Historic Shrines of America Part 17

Pennypacker has told the result:

"The handles of his plough, and even the fences around the fields, he covered with mathematical calculations.... At seventeen he made a wooden clock, and afterward one in metal.

Having thus tested his ability in an art in which he had never received any instruction, he secured from his somewhat reluctant father money enough to buy in Philadelphia the necessary tools, and after holding a shop by the roadside, set up in business as a clock and mathematical instrument maker."

Dr. Benjamin Rush once said that "without library, friends, or society, and with but two or three books, he became, before he had reached his four-and-twentieth year, the rival of two of the greatest mathematicians of Europe."

The skilled astronomer was soon called upon to render a service to several of the Colonies. By means of astronomical instruments he did such accurate work in marking out the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania that Mason and Dixon later accepted his results, and he settled the dispute between New Jersey and New York as to the point where the forty-first degree of lat.i.tude touches the Hudson River.

Perhaps, however, the achievement that won for him greatest fame was the observation, made in 1769, of the transit of Venus. The importance of the observation is evident from the facts that it provides the best means for calculating the distance between the heavenly bodies, which had never been satisfactorily made, and that the opportunity would not occur again for one hundred and five years. After months of preparation, which included the making of delicate instruments, Rittenhouse, one of a committee of three appointed by the American Philosophical Society, succeeded. In the words of Pennypacker, "The first approximately accurate results in the measurement of the spheres were given to the world, not by the schooled and salaried astronomers who watched from the magnificent royal observatories of Europe, but by unpaid amateurs and devotees to science in the youthful province of Pennsylvania."

Benjamin Franklin found in him a kindred spirit, and the Philadelphian was frequently a visitor at the Norriton farmhouse. On Sunday the two friends often went to the old Norriton Presbyterian Church, which had been built on the corner of the Rittenhouse farm, within sight of the house. This church, which probably dates from 1698, is still standing in good repair.

Some years after the successful observation of the transit of Venus brought fame to the American astronomer, he moved to Philadelphia.

There, among other duties, he had charge of the State House clock.

At the beginning of the Revolution the Council of Safety asked that he should "prepare moulds for the casting of clock weights, and send them to some iron furnace, and order a sufficient number to be immediately made for the purpose of exchanging them with the inhabitants of this city for their leaden clock weights." The leaden weights were needed for bullets. Later he was sent to survey the sh.o.r.es of the Delaware, to choose the best points for fortifications.

When he became Engineer of the Council of Safety "he was called upon to arrange for casting cannon of iron and bra.s.s, to view the site for the erection of a Continental powder mill, to conduct experiments for rifling cannon and muskets, to fix upon a method of fastening a chain for the protection of the river, to superintend the manufacture of saltpeter, and to locate a magazine for military stores on the Wissahickon."

This was but the beginning of service to Pennsylvania during the Revolution. His activities were so valuable to the Colonies that a Tory poet published in the _Pennsylvania Evening Post_ of December 2, 1777, a verse addressed "To David Rittenhouse," of which the first stanza read:

"Meddle not with state affairs, Keep acquaintance with the stars; Science, David, is thy line; Warp not Nature's great design.

If thou to fame would'st rise."

The following year Thomas Jefferson wrote to him:

"You should consider that the world has but one Rittenhouse, and never had one before.... Are those powers, then, which, being intended for the erudition of the world, are, like light and air, the world's common property, to be taken from their proper pursuit to do the commonplace drudgery of governing a single State?"

To the call of the nation Rittenhouse responded in April, 1792, when President Was.h.i.+ngton appointed him the first Director of the Mint.

His closing years were full of honors, but his strength was declining rapidly; he had spent himself so fully for his country that his power of resistance was small. Just before he died, on June 26, 1796, he said to a friend who had been writing to him, "You make the way to G.o.d easier."

x.x.xVIII

THE HEADQUARTERS AT VALLEY FORGE, PENNSYLVANIA

WHERE WAs.h.i.+NGTON LIVED DURING THE WINTER OF 1777-78

A few rods from the beautiful Schuylkill River, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, twenty-four miles from Philadelphia, is the quaint stone house where Was.h.i.+ngton spent nearly six months of the most trying year of the Revolution.

While the British troops were occupying Philadelphia Congress was in session at York, Pennsylvania. Valley Forge was accordingly a strategic location, for from here it was comparatively simple to guard the roads leading out of Philadelphia, and to prevent both the exit of the British and the entrance of supplies designed for the enemy.

The eleven thousand men who marched to the site selected for the camp were miserably equipped for a winter in the open. Provisions were scarce, and clothing and shoes were even more scarce. But the men looked forward bravely to the months of exposure before them.

Was.h.i.+ngton did everything possible to provide for their comfort.

Realizing that the soldiers needed something more than the tents in which they were living at first, he gave orders that huts should be built for them. The commanding officers of the regiments were instructed to divide their soldiers into parties of twelve, to see that each party had the necessary tools, and to superintend the building of a hut for each group of twelve soldiers, according to carefully stated dimensions. A reward was offered to the party in each regiment which should complete its hut in the quickest and best manner. Since valuable time would be lost in preparing boards for the roofs, he promised a second sword to the officer or soldier who should devise a material for this purpose cheaper and more quickly made than boards.

Some of the first huts were covered with leaves, but it was necessary to provide a more lasting covering. After a few weeks fairly acceptable quarters were provided for the men, in spite of the scarcity of tools. Colonel Pickering, on January 5, wrote to Mrs.

Pickering, "The huts are very warm and comfortable, being very good log huts, pointed with clay, and the roof made tight with the same."

At first, Was.h.i.+ngton sought to encourage his soldiers by a.s.suring them that he would accept no better quarters than could be given them; he would set the example by pa.s.sing the winter in a hut. But officers and men alike urged that it would be unwise to risk his health in this way, and he consented to seek quarters in a near-by house. However, he refused to make himself comfortable until the men were provided for.

His headquarters were finally fixed in the two-story stone house of Isaac Potts. There he met his officers, received visitors, planned for the welfare of the army, and parried the attacks of those who could not understand the difficulties of the situation. Once he wrote to Congress: "Three days successively we have been dest.i.tute of bread.

Two days we have been entirely without meat. The men must be supplied, or they cannot be commanded."

To the objections of those who thought that the army should not be inactive during the winter weather, he wrote:

"I can a.s.sure these gentlemen, that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets.

However, although they seem to have little pity for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and, from my soul, I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."

The heavy hearts of Was.h.i.+ngton and his officers rejoiced when, on February 23, 1778, Baron Steuben and Peter S. Du Ponceau called at headquarters. Du Ponceau wrote later:

"I cannot describe the impression that the first sight of that great man made upon me. I could not keep my eyes from that imposing countenance--grave, yet not severe; affable, without familiarity.... I have never seen a picture that represents him to me as I saw him at Valley Forge.... I had frequent opportunities of seeing him, as it was my duty to accompany the Baron when he dined with him, which was sometimes twice or thrice in the same week. We visited him also in the evening, when Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton was at head-quarters. We were in a manner domesticated in the family."

An order was sent from headquarters, dated March 28, that Baron Steuben be respected and obeyed as Inspector General. The need of his services is revealed by his description of the condition of the army when he arrived in camp:

"The arms at Valley Forge were in a horrible condition, covered with rust, half of them without bayonets, many from which a single shot could not be fired. The pouches were quite as bad as the arms. A great many of the men had tin boxes instead of pouches, others had cow-horns; and muskets, carbines, fowling-pieces, and rifles were to be seen in the same company.... The men were literally naked.... The officers who had coats, had them of every color and make. I saw officers, at a grand parade in Valley Forge, mounting guard in a sort of dressing-gown, made of an old blanket or woolen bed-cover...."

Mrs. Was.h.i.+ngton joined the circle at headquarters on February 10. She was not favorably impressed. "The General's apartment is very small,"

she wrote. "He has had a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our quarters much more tolerable than they were at first."

The most joyful day at Valley Forge was May 7, 1778, when a fete was held to celebrate the conclusion of the treaty of alliance between France and the United States. After religious service, the army was reviewed, and Was.h.i.+ngton dined in public with his officers. "When the General took his leave, there was a universal clap, with loud huzzas, which continued till he had proceeded a quarter of a mile."

On June 18 the glad tidings came to headquarters that the British were evacuating Philadelphia. Next day the camp was left behind.

Was.h.i.+ngton did not see it again for nine years.

In 1879 the Isaac Potts house was bought by the Continental Memorial a.s.sociation of Valley Forge. And in 1893 the Pennsylvania Legislature created the Valley Forge Park Commission, which has since acquired the entire encampment, has laid it out as a park, and has arranged for the erection of many monuments and markers and a number of memorial structures. But the house in which Was.h.i.+ngton lived must always be the central feature of the grounds.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DAWESFIELD, NEAR PHILADELPHIA, PENNA.

_Photo by H. C. Howland, Philadelphia_ See page 178]

x.x.xIX

THREE HEADQUARTERS OF WAs.h.i.+NGTON

PENNYPACKER'S MILLS, DAWESFIELD, AND EMLEN HOUSE, NEAR PHILADELPHIA

During the closing months of 1777, one of the darkest times of the Revolution, Was.h.i.+ngton made famous by his occupancy three houses, all located within a few miles of Philadelphia. The first of these, Pennypacker's Mills, is the only building used by the Commander-in-Chief during the war that is still in the hands of the family that owned it when he was there.

Pennypacker's Mills is delightfully situated in the angle formed by the union of the two forks of the Perkiomen, the largest tributary of the Schuylkill. Hans Joest Heijt, who built the grist mill and house on the land in 1720, sold the property in 1730 to John Pauling. He was succeeded in 1757 by Peter Pannebecker. His son Samuel was the owner of the house by the creek when, on September 26, 1777, Was.h.i.+ngton reached the Mills.

The orderly book of the following days and letters written from the house shed light on the events of the stay here.

On the day he reached the Mills, Was.h.i.+ngton wrote to William Henry at Lancaster:

"You are hereby authorized to impress all the Blankets, Shoes, Stockings, and other Articles of Clothing that can be spared by the Inhabitants of the County of Lancaster, for the Use of the Continental Army, paying for the same at reasonable Rates or giving Certificates."

The entry in the orderly book on September 28 read: