.ses of culm and refuse from the mines. Schuylkill Haven, ninety miles from Philadelphia, is where the coal trains are made up, and branches diverge to the mines in various directions. Three miles beyond is Pottsville, confined within a deep valley among the mountains, its buildings spreading up their steep sides, for here the malodorous and blackened little river breaks through Sharp Mountain. This is a city of fifteen thousand people, and the chief town of the Schuylkill or Southern coal-field, which produces ten millions of tons of anthracite annually. The whole country roundabout is a network of railways leading to the various mines and breakers, and there are nearly four hundred miles of railways in the various levels and galleries underground. We are told that in the eighteenth century John Pott built the Greenwood Furnace and Forge, and laid out this town; and afterwards, when coal-mining was developed, there came a rush of adventurers. .h.i.ther; but of late years Pottsville has had a very calm career.

To the northward of the Schuylkill or Southern coal-field, and beyond the Broad Mountain, is the "Middle coal-field," which extends westward almost to the Susquehanna River, and includes the Mahanoy and Shamokin Valleys. Both these fields also extend eastward into the Lehigh region; and it is noteworthy that as all these coal measures extend eastward they harden, while to the westward they soften. The hardest coals come from the Lehigh district, and they gradually soften as they are dug out to the westward, until, on the other side of the main Allegheny range, they change into soft bituminous, and farther westward their const.i.tuents appear in the form of petroleum and as natural gases. The region beyond Pottsville is unattractive. Various railways connect the Schuylkill and Lehigh regions, and cross over or through the Broad Mountain. The district is full of little mining villages, but has not much else. It is a rough country, with bleak and forbidding hills, denuded of timber by forest fires, with vast heaps of refuse cast out from the mines, some of them the acc.u.mulations of sixty or seventy years. Breakers are at work grinding up the fuel, which pours with thundering noise into the cars beneath. The surface is strewn with rocks and _debris_, and the dirty waters of the streams are repulsive. These blackened brooks of the Broad Mountain are the headwaters of the Schuylkill River.

THE NEW JERSEY COAST RESORTS.

The Delaware River divides Pennsylvania from New Jersey, and at Camden, opposite Philadelphia, there has grown another large city from the overflow of its population. Ferries, and at the northern end of Philadelphia harbor an elevated railway bridge, cross over to Camden, while for miles the almost level surface of New Jersey has suburban towns and villas, the homes of thousands whose business is in Philadelphia. The New Jersey seacoast also is a succession of watering-places where the population goes to cool off in the summer.

The whole New Jersey coast of the Atlantic Ocean is a series of sand beaches, interspersed with bays, sounds and inlets, a broad belt of pine lands behind them separating the sea and its bordering sounds and meadows from the farming region. This coast has become an almost unbroken chain of summer resorts from Cape May, at the southern extremity of New Jersey, northeastward through Sea Isle City, Avalon, Ocean City, Atlantic City, Brigantine, Beach Haven, Sea Girt, Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Long Branch, Seabright, etc., to Sandy Hook, where the long sand-strip terminates at the entrance to New York harbor. To these many attractive places the summer exodus takes the people by the hundreds of thousands. The chief resort of all is Atlantic City, which has come to be the most popular sea-bathing place of the country, the railroads running excursion trains to it even from the Mississippi Valley. Three railroads lead over from Philadelphia across the level Jersey surface, and their fast trains compa.s.s the distance, fifty-six miles, in an hour. The town is built on a narrow sand-strip known as Absecon Island, which is separated from the mainland by a broad stretch of water and salt meadows. Absecon is an Indian word meaning "the place of the swans." The beach is one of the finest on the coast, and along its inner edge is the famous "Board Walk" of Atlantic City, an elevated promenade mostly forty feet wide, and four miles long. On the land side this walk is bordered by shops, bathing establishments and all kinds of amus.e.m.e.nt resorts, while the town of hotels, lodging-houses and cottages, almost all built of wood, stretches inland. The population come out on the "Board Walk" and the great piers, which stretch for a long distance over the sea. It is the greatest bathing-place in existence, and in the height of the season, July and August, fifty thousand bathers are often seen in the surf on a fine day, with three times as many people watching them. Enormous crowds of daily excursionists are carried down there by the railways.

The permanent population is about twenty thousand, swollen in summer often fifteen- or twenty-fold. Atlantic City is also a popular resort in winter and spring, and is usually well filled at Eastertide.

The other New Jersey resorts are somewhat similar, though smaller.

Cape May, on the southern extremity of the Cape, is popular, and has a fine beach five miles long. The coast for many miles northeastward has cottage settlements, the beaches having similar characteristics. Many of these settlements also cl.u.s.ter around Great Egg Harbor and Barnegat Bay, both favorite resorts of sportsmen for fis.h.i.+ng and shooting.

Asbury Park and Ocean Grove are twin watering-places on the northern Jersey coast which have large crowds of visitors. The former is usually filled by the overflow from the latter, who object to the Ocean Grove restrictions. Ocean Grove is unique, and was established in 1870 by a Camp Meeting a.s.sociation of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here many thousands, both young and old, voluntarily spend their summer vacations under a religious autocracy and obey the strict rules. It is bounded by the sea, by lakes on the north and south, and by a high fence on the land side, and the gates are closed at ten o'clock at night, and all day Sunday. The drinking of alcoholic beverages and sale of tobacco are strictly prohibited, and no theatrical performances of any kind are allowed. No bathing, riding or driving are permitted on Sunday, and at other times the character of the bathing-dresses is carefully regulated. There is a large Auditorium, accommodating ten thousand people, and here are held innumerable religious meetings of all kinds. The annual Camp Meeting is the great event of the season, and among the attractions is an extensive and most complete model of the City of Jerusalem.

To the northward is Long Branch, the most fas.h.i.+onable and exclusive of the New Jersey coast resorts, being mainly a succession of grand villas and elaborate hotels, stretching for about four miles along a bluff which here makes the coast, and has gra.s.s growing down to its outer edge almost over the water. In the three sections of the West End, Elberon and Long Branch proper, the latter getting its name from the "Long branch" of the Shrewsbury River, there are about eight thousand regular inhabitants, and there come here about fifty thousand summer visitors, largely from New York. The great highway is Ocean Avenue, running for five miles just inside the edge of the bluff, which, in the season, is a most animated and attractive roadway. The hotels and cottages generally face this avenue. The most noted cottages are the one which General Grant occupied for many years, and where, during his Presidency in 1869-77, he held "the summer capital of the United States," and the Franklyn Cottage, where President Garfield, after being shot in Was.h.i.+ngton, was brought to die in 1881.

The most famous show place at Long Branch is Hollywood, the estate of the late John Hoey, of Adams Express Company, who died there in 1892, its elaborate floral decorations being much admired.

SHACKAMAXON TO BRISTOL.

Journeying up the Delaware from Philadelphia, we pa.s.s Petty Island, where the great Indian chief of the Lenni Lenapes, Tamanend, had his lodge--the chieftain since immortalized as St. Tammany, who has given his name to the Tammany Society of politicians who rule New York City.

Petty on the old maps is called Shackamaxon Island, a derivation of the original Indian name of Cackamensi. St. Tammany is described as a chief who was so virtuous that "his countrymen could only account for the perfections they ascribe to him by supposing him to be favored with the special communications of the Great Spirit." In the eighteenth century many societies were formed in his honor, and his festival was kept on the 1st of May, but the New York Society is the only one that has survived. Farther up, the Tacony Creek flows into the Delaware, the United States having a s.p.a.cious a.r.s.enal upon its banks. The name of this creek was condensed before Penn's time, by the Swedes, from its Indian t.i.tle of Taokanink. Beyond, the great manufacturing establishments of the city gradually change to charming villas as we move along the pleasant sloping banks and through the level country, and soon we pa.s.s the northeastern boundary of Philadelphia, at Torresdale. This boundary is made by the Poquessing Creek, being the aboriginal Poetquessink, or "the stream of the dragons."

Across the river, on the Jersey sh.o.r.e, formerly roamed the Rankokas Indians, an Algonquin tribe, whose name is preserved in the Rancocas Creek, which is one of the chief tributaries flowing in from New Jersey. At Beverly, not far above, is one of the most popular suburban resorts, the villas cl.u.s.tering around a broad cove, known as Edgewater, which appears much like a miniature Bay of Naples. Over opposite is the wide Neshaminy Creek, flowing down from the Buckingham Mountain in Pennsylvania, its Indian t.i.tle of Nischam-hanne, meaning "the two streams flowing together," referring to its branches. The earliest settlers along this creek were Scotch-Irish, and their pastor in 1726 was Rev. William Tennent, the famous Presbyterian preacher, who founded the celebrated "Log College" on the Neshaminy, "built of logs, c.h.i.n.ked and daubed between, and one story high," as it was well described. From this simple college, which was about twenty feet square, were sent out many of the famous Presbyterian preachers of the eighteenth century; and from it grew, in 1746, the great College of New Jersey at Princeton, and in 1783 d.i.c.kinson College, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, besides many other schools which were started by its alumni. William Tennent's son, Gilbert, was his a.s.sistant and successor. The great Whitefield preached to an audience of three thousand at this College in 1739. He was attracted there by Gilbert Tennent's fame as a preacher, and of him on one occasion wrote, "I went to the meeting house to hear Mr. Gilbert Tennent preach, and never before heard I such a searching sermon; he is a son of thunder, and does not regard the face of man."

The Delaware River broadens into two channels around Burlington Island, having on either hand the towns of Bristol and Burlington, both coeval with the first settlement of Philadelphia, and Bristol at that early day having had an ambition to become the location of Penn's great city. The ferry connecting them was established two years before Penn came to Philadelphia, and in the eighteenth century they had a larger carrying trade. Bristol began in 1680 under a grant from Edmund Andros, then the Provincial Governor of New York, for a town site and the ferry, which is curiously described in the Colonial records as "the ferry against Burlington," then the chief town in West Jersey. The settlement was called New Bristol, from Bristol in England, where lived Penn's wife, Hannah Callowhill. It was the first county seat of Bucks when Penn divided his Province into the three counties--Chester, Philadelphia and Buckingham. It was for many years a great exporter of flour to the West Indies. Its ancient Quaker Meeting House dates from 1710, and St. James' Episcopal Church from 1712; but the latter, which received its silver communion service from the good Queen Anne, fell into decay and has been replaced by a modern structure. Its Bath Mineral Springs made it the most fas.h.i.+onable watering-place in America in the eighteenth century, but Saratoga afterwards eclipsed them, and their glory has departed. Prior to the Revolution, Bristol built more s.h.i.+pping than Philadelphia; and, while quiet and restful, its comfortable homes and the picturesque villas along the Delaware River bank above the town tell of its prosperity now.

OLD BURLINGTON.

The ancient town of Burlington, cl.u.s.tered behind its "Green Bank" or river-front street on the New Jersey sh.o.r.e, antedates Philadelphia five years. The Quaker pioneers are believed to have been the first Europeans who saw its site. The noted preacher George Fox, in 1672, journeyed from New England to the South, and rode on horseback over the site of Burlington at a.s.siscunk Creek, reporting the soil as good "and withal a most brave country." When Penn became Trustee for the insolvent Billynge, a Proprietor of West Jersey, much of his land was sold to Quakers, who migrated to the American wilderness to escape persecution at home. Thus Burlington was the first settlement founded by Quaker seekers after toleration in the New World:

"About them seemed but ruin and decay, Cheerless, forlorn, a rank autumnal fen, Where no good plant might prosper, or again Put forth fresh leaves for those that fell away; Nor could they find a place wherein to pray For better things. In righteous anger then They turned; they fled the wilderness of men And sought the wilderness of G.o.d. And day Rose upon day, while ever manfully Westward they battled with the ocean's might, Strong to endure whatever fate should be, And watching in the tempest and the night That one sure Pharos of the soul's dark sea-- The constant beacon of the Inner Light."

In the spring of 1677 the "goode s.h.i.+ppe Kent," Gregory Marlowe, master, sailed from London, bound for West Jersey, with two hundred and thirty Quakers, about half coming from London and the others from Yorks.h.i.+re; two dying on the voyage. They ascended the Delaware to the meadow lands below the mouth of a.s.siscunk Creek, landing there in June, and in October made a treaty with the Indians, buying their lands from the Rancocas as far up as a.s.sunpink Creek at Trenton. Their settlement was first called New Beverly, and then Bridlington, from the Yorks.h.i.+re town whence many of them came, but it finally was named Burlington. They made a street along the river, bordered with greensward, and called the "Green Bank," and drew a straight line back inland, calling it their Main Street, and the Londoners settled on one side and the Yorks.h.i.+remen on the other. The old b.u.t.tonwood tree, to which was moored the early s.h.i.+ps bringing settlers, still stands on the Green Bank, a subject of weird romance. Elizabeth Powell, the first white child, was born in July, 1677. The next May, 1678, they established a "Monthly Meeting of Friends" at Burlington, of which the records have been faithfully kept. In June the graveyard was fenced in, and the old Indian chief, Ockanickon, a Quaker convert to Christianity, was among the first buried there. In August the first Quaker marriage was solemnized in meeting, this first certificate being signed by ten men and three women Friends as witnesses. In 1682, just as Penn was coming over, they decided to build their first meeting house--a hexagonal building, forty feet in diameter, with pyramidal roof, which was occupied the next year. In 1685 they decided that a hea.r.s.e should be built, the entry on the record being an order for a "carriage to be built for ye use of such as are to be laid in ye ground."

Burlington grew, and was long the seat of government of the Province of West Jersey, being the official residence of the Provincial Governors, the last of whom was William Franklin, natural son of Benjamin Franklin. It had wealthy merchants and much s.h.i.+pping, and, despite its peacefulness, equipped privateers to fight the French. Its famous old Episcopal Church of St. Mary had the corner-stone laid in 1703 under the favor of Queen Anne, who made a liberal endowment of lands, much being yet held, and gave it a ma.s.sive and greatly prized communion service. This old church is cruciform, with a little belfry, and a stone let into the front wall bears the inscription "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." In the extensive churchyard alongside is the modern St. Mary's Church, of brownstone, with a tall spire, also cruciform. This is the finest church in Burlington. When "Old St.

Mary's" was built with its belfry, the Friends did not like the innovation, and long gazed askance at the "steeple house," as they called it; so that Talbot, the first rector, st.u.r.dily retaliated, calling the Quakers "anti-Christians, who are worse than the Turks."

Many of St. Mary's paris.h.i.+oners of to-day are descended from these maligned Quakers. The early records of the Meeting are filled with entries showing that charges were brought against members for various shortcomings. One was admonished for "taking off his hat" at a funeral solemnized in the "steeple house;" others gave testimony of "uneasiness" on account of the placing of "gravestones in the burial-ground;" a query was propounded, "Are Friends in meeting preserved from sleeping or any other indecent behavior, particularly from chewing tobacco and taking snuff?" A record was also made of testimony against "a pervading custom of working on First days in the time of hay and harvest" when rain threatened. The descendants of these good people have established St. Mary's Hall and Burlington College, noted educational inst.i.tutions. Probably the most famous son of Burlington was the distinguished novelist, James Fenimore Cooper, born in 1789, but taken in his infancy by his parents to his future home at Cooperstown, in Central New York. The town was bombarded by the British gunboats that sailed up the Delaware in 1778, but since then the career of Burlington has been eminently peaceful.

BORDENTOWN AND ITS MEMORIES.

Above Burlington Island the Delaware winds around a jutting tongue of flat land, "Penn's Neck," which is one of the noted regions of the river, the ancient "Manor of Pennsbury." This was Penn's country home, originally a tract of over eight thousand acres, the Indian domain of "Sepessing." His house, which he occupied in 1700-01, was then the finest on the river, but it long ago fell into decay, and the manor was all sold away from his descendants during the eighteenth century.

At the eastern extremity of "Penn's Neck," on the New Jersey sh.o.r.e, is White Hill, with the village of Bordentown beyond, up Crosswick's Creek. Here is a region redolent with historical a.s.sociations. The old buildings along the river bank were the railway shops of the famous "Camden and Amboy," whose line, coming along the Delaware sh.o.r.e, goes off up Crosswick's Creek to cross New Jersey on the route to New York.

Above is the dense foliage of Bonaparte Park, now largely occupied by the Convent and Academy of St. Joseph. Bordentown was a growth of the railway, having been previously little more than a ferry, originally started by Joseph Borden. Its most distinguished townsman was Admiral Charles Stewart, "Old Ironsides" of the American navy, a relic of the early wars of the country, his crowning achievement being the command of the frigate "Const.i.tution" when she captured the two British vessels, "Cyane" and "Levant." He was the "Senior Flag Officer" of the navy when he died in 1860 on his Bordentown farm, to which he had returned. The old house where he lived is on a bluff facing the river. He was the grandfather of the noted Irish leader, Charles Stewart Parnell.

To Bordentown, in 1816, Joseph Bonaparte, the ex-King of Naples and of Spain, and eldest brother of Napoleon, came to live, as the Count de Survilliers, and bought the estate known since as Bonaparte Park. It was through Stewart's persuasion, mainly, that he located there, the estate covering ten farms of about one thousand acres. Lafayette visited him in 1824, and Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III., in 1837. Joseph returned to Europe in 1839, dying in Florence in 1844.

Another famous resident of Bordentown was Prince Murat, the nephew of Napoleon and of Joseph, and the son of the das.h.i.+ng Prince Joachim Murat, who was King of the Sicilies, and was shot by sentence of court-martial after Waterloo. Prince Murat came in 1822, bought a farm, got married, lived a rather wild life, but was generally liked, and, going through various fortunes, returned to France after the Revolution of 1848 and was restored to his honors. He was with Marshal Bazaine in the capitulation of Metz in 1870 and became a prisoner of war, and died in 1878.