Part 66

Europeans Explore Waters of Pennsylvania, Delaware Bay So Named August 27, 1610

Quite different from all other colonies was Pennsylvania in the fact that many settlements were made within its borders and many races contributed to her people.

In 1608, the famous Captain John Smith, of Virginia, sailed up the Chesapeake Bay to its head, where he was stopped by the rocks.

At this same time the Dutch of Holland, during a lull in their war with Spain, were sending maritime expeditions over the world. They sent Henry Hudson to America. He sailed up the coast, on August 28, 1609, in his ship the “Half Moon,” entered the bay now called Delaware Bay, and cast anchor. Hudson was an Englishman, but in the service now of the Dutch.

The republic of the Netherlands, after a struggle never surpassed for heroism and constancy, had won a truce with King Philip of Spain, and the Dutch merchants had sent the English captain out upon the old quest, a short route to China.

Hudson’s appearance in Delaware Bay was before his discovery of the Hudson River, and, therefore, New Netherlands had its origin on the Delaware, called by the Dutch the Zuyd Revier, or South River.

Hudson navigated his little ship into the bay with great caution. He spent the day in making soundings, and learned that “he who would thoroughly discover this great bay must have a small pinnace to send before him, that must draw but four or five feet to sound before him.”

Hudson then sailed up the New Jersey coast, on the third day of September, anchored his ship within Sandy Hook, and the 12th he entered New York Bay through the Narrows, and discovered the great river that since has borne his name.

So far as the history of Pennsylvania is concerned there is much import in the exploration of Hudson in Delaware Bay. He made known to his employers, the Dutch East India Company, and to the seafaring nations of western Europe, the existence of this wide bay, into which, as he perceived, a great river must discharge. His discovery laid the ground for the claim by the Dutch to the country on the Delaware. Exploration followed, then trade, then occupancy, then a new State, in which the present Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey and New York were united under one government, called New Netherlands.

On August 27, 1610, Captain Samuel Argall, from Jamestown, Va., sailed into the Delaware Bay, and, remaining a few hours, gave it the name of Delaware, in honor of Lord Delaware, then Governor of Virginia. Thus we notice that neither Captain John Smith nor Henry Hudson entered Pennsylvania, they approached the very doorway, but did not come inside.

The first actual visit of a white man seems to have been six years later, when Etienne Brulé, a Frenchman, and a follower of Champlain, the first Governor of New France, came into Pennsylvania via the headwaters of the Susquehanna River and explored its entire length.

Hudson’s report of a land rich in furs attracted the attention of the Dutch, and before 1614, five vessels came to Manhattan on the North River. One of them, the “Fortune,” commanded by Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey, sailed in the Zuyd River, and he named the cape at the east entrance of the bay Cape Mey, and the cape on the west Cape Cornelius.

One of these vessels, the “Tiger,” was burned and her captain, Adrian Block, built a yacht forty-four and a half feet long, eleven and a half feet wide, of sixteen tons burden, to take her place. This boat, the “Onrust,” was the first built within the limits of the United States, and she was destined to fame. Cornelius Hendrickson brought the “Onrust” to the Delaware in 1616, and made the first exploration of the Delaware River, and discovered the mouth of the Schuylkill and first saw the site of Philadelphia. Here he ransomed from the Indians a Dutchman named Kleynties and two companions, who had come down from the North River by land, and who may have been the first Europeans in Pennsylvania.

On June 3, 1621, the Dutch West India Company was formed. The charter by the Dutch Government gave it the exclusive right to trade on the coast of America between Newfoundland and the Straits of Magellan. This company, by virtue of its charter, took possession of the country, and dispatched the ship “New Netherland,” with a number of people, under command of Captain Mey, to the Delaware, where, on the eastern bank, fifteen leagues from its mouth, Captain Mey erected Fort Nassau.

The site of this fort was about five miles above Wilmington, and here four married couples and eight seamen lived. This was, probably, the first settlement on the Delaware River. Fort Nassau was a log structure, capable of defense against bows and arrows, sufficient for a depot of furs, but badly situated to command the commerce of the river. It stood for nearly thirty years, until 1651, and in that time was the center on this continent of Dutch authority and trade. It was to this fort that the Indians of Pennsylvania brought their peltries to exchange for articles that served their use or pleased their fancy, or for rum that made them drunk.

Another settlement was made farther north, on the same side of the river, which consisted of three or four families.

The administration of the affairs of New Netherlands was confided by the Dutch West Indian Company to Peter Minuit, who arrived at Manhattan, May 4, 1626. He came from Wesel, and was commissioned as director-general. It was he who soon after his arrival “purchased the island of Manhattan from the Indians for sixty guilders, or the sum of twenty-five dollars in real money.”

In spite of the fact that the Dutch West Indian Company in 1629 granted special privileges to all persons who should plant any colony in New Netherland, up until 1631 no white man had made a settlement on the west bank of the Delaware.

On December 30, 1630, David Pieterzoon De Vries, with thirty-two people and a large stock of cattle, sailed from the Texel, in the ship “Walrus,” and arrived at the southern cape, Cornelius, now Henlopen, and made a settlement near the present town of Lewes, and called it Swanendael, or the Valley of the Swans. De Vries is the finest figure among the early pioneer history of the settlement of this part of our country. He was intelligent, energetic and humane.

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World Struggle for Oil Began at Titusville, August 28, 1859

The gigantic struggle for oil began in Titusville, Pennsylvania, August 28, 1859, when Colonel Edwin L. Drake struck oil in the world’s first well.

This small hole drilled through the rock so peacefully opened the way to wealth hitherto unknown. It yielded about forty barrels per day, but the precious fuel was now produced in commercial quantities. It opened also the most important natural production of Pennsylvania, after iron and coal.

This first well was in Cherry Tree Township, on the Watson Flats, on the bank of Oil Creek, about two miles below the thrifty borough of Titusville.

Venango County seems to have been the native home for petroleum for although it has been found in large quantities in neighboring counties, it was first gathered there and its presence was known from the advent of man in that vast region.

The Indians gathered oil from a stream called Oil Creek, in this vicinity, which they used for medicinal purposes. It became well known all over the country as “Seneca Oil,” “British Oil” and other names. It was collected by digging out the place where it oozed out of the ground, and when oil and water had accumulated, blankets were thrown in, taking up the oil, when it was wrung out, and the process repeated.

A century since the product of Oil Creek Valley amounted to a dozen barrels a year. The first shipment in bulk was made by a man named Cary, who filled two five-gallon kegs and lashed them on either side of the horse he rode to the market at Pittsburgh. This supply stocked the market.

By the year 1865 Venango County shipped 13,000 barrels per day about the only oil produced in this country.

Petroleum was desired as an illuminator, but the small quantity obtainable made it too expensive.

According to the production records more than one billion barrels of oil were produced in 1923 for a world’s record in oil production—and yet the supply is far short of the world demand.

Fish oil is the earliest known illuminant and lubricant. “Coal oil,” however, still used erroneously as the name for kerosene, was discovered less than eighty years ago by Dr. Abraham Gesner, who, in 1846, obtained oil from coal. That was enough to ruin the fish oil industry, and soon more than fifty coal oil works were put in operation, distilling oil from bituminous, or soft coal.

A man named Kier, at Tarentum, Pennsylvania, in 1847, bored for salt water and pumped up oil. He put it in barrels and sold it. A professor at Dartmouth College, using some of the oil, told George H. Bissell that in his opinion it could be used for illuminating purposes. Bissell investigated these claims and organized the Petroleum Oil Company—which was the first of its kind in the United States, and sent a quantity to Benjamin Silliman, Professor of Chemistry in Yale College, who reported that nearly the whole of the raw product could be treated so as to be used for illuminating and other purposes without any waste.

In December, 1857, Colonel Edwin L. Drake, one of the stockholders of this company, rode into Titusville on a mail coach from Erie. He carried with him $1,000 with which to begin boring for oil. He started immediately to his work, but met with many discouragements.

Well drillers were unknown and well drilling machinery almost unheard of in 1858. He built his “pump house” and derrick, and with the assistance of “Uncle Billy” Smith, began drilling.

The beginning was made in quicksand and clay, and as soon as the hole was made it filled up with water and caved in. Drake then hit upon the scheme of driving an iron pipe through to bedrock, and its success made the use of this method the standard practice of today in the oil fields everywhere.

After rock was reached they bored but three feet per day, but by Saturday, August 27, 1859, the well had reached the depth of sixty-nine feet and the drill was working in coarse sand. Smith and his sons, who were helping him, had finished for the week. As they were quitting the drill dropped six inches, apparently into a crevice, as was common in salt wells. No attention was paid to this circumstance, the tools were drawn out and all hands adjourned to Titusville.

Sunday morning Uncle Billy strolled out to the drill, and to his astonishment found the well filled within a few feet of the surface with a dark fluid. It was oil. The news soon spread to the village, and when Colonel-Drake appeared he found Uncle Billy guarding three barrels of petroleum. The pumping apparatus was adjusted, and by noon the well was producing at the rate of twenty barrels per day. The problem of the ages had been solved. The world’s first oil well was in production.

Then began what has been called the “oil fever.” People from all parts of the country flocked to western Pennsylvania. Oil companies were everywhere organized, whose stock was sold on the market. Land which for generations had been regarded as almost barren sold for fabulous prices.

“Coal Oil Johnnie,” an ignorant young man whose paternal acres had long brought only poverty and were now found to be located with wealth, appeared in Philadelphia, scattering ten dollar bills in all directions, and buying teams of horses on one day, only to give them to his coachman on the next. He built an opera house in Cincinnati and ended his career as its doorkeeper.

In 1860, near Rouseville, the oil flowed out of a well without the use of a pump, and other flowing wells in adjacent localities were soon found.

Oil was first transported in wagons and boats. The railroads were laid out to Oil City in 1865. In 1864 Samuel Van Syckel had constructed a pipe line four miles in length, and the result was a change in the entire method of transportation. A refinery was built at Corry in 1862.

The Pennsylvania grade of crude oil is the best lubricant that man has ever found. And since refineries can add nothing to an oil that was not present in its crude state, Pennsylvania grade of crude oil is still supreme.

In recent years the Standard Oil Company has controlled to a great extent the oil production of the country.

The largest individual fortune the world has ever seen is the outcome of the development of the business of securing and distributing coal oil.

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Joseph Galloway, Loyalist Politician, and Member Continental Congress, Died August 29, 1803

Joseph Galloway, the Loyalist Politician, was born in the town of West River, Anne Arundel County, Maryland, in the year 1731. His great-grandfather, Richard Galloway, of London, England, acquired considerable land in Lord Baltimore’s province in 1662, thus indicating that he was a man of good fortune and respectability.

Peter Galloway, father of Joseph, removed with his family in 1740 to Kent, not far from Philadelphia, where he died while Joseph was yet a mere boy. Being possessed of large landed property Joseph chose the study of law, and was admitted to the bar and allowed to practice before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania as early as 1749. In the meantime he had obtained a good social standing, and as early as 1748 had been made a member of the Schuylkill Fishing Company, a club composed of the most prominent and aristocratic men of Philadelphia.

Mr. Galloway still further enhanced his prospects by his marriage in 1753 with Grace Growden, daughter of Lawrence Growden, an influential character and a former Speaker of the Assembly. The Growdens were the owners of the famous iron works at Durham, Pennsylvania, and possessed large means.

Mr. Galloway rapidly acquired a large practice and became one of the eminent lawyers in the province. He and John Dickinson succeeded Andrew Hamilton in the leadership of the Philadelphia bar prior to the Revolution.

Galloway became a member of the Pennsylvania Assembly in 1756, and his legal talents proved of especial service in that body. In recognition of his unusual attainments as a lawyer and public man, Mr. Galloway was given the degree LL.D., by Princeton College in 1769.

Mr. Galloway several times served as an Indian Commissioner and attended important conferences at Easton and on missions to the Indian country.

He became an opponent of the Proprietaries and fought a successful battle with the Governor over the question of preserving to the Assembly the disposal of the money and forbidding the Governor to assist in its expenditure.

When the effort was made to abolish the Proprietorship and make Pennsylvania a royal province, the Assembly passed resolutions rehearsing the tyranny of the Proprietary and a bitter factional struggle ensued among the people. In October, 1764, the Assembly passed the resolution for a change of government by a vote of 27 to 3. Rather than sign the document Isaac Norris resigned as speaker.

In the final debate, Joseph Galloway and John Dickinson made the leading speeches for and against, respectively. Galloway favored the abolition of the Proprietary government, while Dickinson believed its continuance would better serve the province. Benjamin Franklin and Galloway were so closely associated that their leadership was hard to beat.

Galloway was at the head of the committee which considered and reported upon the grievances of the Province in the “Paxtang Riot” affair following the murder of the Conestoga Indians, December, 1763.

The conduct of Galloway during the excitement attending the passage of the Stamp Act was conspicuously loyal. He feared the tyranny of mob rule more than the tyranny of Parliament.

Mr. Galloway gave expression to his views in an article signed “Americanus,” printed in the Pennsylvania Journal, in which he warned his countrymen of the evils to which their seditious conduct would lead. This article aroused great indignation against him. He was called a Tory and went by the name of “Americanus” for some time.

Mr. Galloway had an extreme aversion to the Presbyterians. He associated them with rioters, and in their support of the “Paxtang Boys” he was convinced they were dangerous characters.

Although he had taken a rather unpopular stand in the Stamp Act controversy, he was returned to the Assembly in 1766, and elected its Speaker.

Mr. Galloway approved the proposal for a Continental Congress and was one of the eight Pennsylvanians who composed the First Continental Congress. Although Dickinson was the leader, Galloway played a conspicuous but not very honorable part. According to Bancroft, he “acted as a volunteer spy for the British Government.”

It is a fact that he was a conservative in his views, and that his line of argument in his first debates tended towards political independence. He proposed a plan of colonial government, which was rejected. This plan contemplated a government with a president-general appointed by the king, and a Grand Council, chosen every three years by the colonial assemblies, who were to be authorized to act jointly with Parliament in the regulation of affairs of the colonies.

The following year Galloway was permitted to resign and thus be relieved from serving on account of the radical acts against England. He abandoned the Whigs soon as the question of independence had begun to be agitated, and thence forward he was regarded as a zealous Tory.

When the Howes issued their proclamation in 1776, granting amnesty to such Americans as would forsake the Revolutionary cause, Galloway’s courage failed him and he accepted the offer.

“Galloway has fled and joined the venal Howe; To prove his baseness, see him cringe and bow, A traitor to his country and its laws, A friend to tyrants and their cursed cause,” etc.

Galloway accompanied Howe’s expedition against Philadelphia. When the British assumed control he was appointed Superintendent of the Police of the City and Suburbs, of the Port and of the Prohibited Articles. Thus he was for about five months the head of the civil government.

He raised and disciplined troops; and gathered a company of Bucks County refugees, and with these two bodies he carried on military enterprises against Americans.

The Pennsylvania Assembly, March 6, 1778, passed an “act for the attainder of divers traitors,” among whom was Joseph Galloway. His estate was confiscated, and according to his testimony before Parliament, was worth at least £40,000 sterling. His house was appropriated by the State of Pennsylvania as a residence for the President of the Supreme Executive Council, but was afterwards sold to Robert Morris.

Forbidden the privilege of returning to Pennsylvania, Mr. Galloway devoted his leisure time to religious studies. He died at Watford, Herts, England, August 29, 1803.

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Etymology of Pennsylvania Counties Erected Since Penn Set Sail August 30, 1682

William Penn sailed from England in the ship “Welcome,” August 30, 1682.

Upon his arrival the organization of his province was pushed with dispatch, and today that vast territory is divided into sixty-seven counties, each one of which possesses history worth the telling.

The genealogy of the counties of Pennsylvania is both interesting and historical, and presents some valuable data. The three original counties were Philadelphia, Chester and Bucks, so named by William Penn in the latter part of the year 1682.

It is a singular coincidence that Philadelphia County should be surrounded with counties somewhat similar to those which surround London in England; Buckingham, or Bucks, Chester and Lancashire.

The name Philadelphia means “brotherly love,” the other three were given their names in honor of their English importance. In fact all the counties formed and named prior to the Revolution were named identically and relatively after the counties in England in this chronological order in the Province—Philadelphia, Chester, Bucks, Lancaster, York, Cumberland, Berks, Northampton, Bedford, Northumberland and Westmoreland.

Following the independence of the colonies only three of the counties of Pennsylvania were afterwards given names of English Counties. They were Huntingdon, Somerset and Cambria.

In an interesting paper prepared by the late Dr. Hugh Hamilton, of Harrisburg and read before the Federation of Historical Societies of Pennsylvania, of which he was then president, the sixty-seven counties were grouped etymologically as follows:

“Sentimental—Philadelphia, Columbia, Lebanon and Union.

“Familiar—Bedford, Berks, Bucks, Cambria, Chester, Cumberland, Huntingdon, Lancaster, Northampton, Northumberland, Somerset, York and Westmoreland.

“Gratitude—Armstrong, Bradford, Butler, Clinton, Crawford, Dauphin, Luzerne, Mercer, Mifflin, Montgomery, Fayette, Fulton, Greene, Lawrence, Montour, Perry, Pike, Sullivan, Warren, Washington and Wayne.

“Political—Adams, Blair, Cameron, Franklin, Jefferson, McKean, Monroe and Snyder.

“Aboriginal—Allegheny, Delaware, Erie, Indiana, Juniata, Lackawanna, Lehigh, Lycoming, Susquehanna, Tioga, Venango and Wyoming.

“Topographical—Center and Clarion.

“Faunal—Beaver, Carbon, Clearfield, Elk, Forest, Schuylkill.”

It would seem as if Schuylkill should be placed with the aboriginal group and a new one placed in the list called possibly natural characteristics, when Carbon, Clearfield and Forest would be placed and taken from the faunal group. However, the grouping is of much interest and value.

Many of these counties were formed and received their names at times of some event in history or when a distinguished person seemed entitled to be thus honored.

Washington County was named in honor of the commander-in-chief of the Continental Army in 1781, before he was even thought of as the first president of the United States. And it is an interesting fact that Washington County was the first one erected after the Declaration of Independence. Thus Washington became first in Pennsylvania, as well as in war, peace and the hearts of his countrymen. And it is equally interesting that the very next county to be formed in the patriotic State of Pennsylvania should be named after General La Fayette, who rendered such conspicuous service to the colonies and was so close to Washington during the trying days of the great war for liberty. Fayette was organized September 26, 1783.

Then the statesmen paid a great tribute to Franklin, who was the great American patriot and statesman. Armstrong was named in honor of Colonel John Armstrong of Carlisle, who led the successful expedition against the Indian town at Kittanning and who afterwards became a general and rendered distinguished service in the Revolution.

The counties of Butler, Crawford, Mifflin, Pike, Potter and Wayne were named in honor of distinguished Pennsylvania officers of the Revolution; while Greene and Mercer were names suggested by General Washington, both as a tribute to distinguished generals of the Revolution, who were much in Pennsylvania; Sullivan and Perry were named for generals whose great triumphs were enacted here, and Warren County was named in honor of the general who made the supreme sacrifice at Bunker Hill.

Bradford County was originally Ontario in the bill creating it, but the name was changed in honor of former Attorney General William Bradford, of Pennsylvania. Lawrence was so named in honor of the flagship of Commodore Oliver H. Perry; Fulton in honor of Lancaster County’s native son, Robert Fulton, who first successfully ran a steamboat. Clinton was intended to be called Eagle County, but the name was changed to Clinton. Montour was so named in honor of Madame Montour and her two distinguished sons, Henry and Andrew, Indians who were ever loyal to the Provincial Government of Pennsylvania.

Dauphin and Luzerne were so named in thankfulness to France, the former in honor of the eldest son of Louis XVI, and the latter in tribute to the Minister of France then in the United States.