Part 19
No church or sect was more active in education than the Moravians, and schools were established at Germantown, Nazareth, Bethlehem and Lititz. Christopher Dock, “the pious schoolmaster of the Skippack,” taught a Moravian school in Germantown, and is the author of the first book on school teaching published in America.
During the sixty years following the establishment of Keith’s school there was no attempt made to start schools that would be free to all and not marked by the distinction between the rich and poor children. This democratic principle was not clearly formulated and advanced until it was taken up by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, when he distributed gratis a pamphlet which soon became productive of important results in the establishment of the future University of Pennsylvania. Prior to that time most of the schools in the province were conducted either under strictly private auspices or under the patronage of religious denominations.
March 1, 1802, Governor Thomas McKean signed the first law for the education of the children of the poor gratis, although both the Constitution of 1776 and that of 1790 provided for the establishment of “a school or schools in every county.” Owing to the lameness of this law, it remained a dead statute so far as some of the counties of the State were concerned.
The City and County of Philadelphia had been erected into “the first school district of Pennsylvania” in 1818, and in 1822 the City and County of Lancaster were erected into “the second school district.” These, termed the Lancasterian methods, were the beginnings of that glorious system of free education which has been a blessing to our great Commonwealth.
Up to 1830, the great free-school system, as we now have it, was still in embryo. The people began to awaken; public meetings were held all over the State, resolutions were adopted, comparisons with other States were made. The result was that on March 15, 1834, “An Act to Establish a General System of Education by Common Schools” was passed. Only a single member of the House and three Senators voted nay.
Late in 1834 the enemies of free schools attacked the measure all over the State, and the Senate voted to repeal the act of 1834, but Thaddeus Stevens saved the measure in the House. By 1848 this school law had grown much in favor, but it was not until 1874 that the last district in the State accepted the law. State Superintendent Wickersham then said in his annual report: “For the first time in our history the door of a public school house stands open to receive every child of proper age within the limits of the State.”
The progress of education after 1850 was very rapid. The crowning acts to make elementary education universal were the free textbook law of 1893 and the compulsory attendance law of 1895.
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Pennsylvania on Paper Money Basis When Bills of Credit Are Issued March 2, 1722–23
The first bills of credit, or paper-money, issued in the English American colonies were put forth by Massachusetts, in 1690, to pay the troops who went on an expedition against Quebec, under Sir William Phipps.
It was Governor Sir William Keith who first introduced the people of Pennsylvania to the pleasures and benefits of an irredeemable paper currency.
There had been great and long-standing complaint about the deficiency of a circulating medium, for the use of wampum had ceased, and foreign coin had never become plenty. The course of exchange ran heavily against the Province, and those who possessed money made enormous profits by the purchase and sale of bills.
The merchants of England did not ship bank-notes or coin to the Provinces. They paid for the produce which they purchased here with English goods, and settled the balances by shipments of sugar, rum, etc., from Barbadoes and other places in the West Indies, and by Negroes and indentured servants.
There seems to have been more hard money in Philadelphia than in New England, for Franklin, a paper-money man, notes in his autobiography how his fellow-workmen in Boston were surprised when he returned to his brother’s place in 1724 from Philadelphia. Franklin displayed a handful of silver, which was a rare sight, for they only had paper-money in Boston.
When Franklin first visited Philadelphia, in 1723, he noticed with surprise the free circulation of metallic money among the people of Pennsylvania. The whole of his own money then consisted of a Dutch dollar and a shilling’s worth of coppers.
But this condition soon changed for James Logan, in writing to the Proprietaries late in 1724, says, “No gold or silver passes amongst us.”
The Proprietary demanded sterling money in payment of quit-rents, no matter what the depreciation of the provincial currency. This was their right since they had nothing to do either with the emission of the currency or its depreciation.
As early as 1729 Logan wrote, “I dare not speak one word against it. The popular phrenzy will never stop till their credit will be as bad as they are in New England, where an ounce of silver is worth twenty shillings of this paper. They already talk of making more, and no man dares appear to stem the fury of popular rage.” Logan at that early date thought the king should arrest the delusion by proclamation.
The peltries, grain, flour, ships, cooper-stuff, and lumber of Philadelphia were always good for hard money with a good mercantile system. But the people were not satisfied.
It is quite likely that wages and small debts were paid almost entirely in the way of barter instead of money, and this, by the losses it occasioned produced discontent. The capitalists opposed a change in the currency, the farmers, laborers, and small trades people favored it.
In the language of petitions sent to the Assembly at this time, the friends of paper money contended that they were sensibly “aggrieved in their estates and dealings, to the great loss and growing ruin of themselves, and the evident decay of the province in general, for want of a medium to buy and sell with,” and they therefore prayed a paper currency.
The people of Chester County, on the other hand, asked to have the value of the current money of the Province raised, the exportation of money prohibited, and produce made a legal tender, so as to obviate the necessity for paper money. They did not want a regular State issue, but nevertheless, like men of more modern greenback times, they wanted an inconvertible paper money, a non-exportable currency, as if that were a blessing.
On March 2, 1722–23 an act was passed to issue £15,000. Governor Keith, in consenting to and promoting this experimental load, had been encouraged by the popularity of a similar measure matured by Governor Burnett of New Jersey.
Pennsylvania was the very last of the middle colonies to embark in the paper money manufacture; but once embarked, she plunged in rapidly and deeply.
This first small loan of £15,000 was to be redeemed within eight years. In 1723 £30,000 was issued; in 1740 the issue reached a total of £80,000.
Benjamin Franklin, who had urged and used his personal influence for this currency became alarmed and wrote, “I now think there are limits beyond which the quantity may be hurtful.” He was right.
In 1755 Pennsylvania had £160,000 currency out; and in 1783 the State’s irredeemable currency had been increased by various issues until it reached $4,325,000, a sum simply ruinous to all values.
The general plan of these loans was good. No bills were loaned but on good security. The friends of the system were many.
Paper money was also issued at times by individuals. In May, 1746, Joseph Gray gave notice that Franklin had printed for him £27,100 in notes of hand of 2 d., 3 d., and 6 d., “out of sheer necessity for want of pence for running change. Whoever takes them shall have them exchanged on demand with the best money I have.”
In 1749 the scarcity of small change was so great that the inhabitants petitioned for relief, and a committee of the Assembly was appointed to bring in a bill for the issue of £20,000, mostly in small bills.
An association was formed for issuing paper money to relieve the pressure for change. Eight reputable merchants issued five-pound notes to the amount of £20,000, payable at nine months with five per cent interest. It was soon evident that anyone might do the same thing, and the community be flooded with valueless currency. It was also at the same time a new way of borrowing capital. A petition signed by two hundred tradesmen was presented to the Assembly, which forbade it.
In 1763 the whole paper-money system of the colonies, including that of Pennsylvania, was outlawed by act of Parliament, when Franklin wrote a pamphlet, protesting against the act.
This outlawing of colonial money had much to do with prejudicing the people of the colonies against the rule of Parliament.
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General Clark Began Draft for Troops in
Drive Against Detroit, March 3, 1781
The Western frontiers of Pennsylvania were sorely distressed during the spring and summer of 1781 by the efforts of General George Rogers Clark, an officer of the Dominion of Virginia, to raise troops for an expedition in the interest of Virginia against the British post at Detroit.
Clark received a commission as brigadier general and was given ample funds with which to purchase provisions in the country west of the Allegheny Mountains. Also a small force of 140 Virginia regulars was placed at his service and he was empowered to equip additional volunteers in the border counties.
Agents were sent in advance of General Clark into the country between the Laurel Hill range and the Ohio River, who began to buy flour and live cattle. This caused much uneasiness among the Pennsylvania militiamen stationed in that country, and Colonel Daniel Brodhead made complaint to the State Government.
Colonel Brodhead received a letter from General Washington directing him to give aid to General Clark’s undertaking and to detach from his own force the field artillery under command of Captain Isaac Craig, and at least a captain’s command of infantry, to assist the Virginia expedition.
General Clark arrived on the Pennsylvania frontier March 3 and established his headquarters at the house of Colonel William Crawford, on the Youghiogheny, spending part of his time with Colonel Dorsey Pentecost on Chartiers Creek.
It was generally known by this time that all of Virginia county of Yohogania and much of the counties of Monongahela and Ohio, claimed as part of Virginia, really belonged to Pennsylvania, but the actual boundary line had not been surveyed west of the Monongahela River.
Among the settlers there were many factions, some who would only obey the laws of Pennsylvania, and who declared that Clark was a Virginia officer and had no business in Pennsylvania; others adhered to Virginia authority until the line should be permanently settled. A few took advantage of the situation and refused to obey either government saying they did not know which had authority over them, and they had enough to do to plant and keep their rifles in readiness for the savages.
Clark intended to raise a force of 2,000 men. When he arrived at Colonel Crawford’s he learned that the frontiers were being raided by bands of Shawnee from the Scioto, Delaware from the Muskingum and Wyandot from the Sandusky.
An expedition against those tribes would be more popular among the Western Pennsylvanians than a campaign against distant Detroit, and Clark very adroitly made an ostensible change in his plans. He gave it out that he was going against the Ohio savages, for the immediate benefit of the Westmoreland frontier, but his real design to conquer Detroit was not altered.
Colonel Brodhead was not for one moment deceived by General Clark, but many Pennsylvania officials were. On March 23 Clark wrote to President Reed, of Pennsylvania, asking his indorsement of the enterprise, for the effect it might have on the frontiersmen who called themselves Pennsylvanians.
Colonel Christopher Hays, the Westmoreland County member of the Supreme Executive Council, was directed to aid Clark’s expedition, but he was at heart opposed to it.
Colonel Hays called a meeting of all the commissioned officers of the Westmoreland militia to arrange a plan for the frontier defense. The officers met June 18, at the home of Captain John McClelland, on Big Sewickley Creek, and, much to the chagrin of Colonel Hays, decided by a majority vote to give aid to General Clark. It was resolved to furnish 300 men out of the county militia to join Clark’s army and Colonel Lochry was directed to see that this quota was raised by “volunteer or draft.”
This was the initial effort on the Pennsylvania frontier to raise soldiers by draft and it caused an outcry.
Such prominent citizens as Colonel Pentecost, John Canon, Gabriel Cox and Daniel Leet worked zealously to recruit men for General Clark, while county lieutenant Marshel and his adherents were just as active to defeat the Virginian project. This rivalry, which grew exceedingly bitter, was fatal to Clark’s enterprise.
Few assembled at the general rendezvous, and Clark began to draft men for his army. This afforded the rougher element among the Virginians an opportunity to exploit their hatred toward Pennsylvanians. The draft proceeded amid pillage, cruelty and personal violence. Virginian raiding
## parties scoured the country, seizing and beating men, frightening and
abusing women, breaking into houses and barns and causing a general reign of terror.
Captain John Hardin was most vigorous in denouncing the Virginia proceedings and advising against the draft. He owned a grist mill near Redstone. His eldest son, John, was a lieutenant in the Eighth Pennsylvania, afterward famous as General John Hardin, of Kentucky.
At the head of forty horsemen General Clark visited Hardin’s settlement and announced his purpose of hanging the stubborn old pioneer. Hardin could not be found, but one of his sons was caught and kept bound for several days. They broke open the mill, fed the grain to their horses, occupied his dwelling, killed his sheep and hogs for food and feasted there several days.
General Clark declared Hardin’s estate forfeited for treason. The general threatened to hang those opposed to the draft, but none were hanged.
On August 8, Clark began the descent of the Ohio with a force of 400, but with his spirit broken. The evening of the day he left Colonel Archibald Lochry arrived with 100 volunteers from Westmoreland County. These expert riflemen could have been used to advantage by Clark and at the same time they would have avoided the disaster which befell Lochry during his effort to join Clark.
Most of Clark’s force deserted him before he reached Louisville, so that he could not venture upon his march into the enemy’s country. He soon returned with small detachments, who dispersed to their homes in Virginia and Pennsylvania.
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William Penn Received Charter for Pennsylvania
from King, March 4, 1681
Admiral Sir William Penn, renowned in English history by his martial valor as an officer of the British Navy, left to his son a claim against the Government for £16,000, consisting to a great extent of money advanced by him in the sea service and of arrearages in his pay.
Sir William Penn was in command of an English warship at the age of twenty-three, when sent to the coast of Ireland to help fight the battle of Parliament against Charles the First.
When the war with the Dutch followed—caused by the seizure of New Netherlands—Admiral Penn commanded the English fleet, under the Duke of York, in a fierce naval engagement off the east coast of England at Lowestoft, in June, 1665. Just before this battle the admiral’s son, William Penn, Jr., was sent to the King with dispatches.
Admiral Penn died in 1670, worn out at forty-nine, and his son succeeded to his estates.
In 1680 William Penn petitioned Charles II to grant him, in lieu of the sum due to his father’s estate, letter-patent, “for a tract of land in America, lying north of Maryland, on the east bounded with the Delaware River, on the west limited as Maryland, and northward to extend as far as plantable.”
King Charles II was at once willing to grant the petition of William Penn because he could thus pay the debt owed Sir William. Some of his counselors objected, saying, that it would be ridiculous to suppose that the interests of the British nation were to be promoted by sending a colony of people that would not fight, that would have nothing to do with gin and gunpowder in dealing with the Indians. But the young Quaker stood high in the favor of the Duke of York, and of Charles II, and the King gladly consented to this easy mode of discharging the obligation.
The Duke of York desired to retain the three lower counties, or the present State of Delaware, as an appendage to New York, but his objections were finally withdrawn, as were those of Lord Baltimore.
After sundry conferences and discussions concerning the boundary lines and other matters of minor importance, the committee finally sent in a favorable recommendation and presented a draft of charter, constituting William Penn, Esq., absolute Proprietary of a tract of land in America, therein mentioned, to the King for his approbation; and leaving to him also the naming of the Province.
The King affixed his signature on March 4, 1681. The original charter is in the State Library. It is written on three pieces of strong parchment, in old English handwriting, with each line underscored with lines of red ink. The borders are gorgeously decorated with heraldic devices, and the top of the first page exhibits a finely executed likeness of His Majesty, in good preservation.
Penn wished his province to be called New Wales, but the King insisted on Pennsylvania. Penn next proposed Sylvania, on the ground that the prefix “Penn” would appear like a vanity on his part, and not as a mark of respect for his father; but no amendment was accepted.
The extent of the province was three degrees of latitude by five degrees of longitude, the eastern boundary being the Delaware River, the northern boundary “the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude, and on the south a circle drawn at twelve miles distant from New Castle, northward and westward into the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude, and then by a straight line westward to the limits of longitude above mentioned.” The three lower counties on the Delaware were not included in the charter.
The charter gave title to more than 45,000 square miles of land, and was among the largest tracts in America ever granted to a single individual. This grant gave Penn no coast line for his colony; so, August 2, 1682, he purchased from the Duke of York the “Three Counties Upon the Delaware,” which now form the State of Delaware. Although these were separated from Pennsylvania in 1702, they remained a part of the domain of the Penn family until the American Revolution.
Three things moved Penn to plant a colony in the New World; first, he would get payment for the amount of £16,000 due his father; secondly, he would find a place for his brethren, the Quakers, or Friends, where they would not be openly insulted in the streets, or dragged from their meeting houses to loathsome jails and robbed of the last bed or cow to pay the fines for not attending the established church; and thirdly, he would satisfy the desire which the glowing accounts of the brethren in the present New Jersey had created in him.
The second of these motives was by far the strongest. Penn himself had been tried for preaching to “an unlawful, seditious and riotous assembly.” Penn and his people enjoyed neither religious nor civil liberty in England.
The charter to Penn sets forth three objects; a desire on the part of Penn to enlarge the English empire; to promote trade; and to bring the savage natives by gentleness and justice to the love of civil society and the Christian religion.
Besides the territory granted, the charter gave Penn the power to make laws, set up courts, to trade, to erect towns, to collect customs duties; to make war, to sell lands and to impose taxes.
Copies of all laws were to be sent to England, and if disapproved within six months they became void. No war was to be made upon any State at peace with England. Any twenty of the people could request the Bishop of London to send them a preacher of the Church of England, who was to reside within the province without being molested.
Penn offered attractive concessions to the settlers. Land was sold to them at the rate of $10 for 100 acres and every purchaser of lands should have a lot in the city, to be laid out along the river. In clearing the ground care was to be taken “to leave one acre of trees for every five acres cleared.” This was the beginning of forestry in America.
At the time of the charter the present limits of the State were inhabited by the Indians, with some Swedes and Dutch settled along the Delaware.
The first real settlement under the new proprietor was made in 1681, when Penn sent William Markham, his cousin, to take possession of the province. The next year Penn himself arrived, bringing in his ship, the Welcome, a hundred colonists of his own faith, to found Philadelphia, the city of “Brotherly Love.”
Penn bought the land from the Indians, making a treaty of peace with them which remained unbroken for more than fifty years. “We shall never forget the counsel he gave us,” said an Indian chief at Conestoga in 1721.
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Colonel Daniel Brodhead Arrives at Fort Pitt to Fight Indians, March 5, 1779
Colonel Daniel Brodhead was sent to Fort Pitt to relieve General Edward Hand, and he arrived there March 5, 1779. He was a trained soldier and knew how to fight Indians.
General Hand turned over to him seven hundred militiamen. Some of these were stationed at Fort McIntosh, at what is now Beaver, some at Fort Henry, now Wheeling, W. Va., a few at Fort Randolph, now Point Pleasant, details at Fort Hand, near Kiskimimetas, near Apollo, and another guard at Fort Crawford, now Parnassus.
Forts Hand and Crawford were intended to protect the northern border of Westmoreland County from the raids of the Iroquois who lived on the upper waters of the Allegheny River.
With the first mild weather of spring the incursions of the savages began. The Seneca and Munsee descended the Allegheny in canoes and scattered in little bands throughout the country. They burned cabins, killed and scalped men, carried off the women and children and household goods.
Colonel Brodhead put into operation a system of scouting along the border from one fort to another. From his regulars at Fort Pitt, he selected his boldest and most experienced frontiersmen and organized ranging parties and sent them on extended tours through the forests. To the command of these important details he selected three of the bravest woodsmen in the Eighth Pennsylvania, Captain Van Swearingen, Lieutenant Samuel Brady and Lieutenant John Hardin. It was in this service that Brady won his fame as an Indian fighter.
Samuel Brady’s hatred of the savages was personal and he made it his business to kill them. In this he was justified in the cruel death of his brother, James, August 8, 1778, which was followed by the treacherous murder of his father, the celebrated Captain John Brady, April 11, 1779.