HISTORICAL MAGAZINE

Vol. 5 No. 4

OCTOBER, 1922

Price 75 cents

ANNOUNCEMENT

This number completes the fifth volume of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Magazine. The magazine has now attained a front rank among historical periodicals. Nearly all the leading public libraries of the United States are among its subscribers, and practically all the most prominent historical societies which publish historical magazines of their own, are on its exchange list. The list of local subscribers is constantly increasing.

The editor of the magazine, with the cooperation of the two associate editors, Messrs. John P. Cowan and John S. Ritenour, has conducted the magazine from the beginning. To the editor this has been a labor of love in which he found great pleasure, notwithstanding the fact that considerable work was involved.

The magazine being now on a sound footing and with an assured future, the editor, at the beginning of this summer concluded that it was time for him to retire from his position and shift the burden of conducting the magazine upon other shoulders, in order that he might be able to devote

THE WESTERN PENNSYLVANIA HISTORICAL MAGAZINE is published quarterly, in January, April, July and October, by the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, Bigelow Boulevard and Parkman Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pa. It is mailed free to all members of the Society. Members may obtain additional copies at 50 cents each; to others the charge is 75 cents. To public libraries, universities, colleges, historical and other similar societies the annual subscription rate is $2.00. The annual dues of the Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania are $3.00, and should be sent to John E. Potter, Treasurer, Fourth Avenue and Grant Street, Pittsburgh, Pa.

more time to his private affairs. Accordingly, on June 16th, he sent his resignation to the President of the Western Pennsylvania Historical Society, enclosing a copy to the Chairman of the Publication Committee. The resignation was to take effect at the end of the present year and has been accepted. Since that time Alfred Proctor James has been selected as editor of the magazine. Mr. James is the assistant professor of history and acting head of the Department of History of the University of Pittsburgh, and has been connected with the institution for the last five years.

The Historical Society is to be congratulated on having secured a man so well qualified for the position to which he has been elected. He is a Virginian by birth and was graduated with the degree of A. B. from Randolph-Macon College at Ashland, Virginia. Having secured a Rhodes Scholarship he went to England and studied in the University of Oxford, specializing in history and receiving the degree of B. A. Subsequently he also received the degree of M. A. from Oxford, and still later the degree of A. M. from the University of Chicago. Before coming to Pittsburgh he taught in the Ohio Wesleyan University and in the University of Arkansas. He has done considerable writing on historical subjects, and many of his articles have appeared in current magazines.

The papers which students of the University of Pittsburgh read at the last two annual University Evenings of the Historical Society, some of which have appeared in the magazine, were prepared under the direction of Mr. James and amply sustain his reputation as an historical student of the first rank as well as a man of much literary ability. With this gentleman at the head of the magazine, and with the cooperation of the two associate editors, the magazine will not only retain its present position in the historical world, but will attain an even higher rank. May every success attend the efforts of the new régime!

CHARLES W. DAHLINGER.

THE COLONISTS OF WILLIAM PENN

By

MARCIA B. BREADY

Like Massachusetts and Virginia, Pennsylvania originated in England. Penn was comparatively late, however, and at his coming Swedes had been on the Delaware for forty years, nominally controlled by a few Dutch from Manhattan, in forts. The Welsh had bought land from Penn while both parties were still on the other side of the water, and were in possession on the Schuylkill two months before he landed at the Swedish town of Uplands, now Chester. From them he bought the site of Philadelphia. At Penn's invitation, many Germans and Swiss from the Upper Rhine followed him the next year, 1683, accompanied by some Hollanders and some Huguenots. Scotch in great numbers came from Ulster County, Ireland, where King James I. had placed them, as their hundred year leases expired.

This was reproduced in an area smaller than one quarter of Ireland, a diminutive Europe of the North. Persecution sent these colonists, and liberty of worship bound them together. William and John Penn furnished the government, together with their provincial council, and where the majority were Quakers, there was little friction. Therefore in the seventy-four years between the grant to Penn and the French and Indian War, there was wonderful development of agriculture, commerce, manufacture and scientific research.

William Penn, who had brought this miscellaneous population into union rather than unity, was a man in whom also "the elements were mixed". His father had been an admiral whose service to Cromwell and Charles II. had been equally good. He inclined toward royalty, however, and foreseeing the Restoration, offered his fleet, after taking Jamaica, to the King, then in exile. Having no place to keep a fleet, Charles declined but remained grateful. The admiral,

ambitious for his son, was shocked to find William affected by Quaker preaching, while at Oxford. A tour in France was prescribed and recalled worldly taste, especially in clothes. On again hearing preaching, William's religious feeling returned. This time, he was sent to the Irish court, and helped subdue a disturbance. Here the only portrait of the great Quaker was painted. He wore armor and the long hair of a Cavalier. Exposed to preaching once more, he joined the sect, and the admiral disowned him for the last time.

Penn alternately preached and attended court. He was that difficult combination, a Quaker courtier. Often cast into jail, he nevertheless obtained, because of a debt to his father, the great gift of Pennsylvania. Religious liberty was with him a principle, and his laws were mild. Only two crimes were capital and graded punishments were then first introduced.

Penn's colonists were Quakers, but many Church of England people came. Together they built up the "green country town" like those in England. English life in more republican form was reproduced, for the Philadelphia grandfathers were then in the making. Prosperity begot vast extravagance in dress and entertainment. A lady wore brocade or taffeta with hair piled mountain high. A gentleman in a gold laced cocked hat, pointed shoes and with cuffs leaded, took up half the side-walk, as he swung his cane and scraped his foot in bowing. Markets were so abundant that gourmandizing was inevitable at the dinners given in leisurely fashion at any hour of the afternoon, and at suppers in public houses. Needless to say, Madeira flowed copiously. In English fashion, the Philadelphians built summer homes in the suburbs. Four of these still remain, Woodland, Mount Pleasant, Stenton and Cliveden. Twenty-seven of them were destroyed in the Revolutionary War.

The Welsh Barony lay just west of Philadelphia. Its oldest church is eight miles from the City Hall. Seventeen families came in the Mayflower of the Welsh, and the monthly meetings made their laws. Soon county lines were carried through their tract, bringing a sharp protest. They had schools as well as churches and preserved their language for fifty years when they were absorbed into the English. A