iiiiPiiiiliiiii!ilipi'iic'«;M; .*^^% .0 y. ' . . « * / > ^O '^ >^^^..o^^^V .^ :i \^. ^^0^ ^^°<. r o '^0^ <^. .^s' '•f> .-^'^ fa o* ^'1/ ^°-n^. •*^ ^V!^ * o » o ' «,^ -^^ . ";^ • • * V .0 ^^ 4 o '^^ ,V .^^' % X .v^ >S* 'rfT'r: 'o A*- *(f ■0 ^°" " O "''/'";>) 6 \\>r. .^^m- ■v" "-? .^^^ ^ ^ rO c ° ' " ■» O V •^ .-^' o > '•^, * o « o ° V V xi^' '^ -y ^^ t. .;'^ 0° -'"- ■■•?-*. .^' -0^ o ■--o V* ^ * ^^ ^ .v^ ^t. Jo » 1 "°. - * £. -v * "^ cv J^ ^' ' -'* '^ V ■^ • *? (fT--, c°V 3 V . ' .*^ -?» >-/". 'V^ 0^- ^oV" .'^'^'' *V -^^0^ ip ^q. v^-^. A' V WILLIAM I'KXX. A SHORT HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA BY SMITH BURNHAM Professor of History in the State Normal School at West Chester, Pennsylvania HINDS. NOBLE & ELDREDGE New York Philadelphia 1^ , Copyright, 1912. by HINDS. NOBLE & ELDREDGE ©CI.A31iKJ50 PREFACE The purpose of this little book is to provide the boys and girls in the schools of Pennsylvania with a brief and clear account of the origin and growth of our state and its institutions. Believing that history is not merely past politics, but past life, the writer has tried to place due emphasis upon every phase of that life — social, industrial, political, intellectual, and religious. It has been his aim to state the principles upon which Pennsylvania was founded, to trace the steady growth of the state from small beginnings to its present imperial greatness, and to introduce the men, many of them well-nigh forgotten, who were the makers of that greatness. Just a word to those who may study and teach this book. Par- rot-like memorizing is the most serious fault in much of our history teaching. The poorest use to make of any text-book in history is to commit it to memory. The first thing to do in studying the history lesson is to read it. Reading is thinking the author's thought after him. No one can do that without understanding the words and phrases in which the author expresses that thought. Hence, in assigning the lesson, the teacher should explain and illustrate the use of any words or statements in it that the children cannot get for themselves. Before reciting, the pupils should ask their teacher the meaning of any words or expressions in the lesson which they may not have understood when they studied it. When a lesson has (iii) IV PREFACE been read in this way the next thinr; to do is to think about it. Here- is the j^reat opj)ortunity of the teacher to suggest and guide and stimulate. Problems of inference, of discrimination, of com- parison, of judgment, will readily suggest themselves. What facts are vital and worth reiiienibering ? When teacher and l)upils thinking together have decided ui)()n these facts, they should be learned. "Let memorizing be a by-product of thinking, not a substitute for it." The author is grateful to Principal George Morris Philips, of the West Chester State Normal School ; to his colleagues in the Normal School, Professors C. A. Wagner, S. C. Schmucker, J. F. Newman, F. H. Green, Miss Vera V. Bash, and Miss .'Mice Cochran; to Mrs. J. F. Newman, formerly a teacher in the State Normal School at Shippensburg; and especially to Dr. Armand J. Gerson, Principal of the Robert Morris Adjunct School of Practice, Philadelphia, who has read nearly all of the manuscript of the book, for many helpful suggestions and criticisms. Miss Marian L. Gill has given valu- able assistance with the maps. Smith Burnham. West Chester, Pa., June 20, igi2. CONTENTS Chapter ^^^^ I. — The Founder ^ II.— The Land 9 III.— The Settlers iQ IV. — Life in Colonial Pennsylvania 28 v.— Pennsylvania in the Revolution 40 VI.— The New State in the New Nation 60 VII.— A Half-century of Political Life 71 VIII.— The Highways of Trade and Travel 84 IX.— The Growth of Industries 96 X.— The Rise of the School System 108 XL— Slavery and Politics 1 20 XII.— Pennsylvania in the Civil War 131 XIII. — Politics and Government UQ XIV. — The Great Industries of Pennsylvania 160 XV.— Pennsylvania in Science, Art, .\nd Literature. 172 XVI. — The Problems of To-day .\nd To-morrow 184 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA CHAPTER I THE FOUNDER 1. Penn's Early Years. — William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, was born in London in 1644. His father was an admiral in the British Navy. His mother, Mar- garet Jasper, was the daughter of a merchant in the city of Rotterdam, in Holland. England was at war in those days, and while his father was fighting upon the seas William was living quietly with his mother in the country. Here he attended Chigwell School , where he studied Latin and Greek, together with " cyphering and casting-up accounts." People talked and thought much about religion in the England in which William Penn was growing up, and he was deeply moved by what he heard. In his twelfth year he felt " that he had been awakened or called to a holy life." This impression seemed to him the voice of God. He listened to it, and from that hour religion was the foremost interest in his life. After he was twelve years old William studied at home under a tutor, and when he was fifteen he entered the University of Oxford. Here he advanced rapidly in his studies and took an active part in athletic sports, of which (1) 2 HISTORY OF PE\NSVL\ ANIA he was wry fond. About this time hv bc,u;an to attend the meetin<.!;s of the religious society of Friends, or Quakers, and what he heard in them made so deep an impression upon him and so profoundly influenced not only his own life, but the history of Pennsylvania as well, that we must incjuire what it was. 2. George Fox and His Times. — The first half of the seventeenth century was a period of great political and religious unrest in England. It was at this time that the Stuart kings, James I and Charles I, were taxing the people without the consent of Parliament, and trying to make every one worship according to the practices of the Church of England. Before the middle of the cen- tury the discontent with this policy became so great that many of the English people took up arms against Charles I, defeated him, and later put him to death as an enemy of his country. For some years after the execution of the king England was called a Commonwealth, or Republic, although it really was governed by Oliver Cromwell, one of the greatest men in all its history. This overturning of affairs in England is sometimes called the Puritan Revolu- tion. The Puritans were those people in England who were clissatisfied with the form of government and the mode of worshij) of the established church and with the social and moral life of their country. They agreed in wanting a change, but were very far from agreeing among themselves as to what that change should be. Conse- quently, many sects arose. It is in this age of confusion and revolution that we first hear of George Fox. The child of lowly but pious parents, George Fox possessed a deeply religious nature. In his early manhood THE FOUNDER 3 he was employed as a shepherd, and during the long and quiet hours of his daily work he thought much upon re- ligious things. He was greatly troubled by the conflict be- tween good and evil constantly going on within him, and the priests and ministers to whom he appealed could give him little help. At last a voice within him seemed to say, " There is one, even Jesus Christ, that can speak to thy condition." This gave him great joy, and as he listened he grew in the knowledge of divine things " with- out the help of any man, book, or writing." George Fox soon found that there were many Chris- tians in England who were dissatisfied alike with the established church and with the various sects of the Puritans. Sometimes these persons met to talk together about the religious life. Sometimes they sat together in silence. When Fox began to tell his experiences at these meetings he found many kindred spirits. Then he be- gan to preach at fairs, markets, and other public places. Great crowds flocked to hear him and many were con- vinced by his ministry. In this way arose the society of Friends, or the Quakers. His zeal, wisdom, dauntless courage, and mighty personal power made George Fox their natural leader. 3. The Quaker Faith and Life. — The fundamental be- lief of George Fox and the early Quakers was that God spoke directly to the soul of each one of them. This revelation they called the Inner Light " which lighteth every man." For this divine teaching they must wait in silence with attentive minds, and when it came they must believe and preach as they were thus led. Such a faith made forms of worship and religious ceremonies seem un- 4 HISTORY OF PKN'NSVIA AMA necessary. It Kit no place for j)rii.sts or ministers, (lod mii^ht choose the luimljlest man or woman to dcHver His message. The Quakers Ixlieved in the ef|uality of all men. They refused to ])ay the marks of resjx'Ct which were then sui)posed to be due to rank or station in life. " When the Lord sent me forth into the world," said George Fox, ** He forljade me to put off my hat to any, high or low; and I Was reijuircd to say Ihcc and thou to all men and women, without any respect to ricli or poor, great or small." " I am a Christian, and therefore cannot fight," was the reply of the Quaker when urged to serve in the army. He thought that all wars were wrong and that if ])eople would live virtuously there would l)e no occasion for them. He refused to take judicial oaths and taught that simple, truthful statements were best. He gave jjerfect obedience to all laws that did not interfere with his conscience, but persistently disobeyed every law which he thought wrong. As there were many laws in England in the seventeenth century limiting free s])eech and religious liberty, the Quaker was often in trouble. The early (Quakers were famous for their missionary zeal, and ewrywhere they made converts. They were very outspoken. They never failed to rebuke inicjuity wherever they found it. They preached as plainly to the great of the earth as to the lowly. It is no wonder that many peo])le thought thc-m a very troublesome folk. 4. Pcnn Becomes a Quaker. — In the meetings which he attended while at Oxford, Penn was deeply moved by the preaching of a Quaker named Thomas Toe. His ab- sences from the college chapel began to be noticed and THE FOUNDER 5 punished. Just at this time a rule was made requiring all students, according to an ancient custom, to wear gowns in chapel. Penn and his friends not only refused to obey this rule, but tore the gowns from the backs of those who wore them. For this offense he was expelled from college. Admiral Penn was very angry. William speaks of " the bitter usage I underwent when I returned to my father — whipping, beating, and turning out of doors." This harsh treatment seems to have had little effect upon the boy, for presently his father determined to send him to France in the hope that a merry life in Paris would cure him of his pious fancies. After two years abroad, partly spent in school in France and partly in travel in Italy, Penn came home a strong and handsome young man with fine clothes and polished manners. He now began the study of law, but soon the plague broke out in London and he went into the country. Here, amid f|uiet scenes, his old seriousness returned. Noticing this, his father sent him to Ireland, where he resided upon one of the admiral's estates and entered heartily into the pleasures of the gay court at Dublin. One day business took him to Cork, and while there he again heard the Quaker preacher, Thomas Toe. It seemed to Penn that every word was spoken straight to his own soul. His decision was made for all time. He would be a Quaker. 5. Penn the Quaker Leader. — When William Penn in- sisted upon following the social customs of the Quakers, his father again turned him out of the house. The Friends received him, and from that time he became a preacher among them. In this work he not only ran against the 6 IllsrukV OF PENNSYLVANIA ))R JLidiccs of the j)C'Oj)lc, but disobeyed certain laws which hmiled free speech and free action. During the next few years he was frequently in |)rison for saying and doing what these laws forbade. He always firmly refused to obey such unjust and wicked laws. On one occasion he said, '* My ]:)rison shall be my grave before T will budge one jot. I owe my conscience to no mortal man." I'enn occujjied his time in prison in writing books, and in this way gave the world the first clear statement of the teachings of the Friends. After a time William became reconciled with his father, and \vhen the admiral died in 1670 his son inherited his estate. 'I wo years later he married a beautiful and ac- complished young Friend named Gulielma Springett. He continued his missionary journeys about the country and on one occasion made an extended preaching trip through (u'rmany. This journey is important because it made Penn and his ideas known in that part of Germany which was later to send many settlers to Pennsylvania. Meantime Penn entered more and more into political life, which a|)j)eale(l to him almost as much as did his religious work. The king's brother, the Duke of York, afterward James H, had bivn his father's friend, and WilHam came to have great inlluence with him. King Charles H also looked kindly upon him. It was Penn's earnest pur|X)se to use this inlluence to advance the cause of ri'ligion. He was now the foremost leader of his sect in England — a mature man, gracious in manner, wise in judgment, far-seeing in vision, and noble in character. 6. F^enn Acquires Pennsylvania. — Perha])s George Fox first dreamed of a settlement bevond the Atlantic where THE FOUNDER 7 persecuted English Quakers could live in peace. For years Penn had been thinking of such a home for his people. With other Friends he had helped to manage the colony of West New Jersey, and later he was a part owner of East New Jersey, But because of the contentions in the Jerseys, the titles to land in those settlements were very uncertain, and Penn began to look toward the fair country west of the Delaware. At this time Charles II owed William Penn sixteen thousand pounds. Part of this money the king had bor- rowed from William's father, the admiral; ])art of it was the admiral's unpaid salary. There was little hope that the king would ever pay a penny of this debt in money, but when Penn offered to take a great tract of wild land in America instead of the money, Charles II readily agreed to the bargain. On the 4th of March, 1681, the king signed a charter giving to William Penn and his heirs forever a great tract of land lying west of the Dela- ware. Penn wanted to call his colony Sylvania, but the king named it Pennsylvania in honor of Admiral Penn. 7. The ** Holy Experiment." — Thus Penn became the proprietor of Pennsylvania. This meant that he owned the land in the colony and that actual settlers must get the titles to their farms from him. It also meant that he could set up in his province any form of government he pleased, limited only by the terms of the charter which the king had given him. He made a very wise use of both powers. Penn advertised his colony widely and offered very at- tractive terms to the settlers. One liundred acres of land could be bought for ten dollars of our money. All the 8 IIISTOR^■ OF" I'KXNSVLVANIA people were to have ])erfect liberty of conscience. They could believe and worship as they pleased. When these terms were known, emi,u;rants flocked to Pennsylvania in large numbers. By the terms of the charter the laws of Pennsylvania were to be made by William Penn with the aid and consent of the freemen of the colony. He at once drew up a con- stitution, or " Frame of (iovernment," as he called it, which gave the j)eople j)()\ver to govern themselves. The ]ir()])rietor or his deputy was to be governor. The law- making body was to consist of two houses, a council and an assembly. The members of each house wxtc to be chosen by the people. Every man had the right to vote. In the first letter which Penn wrote to the people already living in Pennsylvania he said, " "^'ou shall be governed by laws of your own making, and live a free and, if you will, a sober, industrious ])eople." These were new ideas in that age. But Penn was as far in advance of his time in his humanity as he was in his \iews of government and religion. At a time when there were two hundred ofl'enses punishable by death in England he had the number reduced to two, murder and treason, in Pennsylvania. I^nglish prisons were filthy dungeons whose inmates lived in idleness and vice. Penn made his prisons work houses for the reformation of offenders. His colony treated the Indians fairly, and first among American colonies raised its voice against human slavery. Penn said that he founded Pennsylvania in order to " serve his truth and people, and that an example may be set uj) to the nations." This example he called a " Holy Ivxperimcnt." Surely it was well named. WEST VIRGINik LaappHn Wrat I from Washm^lon CHAPTER II THE LAND 8. Boundaries. — The charter in Avhich Charles II gave Pennsylvania to William Penn made the Delaware River the eastern boundary of the province, and said that it should extend westward five degrees in longitude. It was to be bounded on the south by " the beginning of the fortieth degree of Northern Latitude," and its northern limit was to be " the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of Northern Latitude." At the time Penn received this charter Delaware be- longed to the Duke of York, the brother of the king and the proprietor of New York. In 1682 the duke gave his rights in Delaware to Penn, who thus became the proprie- tor of " The Territories," as the three lower counties on the Delaware were called. A few years later these coun- ties were made into the separate province of Delaware, which belonged to Penn and his heirs until the Revolu- tion. Now, Lord Baltimore, the proprietor of Maryland, claimed that the entire peninsula between the Delaware and Chesapeake bays belonged to him. He also claimed that his charter made the fortieth degree of north lati- tude the northern boundary of his j^rovince. What did the expression " the beginning of the fortieth degree of In reading this chapter refer frequently to the map whii h arcompanii-s it. (9) THE LAND II Northern Latitude " in Penn's charter mean? Penn claimed that it meant the thirty-ninth parallel of north latitude. This would liave included the city of Balti- more in Pennsylvania. Lord Baltimore said that it meant the fortieth parallel of north latitude. This would have located Philadelphia in Maryland. Thus arose a boundary dispute between the Penns and the proprietors of Maryland w^hich lasted for two generations. In 1750 it was finally agreed that the boundary be- tween Delaware and ISlaryland should be a line up the centre of the peninsula, continued in a northerly direction until it touched a circle having a radius of twelve miles, with New Castle as a centre, and from thence due north to a parallel of latitude fifteen miles south of the southern- most point of Philadelphia. A line running due west from this point was to be the boundary between Pennsyl- vania and Maryland. Between 1764 and 1767 two English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, located and marked this line. This southern boundary of Pennsylvania proved to be 39° 44' north latitude. It was called Mason and Dixon's line, and later was famous as the dividing line between the free and the slave states. This dispute with Lord Baltimore was not the only boundary controversy in Pennsylvania history. The people of Connecticut claimed that their charter of 1662 gave them all that part of Pennsylvania which lies due west of their state. They made settlements in the beautiful Wyoming Valley near where Wilkes Barre now stands, and for years successfully resisted the efforts of Pennsylvania to drive them away. This contest is sometimes called the " Pennamite and Yankee War." It was not settled 12 HISTORY OF PKNNSVLXANIA until after tlu- Kivolulion, ^^•lu•n a court of arbitration, provided for in the Articles of Confederation, decided that the land in disi)Ute belon^'ed to Pennsylvania. There was also some trouble ^vilh Xew York about the northern Ixnindary, and it was not until 1789 that it was at last established at the j)arallel of forty-two degrees north latitude. About this time Pennsylvania bought of till- Indians and of the United States Government the triangle north of this parallel which gives her the port of l'>ie. X'irginia claimed a part of western Pennsylvania, in- cluding the site of the city of Pittsburgh, and at one time exercised authority there. During the Revolutionary War it was decided that Penn's five degrees of longitude should be measured on Mason and Di.xon's line and not from the easternmost point in the state. This located tin- ]>resent wi-slern boundary of the state and ke])t the Pittsburgh region within its limits. Pennsylvania, with all its boundaries thus definitely settU'd, is about three hundred miles long and about one hundred and fifty miles wide, and contains a little over forty five thousand scjuare miles. 9. Surface. Li-t us study the land in which Penn be- gan his " Holy Kxperiment." Two mountain ranges, the Blue Ridge and the .Mleghanies, sweep across Pennsyl- vania from northeast to southwest and (li\i(k' the state into three distinct natural divisions. Southeast of the Blue Ridge a range of lower and older hills stretches across the state. This range is called the South Moun- tain. Between it and the Blue Ridge lies the Great \'allev. It is to be noticed that this vallev is not confined THE LAND 13 to Pennsylvania, but may be followed from New Jersey to northern Georgia. It has various local names. In Pennsylvania, west of the Susquehanna River, it is called the Cumberland Valley; east of that stream it is the Lebanon Valley. In Virginia it is the famous Shenandoah Valley. For beauty and fertility the Great Valley is un- surpassed. The corner of the state southeast of the South Mountain is a land of low hills and valleys. Much of it has a rich soil and everywhere it has attractive scenery. A mountain belt nearly one hundred miles wide stretches across the state between the Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains. This region is filled with long, even-crested, parallel mountain ridges which, in general, trend from northeast to southwest. These mountains have many local names. Here and there the creeks and rivers have cut notches or gaps which connect the deep, narrow val- leys between the ridges, and so make it easier for men to penetrate this wild and rugged land. The small valleys between the mountains are usually very fertile. The third natural division of Pennsylvania is that part of the great Alleghany plateau which extends from the summit of the Alleghany Mountains to the western border of the state. Much of this section seems moun- tainous to the traveler, but if we could sail over it in a bal- loon we should see that it is really a plateau in which the streams have carved deep valleys. Toward the west the country is less broken, and in the northwestern corner of the state the plateau merges into the plain which skirts Lake Erie. 10. Rivers and Lakes. — Pennsylvania has lliree great rivers. The Delaware forms the eastern boundary of 14 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA ihf >i.iu . A- it k-avc'S the j)icturcs(iuc scenery of its upper course this river widens into a noble pathway to the sea, alon<^ whicli tlie largest ships can pass from the port of Phila(lel|)hia. The Delaware has two fine tributaries, the Lehigh, which rushes down from the mountains, and the Schuylkill, which drains the splendid farm lands of the southeastern section of the state. Nearly one half of the state is drained by the Susque- hanna. Otsege Lake, in central Xew York, the scene of C(K)j)er's great story. "The Deerslayer," is the source of the main stream of this noble river, while its western branch cuts its way across the mountains from the up- lan HISTOkV UF Pi:.\NSVL\ANlA in ^rcal (juantiliL-s and of the finest cjuality. When the t'lrst settlers came a mantle of dense forest covered nearly the entire state. The oak, chestnut, hickory, ash, beech, and |x)[)lar were common ivervAvhere. In some sections «^reat maj)les gave |)romise of toothsome maple sugar in days to come. In the n(jrthern and north^vestern parts of the state mighty forests of white pine and hemlock awaiti-d tlu- lumberman's ax. Such was the fair and goodly land which Penn beheld, but beneath its surface lay hidden a wealth of which he never dreamed. Of these vast mineral resources, coal is the most iniportanl. In the eastern and northeastern parts of the state are the fields of anthracite or hard coal. Bituminous or soft coal underlies nearly fifteen thousand s(|uare miles in western Pennsylvania. The northwestern section of the state was destined to be one of the great oil fields of the world, and where petroleum was found enormous ()uantities of natural gas were stored up in the earth. Iron ore was found in many places. Xor was this all. !,imestonc and cement rock were abundant. Then- was clay for hritk, sand for glass, and slate for roof- ing. Kaolin, grai)hite, soapstone, and phosphate rock have been found in smaller (|uantities. Few states have such a wealth and such a diversity of natural resources as has Pennsylvania. 12. The Indians. The land, as Penn found it, was very sparsely iK'oi)led with Indians, who lived in little villages widely si-parated from one another, or wandered from I)lace to place in search of food. It has been estimated that there were iK)ssibly six thousand of these red men in Pennsylvania when the first white settlers arrived. Two THE LAND 17 great Indian races were represented. The Lenape, or Delawares, who lived near the river of that name, and the Shawanese, who wandered in small bands over the state, belonged to the Algonquin stock. The fierce and warlike Iroquois, whose chief tribes dwelt in central New York, held nearly all the valley of the Susquehanna. From the beginning Penn treated the Indians with kindness and justice, and found them friendly and faith- ful in return. He paid them for the land, and soon after his arrival in the colony he met their chiefs under a great elm tree at Shackamaxon, now in Philadelphia, and there made with them the famous treaty of friendship which was " never sworn to and never broken." Penn's wise policy was followed for many years, and, as a consequence, the Quaker settlers lived at peace with the natives. Unfortunately, one of the founder's grandsons was less high minded than his grandfather. In 1737, while Thomas Penn was managing the colony, the in- famous " Walking Purchase " was made. Piece by piece the Indians had sold their land to the white men, and naturally were becoming uneasy as they saw their hunting- grounds turned into farms. In order to secure a particu- larly desirable bit of land the proprietor produced an old deed, by which it was claimed the Indians had given to Penn a plot of ground beginning at the Delaware River, a short distance above Trenton, running west to Wrights- town, thence northwest as far as a man could walk in a day and a half, and thence eastward to the Delaware. The walk had never been taken, but preparations were now made for it. With the route surveyed in advance and the underbrush cleared away, two picked men, trained for IIISIUKN Ol- I'ENNSYL\.\M.\ tilt i.uijK.M , Murecdt'd in ^'oinj^' about sixty miles through the \v(xm1s in tiic day and a half. Some Indians were present at tin- start, hut after repeatedly calling to the men to walk, not run. they left in disgust. To make a mean action worse, insti-ad of running the northern line of the purchase east to the river, the managers of the walk slanted it to the northeast and so included in the tract all the govcr\vhL'lmin<^ force, and the Swedes surren- dered to him and became subjects of New Netherlands. In 1 064 the Kn^h'sh took Xew Amsterdam, and both the Hudson and Delaware valleys j)assed into their hands. From this time until Penn's arrival in America the little settlement within the j)resent limits of Pennsylvania grew very slowly. After 1O75 the (^)uakers began to come to VV'est Xew Jersey in considerable numbers, and a few of them made their homes on the west bank of the Delaware River. As soon as Penn was given a title to Pennsylvania, he sent his cousin, Colonel William Markham, to take |X)sscssion of the territory. Markham took the first steps toward estabh'shing a government and bought the Inst piece of land of the Indians. 14. IV-nn's F-irst Visit.— Late in October, 1682, the good shij) Welcome, witli William Penn and seventy emigrants on board, arrived in the Delaware. Penn first set foot on Pennsylvania soil at the old Swedish settle- ment of Upland, which he i)romptly renamed Chester, in honor of his frii-nd Pearson, who came from the place of that name in Kngland. Penn soon went to the site which his agents had already selected for his capital. The place was well chosen. It was easily reached from the sea, and the valleys of llu' 1 )ilaware and the Schuylkill opened ways from it into the interior of the j)rovince. It was well suj)|)lie(l with timber, there was plenty of clay for making brick, and all about lay the finest of farming land. Duruig tjie next two years the proprietor w^as a very busy man. He gave much time and thought to planning the chief city of his colony, which he named Philadelphia, the city of " brotherly love." The assembly, or law- THE SETTLERS 21 making body, met and passed such laws as were needed in the new colony. From the beginning the government of Pennsylvania was built upon the principles of religious liberty and political freedom. The first three counties of the state, Philadelphia, Chester, and Bucks, were laid out and organized. Lands were surveyed and settlers secured titles to their farms. Penn visited Baltimore, where he tried in vain to settle the disputed southern boundary line of his province. With all this work the time passed rapidly Penn made his home in Philadelphia in the little house which has been moved to, and is still preserved in, Fairmount Park, or at the mansion which had been built for him at Penns- bury in Bucks County. In 1684 business interests re- quired his return to England, and it was fifteen years before he saw Pennsylvania again. 15. The Great Quaker Migration. — We have seen some- thing of the trouble which the Quakers faced in England because they tried to live and worship as they thought right. When their foremost man made it possible for them to secure homes in a new, free land beyond the sea, it is no w^onder that many of them decided to come to America. In 1682 twenty-three vessels brought nearly three thousand people to Penn's new colony, and the follow- ing year fifty ships came with settlers. A fertile soil and the prospect of peace and liberty continued to attract English Friends to Pennsylvania in considerable numbers until about 1 700. After that time most of the immigrants were of other races. Many of these early Quaker colonists were well-to-do people, who brought building materials, tools, furniture, HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA .iiui j.i.>\i>i<)ii> with llit-m. They encountered little of the extremi- hardship and sutTering which we find in the early history of Xirt^nnia and New England. Some of the (Quakers remained in Philadel])hia, while others s^'ltled uiMjn farms stretching along the Delaware from the neighl^)rhood of Trenton to Chester. The frontier line moved steadily back from the river, until ] )resently we hear of (Juaker meetings at Birmingham and Kennett, in Chester county. .\ few of the English settlers in Penn- sylvania were not (Quakers. Penn's charter contained a clause siiying that when twenty persons should petition fi)r a Church of England |)arish it could be established. CndiT this clause Christ Church was established in Phila- deli)hia in 1695. After Penn's death his sons were recon- ciled to the established church, and some of the most in- tluential citizens of Philadelj)hia during the later colonial IKTicMJ were Church of England men. Not all of the Quakers were Englishmen. Such names as .North Wales, Merion, Bryn Mawr, Haverford, and Uwchlan sjX'ak of the Welsh origin of the people who set- tled these places. Thomas Lloyd, whom Penn left in charge when he sailed for England in 1 684, was the leading Welshman in early Pennsylvania history. Ireland, too, furnished its share of the early Quaker settlers. James Logan, who came as private secretary to Penn when the pr()j)rietor paid a second visit to his |)rovince in i^gg, was the foremost Irish Friend in colonial Pennsylvania. When IVnn returned to England for the last time he left Txjgan in chargi' of his interests in America, writing t(, him. " I have left thee in an uncommon trust with a singular dependence on Ihv justice and care." THE SETTLERS 23 James Logan was worthy of the trust. For the next forty years he was the most influential man in political affairs in the province. He was also the most eminent scientist and man of letters in Pennsylvania before the days of Benjamin Franklin. The Quakers were not the only colonizers of Pennsyl- vania. Long before the end of the colonial era they ceased to be a majority of its population. But they were in control of its government until just before the outbreak of the Revolution, and their ideals of religion, society, and government have exerted a profound influence upon the life and thought of the state to the present time. 16. The Pennsylvania Germans. — A large part of the settlers of Pennsylvania came from Germany. In the seventeenth century that country was broken up into many small states. The prince or ruler of each of these states had the right to choose either the Catholic, or the Lutheran, or the Reformed faith, and the church of his choice became the established church for his people, all of whom were legally bound to accept its teachings and worship according to its forms. If the prince changed his religion, all his people must change theirs. Then there were many Protestant sects in Germany the members of which were unwilling to accept the doctrines or worship of either of the two Protestant churches mentioned above. These sects were often harshly persecuted. During the first half of the seventeenth century Germany suffered terrible misery in the Thiry Years' War, and the Palatinate, as that part of the Rhine Valley is called from which many of the Pennsylvania Germans came, was wasted with fire and sword by the French in 1689. When they heard 24 HISTORY OF PENN'SYU AXIA of IVnn's '* llolv I-lxinrimcnt," many of the German Protestants gladly turned tluir faces toward a land where they could enjoy peace and liberty of conscience. Francis Daniel Pastorius was the leader of the advance piard of the .^reat army of (lerman emiiJirants who came to Pennsylvania. His little band established (krmantown, which was for years tlie most imi)ortant (lerman settle- ment in the colony. Among the Germantown settlers were weavers, paper makers, and otlier artisans, and here the great Pi-nnsylvania industry of manufacturing had its birth. The earlitst (ierman emigrants belonged to tlu' jKTsecuted religious sects of whom we have spoken. The Pietists and Mennonites were the first comers, and settled in Germantown or pushed on up the Schuylkill \'alli-y. A little latc-r came the Dunkers, the Schwenk- feldirs, who settled on the Perkiomen, and the Moravian Brethren, who founded Bethlehem. These sectarians were a sim[)le, (|uii-t ])eople, whose ideas of life and of religion were largely in harmony with those of the Quakers. They had rather more than thi- ordinary education of their timi'. l-'rom tin- o])ening years of the eighteenth century until the outbreak of the Revolution the Germans flocked to PennsyKania in largt- numbiTs. Manv of the later German emigrants were called " Church People " by the sectarians who came first, that is, they belonged to one or the other of the two great Protestant churches in Germany, the Rcfornu'd and the Lutheran. Michael Schlatter was the great teacher and organizer of the Reformed Ghurch in Pennsylvania. The lAitherans had a nobU- leader in Henry Melchoir Muhlenberg. His son, THE SETTLERS 2$ Peter, was a gallant general in the Revolution, and another son, Frederick, was the first speaker of the national house of representatives. Most of the Quakers settled within thirty miles of Phila- delphia. The great tide of German migration swept past them and came to rest in a belt of territory more than fifty miles wide which sweeps across the state from the Delaware River to Mason and Dixon's line. The coun- ties of Northampton, Lehigh, Berks, Lebanon, Lancas- ter, and York, and the upper parts of Montgomery and Bucks are the heart of this great German section of the state. Most of the German emigrants were very poor when they reached Pennsylvania, but they were sober, indus- trious, thrifty and frugal, and their condition rapidly improved. They wished to remain Germans, and clung tenaciously to the language, literature, and customs of their race. In the main they sympathized with the Quaker policy, and usually voted with the Friends until just before the Revolution. 17. The Coming of the Scotch=Irish. — About seventy- five years before Pennsylvania was founded people from Scotland and the north of England began to settle in Ulster, as the northern part of Ireland is called. Nearly all of these settlers were Presbyterians in religion. This movement into Ireland was encouraged by King James I, of England, who hoped in this way to build up a Protestant population in that country that might after a time out- number and control its native Catholic inhabitants. At first these Presbyterian settlers in Ireland increased and prospered. Later they were much annoyed by petty a6 HISTORY OF PENNSVLN AXIA rdif^unis persc'cution, and still more l)y the unwise policy of Kn«?lan(l in laying heavy laxc-s on the flourishing linen and \V(x)len industries which they had developed in Ulster. During the first half of the eighteenth century large num- bers of Scotch Irish, as these people came to be called, emigrated to Anu-rica. A few of them went to New England, many settled in \'irginia and the Carolinas, but perha])s a majority of their number found homes in IVnnsylvania. Some of these people from the north of Ireland remained in eastern Prnnsylvania. We may be sure that any com- munity in that section of the state which has in it a Presby- terian church whose history runs back more than one hun- dred and fifty years was settled, in part at least, by the Scotch -Irish. Most of them, however, pushed on beyond the districts ()ccu])ied by the Quakers and the Germans to tlu' frontier in the central and southern parts of the state. The counties of Cumberland, Adams, and Frank- lin wiTe strongholds of Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism. The Scotch -Irish were fond of the free life of the frontier, and furnished a large ])roportion of the pioneers who won not only western Pennsylvania but the land beyond it from tlu- Indians and the wilderness. There could hardly be a greater contrast than that be- tween the ])eace-loving Quakers and Germans and the hard, stern, warlike Scotch-Irish. .\s frontiersmen they were rough, hot lu-aded, sometimes disorderly, but al- ways bra VI-. vigorous, aggressive, and steadfast. They hated and (lesj)ised the Indians and settled their disputes with them with the rille. For many years after the French and Indian War broke out in 1755 the frontier THE SETTLERS 27 of Pennsylvania suffered fearfully from tlie Indians. The Scotch-Irish settlers bore the brunt of this suffering and did most of the hard fighting by which the red men were finally driven beyond the borders of the state. As a race the Scotch-Irish were hard workers, independent, religious, and strong believers in education. They must be assigned one of the foremost places among the makers of Pennsylvania. 18. Pioneers from New England. — In an earlier chapter we have seen how Connecticut claimed the northern part of Pennsylvania and how people from that state took possession of the Wyoming Valley. Though Pennsyl- vania made good her title to the land, the settlers from Connecticut remained. They were not very numerous until about the beginning of the Revolution, but from that time pioneers from New^ England in ever-increas- ing numbers settled in the northern counties of Pennsyl- vania. They brought with them the choicest treasures of their home land, plain living, good government, strict morals, and a public school system. Life in northern and northwestern Pennsylvania has been largely shaped by the men and the ideals of New England. The makers of Pennsylvania were men of many races and many forms of rehgious faith. Each of these racial and rehgious groups tried to live its own life, preserve its own manners and customs, and to mingle as little as possible with the people outside its own circle. These facts have exerted a profound influence upon the history of the state. CHAPTER IV urn IN COI.ONIAL PENNSYLVANIA IV. Social Classes. I'hr colonists of Pennsylvania were of many races and differed widely in customs and idi-as, hut there was less real difference in social ]X)sition amonj^ them than almost anwhere else in America. One l(M)ks in vain for any class quite like the patroons of New York or the LIFE IN COLONL\L PENNSYL\ANIA 29 became good citizens after they had worked out their freedom. It must be said, however, that the indentured servants furnished many of the paupers and criminals of the colony. Negro slaves were never very numerous in Pennsyl- vania. They were found mainly in Philadelphia and its vicinity. Many of the Quakers were strongly opposed to slavery, and in 1 780 a law was passed which provided for the gradual wiping out of this evil. 20. Industries and Commerce. — The great mass of the people of colonial Pennsylvania made a living by farming. The toil and skill of the Quaker and German settlers rapidly changed the unbroken forest land of the southeastern part of the province into the richest farming district in America. Grain and cattle were raised, gar- dens and orchards abounded, and everyAvhere the fertile soil richly repaid the labor expended upon it. Many articles of common use which we now buy were then made in the homes of the people. Grist-mills and saw-mills were early established. Richard Townsend, a Quaker who came with William Penn, says, " I set up a mill on Chester Creek which I had brought ready framed from London, which served for grinding of corn and saw- ing of boards, and was of great use to us." The mills in Pennsylvania were the best in the colonies, and Virginia sometimes sent grain to them to be ground. Ships were built in Philadelphia. The first furnace for smelting iron ore was started in 1720, and in 1750 three thousand tons of pig iron were exported. The manufacture of iron was forbidden by Act of Parliament. There were great merchants in Philadelphia, and many 30 msroKV OF l'i:.\.\SVL\AMA shopkirjKTs in tliat cily as well as in the smaller i)laces. Lancaster and York were the chief inland towns. All roads led to Fhiladeli)hia, and along them trains of pack horses, and later " the ships of inland commerce," as the great Conestoga wagons drawn by six horses were called, carried the sury)lus ])roducts of the farms to the seajx)rt of the province, (xrain and Hour were the princii)al exports, but much lumber was sold and there was a valuabk- fur trade. The imports were wine, sugar, and manufaiturrd articles from I'^ngland. 21. The Homes of the People. — At first, life in Pennsyl- vania was \ery simple and primitive. The settler began by building a log cabin and clearing a small patch of land. His fcKxl was grown on his own land, with game from the forest and fish from the streams. Time and hard work brought prosperity. The patch of cleared land grew to be a farm and the log cal)in was replaced by a better house. Though there was little luxury, there was soon rude com- fort and i)lenty. The thrifty and substantial ()uaker farmer built a brick house on his well-kept farm, lie liad a garden, an orchard, and some hives of bees. There was heavy furniture in his home, and often glassware, china, and fine linen. The (German farmers were equally indus- trious and still more careful in their attention to details. Dr. lienjamin Rush has left a pleasing picture of the pros- l)er()us, eighteenth century Pennsylvania Oerman farmers, with their " extensive fields of grain, full fed herds, lux- urious meadows, orchards promising loads of fruit, to- gether with si)acious barns and commodious stone dwell- ing houses." LIFE IN COLONIAL PENNSYLVANIA 31 These old time homes, with their great open fireplaces and sanded floors, were hives of industry. In them all the food of the family was prepared and nearly all of its clothing was made from flax and wool grown on the farms. The colonists had few amusements, but they were far more neighborly than people are now, and they helped each other in harvesting and corn husking and at quilt- ings and barn-raisings. These " bees," as they were called, were social events and were enjoyed to the full by the young people. The weddings were the great festivals of the time and at them there was much feasting and sometimes too much drinking. Even the funerals were occasions for feasting. People seldom traveled far from home in colonial days. When they did, they rode on horseback or took one of the stage coaches which ran between the principal towns. Wayside taverns with swinging signs cared for travelers and for the teams and teamsters who carried on the in- land commerce of the colony. 22. On the Frontier. — Though the counties near Phila- delphia early became the scene of a prosperous settled life, Pennsylvania had a wild frontier until after the Revolution. The long period of freedom from Indian attack, due to Penn's wise policy, had quickened the west- ern movement of population. All through the later colonial time the adventurous Scotch-Irish were pushing the advance line of settlements ever deeper into the wilder- ness of the central part of the province. In the cabins of these mountain valleys there was growing up a race of hardy frontiersmen whose long rifles were to help win the western section of the state from the red men. 32 IIISTURV OF PEXXSVLNAMA I-'or a lon.t; linu- the Indians had been growing rest- le>s, and when tlie great struggle between France and Kngland for tiie iK)ssession of America, which we call tin- Freiuh and Indian War, broke out in 1755 they could no longer be controlled by peaceful measures. After the disiistrous failure of Braddock's expedition against Fort Du Quesne the storm of Indian war broke in all its furv u|M)n the intire Pennsylvania frontier. The scat- tered .settlers in the valleys of the Juniata and the upper Susqui'hanna fell first. Then the Indian scalping parties broki- through the gaps of the Blue Ridge and ravaged with torch and tomahawk the outlying settlements of Cumberland, Berks, and Northampton counties. The government sought to defend the settlements by building frontier forts to command the passes through the mountains. Before the war ended there were nearly two hundred of these stockades and block-houses guarding the frontier from the Delaware River to the ?klaryland line. Sometimes the .settlers lived in these forts for months, going out by day with guns in their hands to work in their fields. .After Fort Du Quesne fell into the hands of the Fnglish in lyscS the Indians were quieted for a time and many settlers returned to their abandoned homes. In I 763 Ponliac united the Indians in a great conspiracy, and once more swarms of marauding savages wasted the entire border west of the Sus(|uehanna and captured some of the frontier forts. The ne.xt year Colonel Bouquet led an exiK'dition which penetrated as far as the wilderness of Ohio, and made tin- Indians sue for peace and give up the captives they had taken. 23. TI1C Oovernment.— We have seen the nature of the LIFE IN COLONIAL PENNSYLVANIA 33 " Frame of Government " which Penn drew up in 1682 (section 7). Because the people were dissatisfied with this constitution the proprietor gave them a new one in 1701. The first clause in this new " Charter of Privileges " allowed all religions to exist in Pennsylvania on terms of perfect equality. The proprietor or his deputy was to be the governor. The governor appointed a council which advised and assisted him, but had no legislative power. The laws were made by an assembly, consisting of four or more men from each county, elected yearly by the people. All the judges were appointed by the gov- ernor. There were local justices of the peace, a county court of quarter sessions, and a supreme court, composed of a chief justice and three judges. Some county officers were appointed by the governor, others were elected by the people. Pennsylvania was governed under this con- stitution for three-quarters of a century. William Penn died in 1718 and there was much trouble among his sons about his will. Finally, his sons, John, Thomas, and Richard, were recognized as the proprietors. Thomas and John, the son of Richard, were the sole proprietors at the outbreak of the Revolution. Sir Wil- liam Keith, James Logan, and John Penn are the best known of the many provincial governors of Pennsylvania. The younger Penns and their deputies, the governors, had frequent disputes with the colonists and with the assembly. The effort to tax the great landed estates owned by the Penns and the payment of quit rents, as the small sums which land owners in the province were expected to pay to the proprietors were called, caused most of these quarrels. These disputes seem petty ^4 IllsrORV OF PENNSVLN ANIA t-nou^'li now, inil thcv hd])efl to train the colonists in self- government. The (Quakers, with whom the Germans usually voted, controlled the assembly for a long time. Thev lost this control durinic the Indian troubles described in the last section, because of their refusal to support measures for the defence of the frontier, and never after- ward regained their former political power. 24. I he Intellectual Life of the Province. — Pioneers who are giving their lives to the heavy task of clearing the land cannot be expected to pay much attention to science and literature, and yet the intellectual life was not altogether neglected in colonial Pennsylvania. The pas- tors of many of the German and Scotch-Irish churches were educated men who did much to keep learning alive among their people. The services of the heroic frontier l)reachers in |)reventing the backwoodsmen from relapsing into barbarism cannot be overestimated. The Mora- vians, Count von Zinzendorf and David Zeisberger, were successful in missi(jnary work among the Indians. The first sch(Jols in the valley of the Delaware were ojK'ned by the Swedes and the Dutch. When the Quakers settled in Philadelphia the government of the colony made a few attempts to start schools, but little came of them beyond the establishment of a public grammar sch(K)l, which still exists in the famous William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia. Education was left to the churchy and many of the (}erman sects, the Friends .Mietings, and the Presbyterian churches opened element- ary sch(K)ls. .\ teacher in one of these schools, Christopher Dock, "tin- pious schoolmaster of the Ski])pack," wrote the rir>t book on school teaching ever pul)lished in America, LIFE IN COLONI.\L PENNSYLVANIA 35 Soon academies of a higher grade began to be founded. One of the most influential of these higher schools was the " Log College " at Neshaminy, Bucks county, established in 1726 by the Rev. William Tennant. Almost equally noted was the New London Academy, in Chester county, opened in 1741 by Dr. Francis Alison. Three signers of the Declaration of Independence and several other eminent men were educated in this school. There were about twenty such academies in the province in 1776. The University of Pennsylvania grew out of a school established in Philadelphia in 1749, and enlarged and called a college in 1755. Its early success was due to the ability, scholarship, and energy of its first provost. Dr. William Smith. From the beginning the noble profession of medicine was ably represented in the colony. Dr. Thomas Cadwalader wrote one of the earliest medical books published in America, and was one of the first physicians appointed to the hospital founded in Philadelphia in 1750. A course of lectures by Dr. William Shippen led to the starting of the medical college which afterward became a part of the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Benjamin Rush should be mentioned with these able and far-sighted men. Philadelphia has been a famous centre of medical education since their day. Pennsylvania was noted among the other colonies for the strength of its bench and its bar. Andrew Hamilton was the first American lawyer who had more than a local reputation. When Peter Zenger, the editor of a New York newspaper, was cast into prison because he dared to criti- cize the governor of that colony, Andrew Hamilton was HISTORY nr PENNSYLVANIA MHiiiiionid in huAv lioni Pliilack'li:)hia to defend the ri.^ht of free s|H.-eeh and of a free press. He secured Zenker's ae(juitlal in a great sjjcech in w iiich he declared : " It is not the cause uf a iK)()r jjrinter, nor of New York alone, which the jury is now trying. It is the cause of liberty!" The jjrinling }>ress came to Pennsylvania almost as early as the first settlers. An almanac was published in Phila- delj)hia in 1OS5. In 17 19 Andrew Bradford started the first newspai)er in the colony. Ten years later Benjamin Franklin began the publication of a better paper, The Pennsylvania Gazette. Christopher Sower of German- town j)ubnsiic(l a newspaper which circulated widely among the Germans. Sower also printed the Bible in German many years before an English Bible was pub- hshc-d in .Vmcrica. Books of a religious character were printed at a j)eculiar settlement of German sectarians known as the Monastery of Ephrata, in Lancaster county. The first Sabbath-school in America was held in this Ej)hrata community. Pennsylvanians early showed a marked interest in scienci'. John liartram was the father of American lx)tany. Dasid Rittenhouse enjoyed a world-wide repu- tation as an astronomer. But before all others as a scientist stands the most celebrated man who ever li\'ed in Pcnnsyhania, one of the greatest men that America has j)ro(kRV(l, the many sided Benjamin Franklin. 25. The Greatest Pcnnsylvanian. Born in Boston in 1706, Benjamin Franklin came to Philadelphia at the age of seventeen, utterly unknown, and with only a dollar in his ix)cket. But he- had versatile talents, high ambition, and habits of industry. Ik soon found work at his trade BENJAMIN FRANKLIN. 38 HISTORY (JF PENNSYLVANIA as a i)rinlrr, and later established a printini^ olVcc of his own. In addition to editing,' The Pcnnsylvauia Gazette, he Ix'gan in i -,},2 to publish an almanac. The shrewdness and humor of this imblication .i^^ave it immense popmarity as " I'(H)r Richard's Almanac." Franklin's industry, thrift, and frui^^ality soon brou«.,dit him j)rosperity, and at the earlv a.^e of forty-two he retired from business with a ctJmjK'tence. Franklin's fame as an editor and man of letters is sur- passed by his renown as a scientist. He was deeply in- terestid in evi-rythint^^ practical and made many inven- tions, tile most noted of which is the Franklin stove or Pennsylvania fireplace, which has scarcely been excelled for heatinj^ and ventilating; pur|K)ses. He was a profound student of electricity, and it was his experiment with a kite- by which he proved the electrical nature of lightning that won him a world-wide reputation as a man of science. He also did very useful work as a founder of institutions. The Pennsylvania Hospital, the Philadelphia Library, the .•\merican Phil()soj)hical Society, and the University of Pennsylvania all owe their origins in large measure to his elYorts. Franklin larly entered |K)litical life and held many imi)ortant |)ul)lic ix)sitions. He was j^ostmaster of Philadelphia, and later the head of the postal system for all the colonies. He was sent as a commissioner from Pinnsylvania to the Albany Congress in 1754, where he pro]x)sed a Plan of Inion for the colonies which re- si-mblcd in many resjx.Tts the form of union adopted more than twi-nty years later. He rendered valuable service in ^ci nring wagons and packhorses for Braddock's expe- LIFE IN COLONIAL PENNSYLVANIA 39 dition. He became the leader of the provincial assembly, and during the last ten years before the Revolution he represented Pennsylvania and several of the other colonies in England. When Benjamin Franklin came home at the outbreak of the war he was nearly threescore years and ten, and could look back over a long life rich in good works. But the most glorious period of his career was yet to come. He was destined to render a still more splendid public service in helping to win the independence and organize the gov- ernment of a new nation. CHAPTER V PENNSYLVANIA IN THE REVOLUTION 2(i. rolitical Conditions in 1763.- Al llic close of the Fr-ikIi and Indian War (iivat lirilain came into posses- sion of all ihal i)art of North America east of the Missis- sii)|)i River. At the same time her |X)wer in India was i^'rowin.i^' rapidly. This vast expansion of territory brought with it new duties and seemed to make necessary a new jx)licy toward the colonies. In attem])ting to carry out this jjoiicy the English Government tried to do three things which it had never done before, namely, to enforce the navigation acts, to maintain a standing army in America, and to tax the colonists to help pay for keeping the troops in lluir country. The attempt to do these three things cau.sed the Revolution. The jxililical conditions which existed in Pennsylvania at this time tended to promote the growth of a desire for changi- in that pn)vince. The (lermans and the Scotch- Irish of till- Sus(|uehanna Valley had little affection for Knghind, and differed widely in race and religion from the (Quakers who controlled the government up to this time. Because of better facilities for trans])()rtation the settlers of the central part of the state had closer commercial ties with Baltimore than with Philadelphia. They felt that they were governi'd unjustly because some of the counties in the east had more members of the assembly than they (lO) PENNSYLVANIA IN THE REVOLUTION 41 were entitled to by the taxes they paid, while every county throughout the west had less. The men of the frontier hated the provincial government, because they felt that it had not vigorously supported them when they were at- tacked by the Indians. In Philadelphia a high property qualification kept the small tradesmen and mechanics from voting and gave political power to the rich merchants and lawyers. There was great discontent with this condition. In a word, the later provincial government of Pennsyl- vania was aristocratic, while a strong democratic feeling was growing among the people. The ruling classes op- posed the tax laws of England it is true, but many of them did not carry their opposition to the point of rebellion against the mother country. The lower classes of the city and the people of the inland counties made up the mass of the patriot party which fought the war to a finish. 27. The Growth of Causes. — The first step in the Brit- ish policy of taxing the colonies was the passage of the Stamp Act in 1765. This act imposed a tax on all legal documents, and even newspapers and almanacs had to be printed on stamped paper. Pennsylvania firmly resisted the enforcement of this law in much the same spirit as the other colonies, but without resorting to the violent methods used in some of them. John Dickinson, a brilliant young lawyer of Philadelphia, led the Pennsylvania delegation in the Stamp Act Congress, and wrote the ringing declaration of rights adopted by that body. Nowhere was the news of the repeal of the hated act received with greater joy than in Philadelphia. When repealing the Stamp Act England had asserted her right to tax the Americans as she pleased, and in 1767 42 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA she im]K)Sccl dulics on all imix)rts of glass, paper, paints, and tea. Again all America i)rotcstcd. The merchants of Pennsylvania joined those of the other colonies in agree- ments not to inii)<)rt English goods. Everywhere the obnoxious laws were denounced from the platform, and the i)ress i)oure(l forth a Hood of argument against them. It was at this time that John Dickinson wrote the famous " Li'tttTs of a Pennsylvania Farmer," which in literary merit and intluence uj)on events surpass all the other writings of the Revolutionary era. In the Farmer's Let- ters Dickinson j)roves that the English taxes are illegal, pleads for a firm and fearless opposition to them, but urges that such o])jxjsition be peaceful and legal. The s|)lenhia to corresi)onVANIA IN THE REVOLUTION 57 32. The Revolutionary Statesmen of Pennsylvania. — There were so many eminent Pennsylvanians in the public service during the Revolution that we cannot even men- tion all of them. Among the more distinguished were Charles Thomson, the secretary of the Continental Con- gress during its entire history; Michael Hillegass, a sturdy Philadelphia merchant who was Treasurer of the United States from 1775 to 1789; George Clymer, Thomas Fitz- simmons, Jared Ingersoll, Francis Hopkinson, and Fred- erick Augustus Muhlenberg, all noted for their services in Congress during and after the Revolution ; James Wil- son, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was destined to play a great part in the work of making a government for the new nation ; and those men of science who devoted all their talents to the cause of liberty, David Rittenhouse and Benjamin Rush. Above all these men, however, John Dickinson, Robert Morris, and Benjamin Franklin stand pre-eminent in ability and in the value of their public services. We have seen how many of the great state papers of the opening years of the Revolution came from the pen of John Dick- inson. No American of that time, except Thomas Jeffer- son, could equal him in the use of simple and effective language. He lost influence for a while because he op- posed the Declaration of Independence as premature ; but he was true to the cause, served in the army, and later came back to Congress. After the Revolution, Dickinson was president of the Executive Council, as the governor of the state was then called. He helped to make the Constitution of the United States, and used his pen with all his old-time power and influence to secure its ratification by the states. 58 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA In 1775 Robert Morris was a wealthy merchant in Pliiiadel|)hia. He devoted his time, his fortune, and his great ability to the service of his country Many times during the war he used his personal credit to procure money so that the army might carry on its work. He helj)ed establish the first bank in America, the Bank of Pennsylvania. From 1781 to 1784 he was superintendent of finance of the United States. Though he was a member of the Continental Congress and the Federal Convention, and the first United States senator from Pennsylvania, he will always be remembered as the great financier of the Revolution. When the Revolution opened Benjamin Franklin was the most illustrious man in America. No one except Washington did more to lay the foundations of the republic. Recognition abroad was absolutely necessary to the young nation. To win this recognition was the task of Franklin, and splendidly did he perform it. It is difficult to think of a greater public service than that summed up in the bare statement that Franklin was a signer of the Decla- ration of Independence, of the Treaty of Alliance with France, of the Treaty of Peace with England, and of the Constitution of the United States. It has been well said of him that " There was not a faculty of his wise old head which he did not i)ut at the service of his country, nor was there a pulse of his slow and steady heart which did not beat loyal to the cause of freedom." ROBERT MORRIS. CHAPTER VI THE NEW STATE IN THE NEW NATION 33. F-rom Colony to Commonwealth. — Between 1774 and I 7 70 the work of the committees of correspondence, fre(|uenl mass meetings, the formation of militia associa- tions, and the ])n)vincial congresses which met from time to time were gradually preparing the people of Pennsyl- vania for the change in government from an English colony to an indej)endent state. If the old provincial Assembly had boldly led the opposition to England it might have retained its authority. It failed to do so, how- ever, and consef|uently its power gradually faded away, while a revolutionary state government arose to take its place. On May 15, 1776, the Continental Congress recom- mended that the colonies, when necessary, set up new governments " adapted to the changed circumstances." The Revolutionary party in Pennsylvania acted promptly. The Revolutionary committee in Philadelphia sent a letter to the county committees asking them to appoint deputies to a j)r()vincial conference. This body met in Carpenter's Hall on the i8th of June and quickly decided to call a, convention for tin- j)urpose of forming a new government for the- state. On July 8th the ])eople of Pennsylvania ek'dcd the mi-mlx-rs of their (Irst state constitutional con- vention. (00) THE NEW STATE IN THE NEW NATION 6 1 This convention met in Philadelphia July 15, 1776, elected Franklin its president, and at once took charge of the government of the state. The work of making the new constitution was largely done by James Cannon, an Irish schoolmaster, George Bryan, and Timothy Matlack. This constitution went into effect in November, 1776, without being submitted to a vote of the people of the state. It was the most democratic constitution yet made in Amer- ica. The convention which adopted it was composed of the ardent friends of the Revolution, and under it they were in complete control of the state. 34. The State Constitution of 1776.— The first state constitution of Pennsylvania was made up of two parts; a Bill of Rights and a Plan of Government. The Bill of Rights declared that all men are born free and independ- ent, and that every community has a right to reform, alter, or abolish its government in such manner as it shall judge conducive to the public welfare. It proclaimed the right of every man to worship God according to the dictates of his own conscience. It maintained that all free men have the right to vote and to be voted for. It said that no man's property should be taken from him without his con- sent or that of his representatives. The rights of free speech, of a free press, and of trial by jury were all guaranteed . The Plan of Government provided that the laws should be made by a General Assembly of one house, elected yearly by all the free men over twenty-one years of age who had paid taxes within a year. No person could serve in the General Assembly more tkan four years out of any seven. The Assembly was to appoint the delegates to the 0.' HISTORY i)V PENNSYLVANIA Con«;R'ss of llic United States. The executive power was vested in a Supreme Executive Council of twelve members, one elected from each county and one from the city of Philadelphia. The president of this Council was the chief magistrate of the state, but he liad very little real jxjwer. The P^.xecutive Council appointed the judges and granted re[)rieves, pardons, and licenses. A jx'culiar pro- visi(jn of this constitution was its provision for a Council of Censors to meet every seven years. This Council was to in(|uire if the Constitution had been observed, if the state olTicers had done their duty, and if the taxes had been justly laid and collected. The Council of Censors could also call a convention to amend the constitution if they thought it necessary. Pennsylvania was governed under the Con- stitution of 1776 until 1790. 35. Pennsylvania Under Its First Constitution. — Soon after the new state government was organized, with Thomas Wharton, Jr., as president of the Executive Council, it was forced to remove to Lancaster by the im- iK-nding capture of Philadelphia by the British. President Wharton died in Lancaster and Vice-President George Pryan took his place. The new Assembly had early passed a law re(|iiiring every one to take an oath or affirmation of allegiance to the state constitution. Of course the Tories would not do this, and many of the Quakers refused also, because they thought the new government was illegal. Some of those who would not take the test oath were fined and imprisoned. Pennsylvania was rent with party strife all through the Revolution. The state government came back to Philadel]:)hia when the British evacuated it in 1778. Many of the more promi- THE NEW STATE IN THE NEW NATION 63 nent Tories had left the city when the British withdrew, and now the Whigs began to punish severely those who re- mained . Two Tories, Abraham Carlisle and John Roberts, were convicted of treason and "hung as an example." These were years of trial and suffering in Pennsylvania. Both the state and the Continental Congress issued large amounts of paper money. This money rapidly depreci- ated in value. Before the war ended one silver dollar would buy forty of the Continental paper dollars. As a consequence of this depreciation prices were high and times were hard. There was much disorder and some rioting in the city. Joseph Reed was president of the Executive Council from 1778 to 1 781. In 1779 the state bought the property interest of the Penn family in Pennsylvania for about $650,000. This purchase did not include the private es- tates belonging to the former proprietors. In 1780 a law was passed that all children of slave parents born after that date should become free at twenty-one years of age. As no more slaves could be brought into the state, slavery gradually disappeared under this act. In 1781 the Penn- sylvania soldiers in Washington's army, dissatisfied with their term of service and lack of pay, revolted and marched toward Philadelphia. They were met by President Reed, with whom they came to a satisfactory agreement, and many of them returned to the army. Two years later a small body of discontented Pennsylvania troops stationed at Lancaster mutinied and marched upon Philadelphia. Nothing serious came of this affair, but Congress, feeling that it was unprotected, left Philadelphia and did not re- turn to that city until 1790. 04 HISTOKV OF PENXSVIA AXIA TliLx.' iroLibk'S were partly clue to a weak national {government, partly to the exhaustion of the resources of the state. When ])eace came tlie people once more turned tluir altintioii lo the reljuikling of trade and industry. Joiin Dickinson was President of the Executive Council for three years, and when Franklin came home from Europe in 1 785 he was chosen to this office, which he held until 1788. The test oath re((uired during the war had excluded nearly one-half the people from any part in the' {government. In 1784 a strong effort was made to repeal tile act re(juiring this oath, but it was five years later before this was done and all Pennsylvanians were restored to citizenshi]). 36. The Articles of Confederation. — Early in the Revo- lution the American people saw that it was not enough to set up new state governments. They felt that the states must act together, and in order to do so effectively they must organize a national government with definite powers and duties. The Continental Congress was acting as the government of all the states, but no definite powers had been granted to it, and it really had only so much au- thority as the people were willing to recognize and obey. I'^ven before the Declaration of Inde])cndence was adojHed tin- Congress had appointed a committee of thir- tun, onr from each state, to draw up a plail of union for the several states. John Dickinson was chairman of this committer and did more than any one else to prepare the .Articles of Confederation which were submitted to Congress July 12,1776. A plan of union which Franklin had i)ro|)ose(l llu' preceding year was helpful to the com- mittee in preparing the articles. Robert Morris and THE NEW STATE IN THE NEW NATION 65 James Wilson took a prominent part in the discussion in Congress of the proposed form of government. This debate was carried on at intervals until November, 1777, when Congress adopted the articles and submitted them to the states for their ratification. They were to go into effect when ratified by all the states. Pennsylvania ratified them on July 9, 1778, but it was March i, 1781, before the last state gave its consent to the new plan of gov- ernment, and the Articles of Confederation became the first written constitution of the United States. At this time the states differed widely in social conditions and business interests. Their people knew little of each other and so misunderstood and distrusted each other. It soon became apparent that the makers of the Articles of Confederation, in their efforts to preserve the powers of the states, had failed to give enough authority to the central government. Congress was without power to collect taxes or to regulate commerce. The states were jealous and suspicious of one another. The government of the United States was despised abroad and disobeyed at home. During this critical period in our national history two Pennsylvanians, Thomas Mifflin and Arthur St. Clair, were chosen presidents of Congress. 37. The Constitution of the United States. — The wisest leaders of the nation soon saw the necessity for a stronger government, and through their efforts a Federal Convention met in Independence Hall in Philadelphia in 1787. This convention drew up the present Constitution of the United States. The states sent their best men to the Federal Conven- tion. Washington was its president. James Madison, of 56 HISTORY OF PENNSVLN ANIA \'ir«;inia, took the leadinj^ part in its work. Pennsylvania was ably n-prcscntcfl by the largest delegation sent from any state. Among its members were Benjamin Franklin, full of years and honors, whose great influence was thrown in favor of harmony and compromise; Robert Morris, the financier; James Wilson, the most learned lawyer and one of the best debaters on the floor; Gouverneur Morris, to whose literary skill the Constitution owes its clear and simi)le language; and several others of less note. John Dickinson, who had moved from Pennsylvania into Dela- ware, came from that state to uphold the rights of the smaller states. The Federal Convention was in session from May until September. Us task was a difllcult one, and at times it seemed that its members would never agree. There was much heated discussion over such questions as w^hether the large and the small states should have equal representa-' lion, whether the slaves should be counted in determining the population, the slave trade, the regulation of commerce, and the method of election and the powers of the president. At last the spirit of compromise prevailed, and the Consti- tution was adopted by the Convention and submitted to Congress, which sent it to the states for their ratification. It was to go into effect when nine states accepted it. The day after the Federal Convention adjourned Franklin laid the Constitution before the Assembly of Pennsylvania and the struggle over its ratification at once began. It was nearly time for a new legislature to be elected, and it was supj)osed that the question of calling a state convention to act upon the Constitution would be postponed until after this election. The friends of the THE NEW STATE IN THE NEW NATION 67 Constitution, however, determined to call such a convention at once, and passed a motion to that effect by a vote of forty-three to nineteen. But before fixing the time for the election of delegates to the convention the Assembly took a recess until afternoon. When the members came together again it was found that the nineteen who opposed calling the convention had remained away from the session. It took forty-six members to form a quorum and, as only forty-five would attend, nothing could be done but adjourn until the next morning. When the Assembly met on the following day a crowd of men dragged two of the nineteen from their rooms and held them by force in their places in the Assembly, thus making a quorum and enabling that body to complete the call for a state convention. This violent action, together with the intense feeling against the new Constitution in some parts of the state, made the cam- paign for the election of delegates a very hot and abusive one. The Convention met in Philadelphia November 21st. The people had sent their strongest men as delegates. It w^as soon seen that the eastern counties were strongly in favor of the Constitution and the western almost solidly opposed to it. The burden of defending the new plan of government fell upon the great lawyer, James Wilson. He was ably seconded by Thomas McKean, the chief justice of the Supreme Court of the state. AIcKean was a son of Pennsylvania who had been one of the great Revolutionary leaders of Delaware. Returning to his native state, he had quickly risen to its highest judicial position, in which he served with great distinction for twenty-two years. Later he was for nine years governor of the state. The opposi- JAMES WILSON. THE NEW STATE IN THE NEW NATION 69 tion to the Constitution was voiced by William Findley, Robert Whitehill, and John Smilie, each of whom later served for many years in the National Congress. The news that Delaware had accepted the Constitution by a unanimous vote quickened the action of the convention, and four days later, on December 12th, by a vote of forty-six to twenty-three, Pennsylvania became the second state to ratify. By midsummer of 1 788 the Constitution became the law of the land, and early the following year the govern- ment of the United States was organized under it. 38. The State Constitution of 1790. — The Pennsylvania constitution of 1776 was very democratic. It had been made by the plain people of the state, who were well pleased with it, but it had never been looked upon with favor by the men of wealth and education. Those who upheld and defended it were called Constitutionalists. Those who opposed it and sought to change the form of government which it established called themselves Republicans. For a dozen years all the efforts of the Republicans to amend the state constitution were thwarted by the Constitutional- ists. This was a time of bitter party strife in PennsylV^ania. Many of the Pennsylvania Constitutionalists had op- posed the ratification of the Federal Constitution. The Republicans had ardently favored it, and, elated by their success, they began to urge more strongly than ever the calling of a convention to revise the state constitution. The Assembly was moved by the flood of petitions poured in upon it and asked the people to elect delegates to a state constitutional convention. In a session which lasted from November, 1789, to February, 1790, this convention drew up a new state constitution. It then adjourned for several 70 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA months to allow the ])Coplc to review its work. At a later meeting the convention adopted the new constitution on September 2, 1790. Like the constitution of 1776, the constitution of 1790 was not submitted to a popular vote. The Pennsylvania constitution of 1790 was very similar to the Constitution of the United States which had just gone into effect. The laws were to be made by an Assembly composed of two houses, a house of representatives and a senate. The lower house, elected every year, could have not less than sixty nor more than one hundred members. The number of senators was never to be less than one-fourth nor more than one-third of the number of representatives. Senators were chosen for four years, and it was arranged that one-fourth of them should be elected every year. The executive power was vested in a governor elected for a term of three years. The governor could not hold his ofhce longer than nine in any period of twelve years. He could veto bills passed by the legislature. The judges and county officers were appointed by him. He had much more |X)wer than the president of the E.xecutive Council under the first constitution of the state. Penn- sylvania was governed under the constitution of 1790 until 1838. CHAPTER VII A HALF=CENTURY OF POLITICAL LIFE 39. New Governments in the State and Nation. — The establishment of a better national government under President Washington and the able management of the finances of the country by his great secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton, soon brought better times. Com- merce began to flourish once more. Farm products could be sold for better prices. Pennsylvania shared largely in the renewed prosperity. The great Conestoga wagons were seen in increasing numbers on the roads leading to Philadelphia. That city exported more than twice as much flour in 1789 as in 1786. The old debts of the state and nation were being paid, money was more plenti- ful, and new business enterprises of every kind were under- taken. Thomas Mifliin, the Revolutionary general, was the first governor of the state under the constitution of 1 790. Arthur St. Clair, another gallant soldier of the Revolution, was a candidate for the office, but was defeated. In 1791 General St. Clair led an army against the Indians in Ohio, but his force was utterly routed. Three years later Anthony Wayne attacked a great force of Indians in north- ern Ohio and utterly routed them. This was the most important victory ever gained over the red men in that region. It freed western Pennsylvania from the danger of (71) 72 HISTORY OF PENNSYUANIA Indian attack and opened the lands in Oliio to settlement. (}()vern<)r Milllin served three terms. He was very popu- lar. .\ (|uarter of a century of devoted and valuable pub- lic service c-ntitles him to a hi.t^h rank among the sons of the state. In the summer of 1793 the yellow fever broke out in Philadelphia and spread rapidly. The people were panic- stricken, business was at a standstill, and thousands left the city. The doctors were devoted and heroic, but they could do little to stop the disease or to cure the sick. Stephen Girard, the great merchant and ship owner, vokmteered as a nurse and took charge of a hospital. More than four thousand persons are known to have died of the fever in four months. With the coming of cold weather the disease gradually disappeared, but it broke out again in 1797 and the following years. This plague made the people see the necessity for cleaner streets, better hospi- tals, and a quarantine. It is now known that yellow fever is transmitted from man to man only by a particular kind of moscjuito. While Washington was President two great political |)arties were forming in the United States. The first held, as one of its great leaders ])ut it, that the government ought to be in the hands of the rich, the well born, and the educated. The second believed in the right of all men to a N'oice in the government. The men of the first party followed .Mexander Hamilton, sui)])orted his financial l)olicy, and were known as Federalists. Those of the second rallied around Thomas JefTcrson, opposed Hamil- ton's policy, and called themselves Republicans, though tlu-y are sometimes called Democratic-Republicans. The A HALF-CENTURY OF POLITICAL LIFE 73 Federalists were shocked by the excesses of the great Revolution which was going on in France at this time. The Republicans, on the other hand, sympathized with the French in their struggle for liberty and equality, and gave an enthusiastic welcome to "Citizen" Genet when he came to this country as the representative of the new French Republic. Feeling between these tw^o parties was intense and bitter. The Federalists were in the majority in Phil- adelphia and the neighboring counties. The people of the central and western parts of the state were strongly Demo- cratic-Republican. Thomas JefTerson became President in 1 801 and his party carried Pennsylvania in every presi- dential election after that until 1840. 40. The Whiskey Insurrection. — In 1791 Congress, at the suggestion of Secretary Hamilton, passed an excise law. This law laid a tax of four pence per gallon on all distilled whiskey. At once violent opposition arose in western Pennsylvania. Many of the people of that section were of Scotch-Irish descent and knew of the oppression by excise laws and excise officers in Ireland. Long distances and bad roads made it impossible for them to send their grain to market. The freight charges on a barrel of flour from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia were more than the flour was worth. Trade down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, which was then in the hands of the Spanish, was dangerous and uncertain, but by making the grain into whiskey it found a ready market at home or in the rapidly growing settlements in Kentucky. The excise seemed unfair to the people of western Pennsylvania be- cause it taxed them heavily on the main product of their farms. 74 HISTURV (Jl- PENKSVLVAXIA They refused to pay the tax and determined to resist its collecti(jn. The excise collectors were forced to resign. Some of them were tarred and feathered and their property Inirned. There were fights in which people were killed. Th(jusands(;f armed men met near Pittsburgh and marched to that town. This was open insurrection. Governor Mini in hesitated to quell it, but President Washington acted promi)tly. Fifteen thousand troops from Pennsyl- vania, New Jersey, Maryland, and Virginia marched to- ward the scene of trouble. Upon the approach of this force the insurgents dispersed and the people promised to obey the law. This taught the people that they now had a national government that could compel obedience to its laws. The same lesson was taught in eastern Pennsylvania a few years later. In 1 798 Congress laid a direct tax upon houses. The value of a house was estimated l;y the number and size of its windows. This house tax w^as extremely unpopular in the German section of the state. John r>ies, an auctioneer widely known in Lehigh and N()rtham|)t()n counties, denounced it at every opportunity. In I ygy he led a mob which released some prisoners held in Bethlehem for resisting the law. The militia were called out and Fries was arrested. He was convicted of treason, but Presidint .Vdams pardoned him. This affair is known as "Fries' Rebellion." 41. Governor McKeaii and His Times. — Pennsvlvania was steadily growing more democratic. In 1799 Thomas McKean was elected governor by a majority of six thou- sand over James Ross, the Federalist candidate. Three years latiT he was re-elected over the same opponent by A HALF-CENTURY OF POLITICAL LIFE 75 thirty thousand majority. From this time the part played by the Federahsts in the politics of the state rapidly de- clined. Meanwhile the Democratic-Republicans were becoming more extreme in their views. Many of them thought that all good men were equally qualified to be office-holders. If they were honest and sensible they needed no particular knowledge or training for the position. Governor McKeandid not sympathize with these opinions, and in 1805 the more democratic element of his party turned against him and nominated Simon Snyder, a store- keeper and farmer of Northumberland county, for gover- nor. The more conservative people of the state supported McKean, who was re-elected by a greatly reduced majority. In 1808 Snyder was elected governor, which position he held until 181 7. Few men in Pennsylvania history have given the state a longer or more useful service than that of Governor Mc- Kean. He was a learned lawyer, an upright judge, and a great leader of men. Sometimes rough and passionate, he was always honest, brave, and patriotic. He made the mistake of removing public officers to make places for his political followers and personal friends. Aside from his influence in thus fastening the evil spoils system upon the state, he was an excellent governor. During the early years of the nineteenth century Penn- sylvania gave several distinguished public servants to the nation. James Ross and George Logan, the grandson of James Logan, were prominent in the senate of the United States. Alexander J. Dallas was secretary of the treasury in President Madison's cabinet. Richard Rush served the same President as attorney-general. But the most 76 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA cmint-nt Pcnnsylvaniiin of this time was an adopted son of the state. In 1 780 a yoiini!; Swiss named Albert Gallatin came to America. After drifting about for some time he settled in western Pennsylvania, where his great ability was soon recognized and he began to take an active part in the ])olitical life of the state. At first he favored the Whiskey Insurrection, but later urged submission to the law. He was elected to the United States senate, but that body excluded him because he had not been nine years a citizen of the United States. He served for six years with great distinction in the national house of representatives, and from 1801 to 1814 was secretary of the treasury. No man except Alexander Hamilton has ever performed the duties of that ofTice with greater ability. 42. Pennsylvania in the War of 1812. — During the decade from 1795 to 1805 there had been great business prosperity in America. England and France had been at war for years, and iifter 1805 their efTorts to injure each other seriously damaged the foreign trade of the United States. The Embargo and Non-intercourse Acts, by which our government sought to force the offending nations to respect our rights, only made matters worse, and Ameri- can commerce was speedily ruined. The farmers of the country could no longer exj)ort their surplus products, prices fell, and e\-ery where the peo])le suffered from hard times. These attacks upon our trade, together with the hot indignation against England stirred by the impress- mmt of American seamen and the arrogant tone of the English government, brought on our second war with that country in 181 2. Then- was no fighting u])on the soil of Pennsylvania dur- ALBERT G.ALLATIN. yS HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA in<^ this war. 'rwitc, however, the state was threatened with invasion. In 1814 when the British burned the capitol at Washington and threatened Baltimore the old forts on the Delaware were repaired and a force of militia was i)oste(l near the Maryland line. A year earlier tr(X)ps had been sent to Erie to guard against a threatened attack from Canada. Perry's victory on Lake Erie was the l)est defense on the lake frontier. It was from a fleet built in !'>ie and manned in part by Pennsylvania militia that he sent the famous message, "We have met the en- emy and they are ours." Pennsylvania furnished more men and money to carry on the War of 181 2 than any other state. Jacob Brown, "the fighting Quaker," who served with distinction on the Canadian border, and later rose to be general-in-chief of the American army, was a Pennsylvanian. Those brilliant naval officers, James Biddic, commander of the Hornet, Charles Stewart, captain of "Old Ironsides," as the Constitution was called, and Commodore Stephen De- catur, hero of the war against the Barbary pirates and dis- tinguished in the w\ar with England, w'cre all natives of Phila(lelj)hia. 43. A (iroiip of German Governors. — For thirty years after the inauguration of Simon Snyder in 1808 every go\'ern()r of the state except one was a Pennsylvania Ger- man. During Governor Snyder's administration the state caj)ital, which had been in Philadelphia until 1 799 and at Lancaster from that date until 1810, w^as permanently located at Ilarrisburg. William Findlay succeeded Gov- ernor Snyder, but served only one term. Later he was a United States senator for six years. Joseph Hiester, a COMMODORE STEPHEX DECATUR. 8o 111SIC)R\ C)l I'l.NN^MAANIA veteran solditr of the Resolution, was governor for a single term, and John Andrew Shulze for two. At this time the j)eo|)le were demanding better means of transpor- tation and much money was spent in making turnpikes and canals. A great deal of this money was borrowed by the state. In 1S25 Lafayette revisited the field of the Brandy- wine, where lie first fought for the American cause. George Wolf was governor from 1829 to 1835. It was during his U-rm that the free school system was established. Gover- nor Wolf and his successor, Joseph Ritner, were both de- voted friends of public education. During the years between 181 5 and 1835 political parties were rai)idly changing in the United States. The election of 181 6 was the last in which the Federalists had a candi- date for the presidency. A vast majority of the voters called themselves Democratic-Republicans, but many of the old dilTerencesof opinion still persisted and new ones were constantly arising. After the election of 1824 two new ])arties Ijegan to develop. One of them, holding fast to the principles of Jefferson, but now following Andrew Jackson, still called itself Democratic-Republican. Soon, however, it dropped the name Republican, and from the days of Jackson's presidency it has been known as the Democratic party. The other at first took the name of National Re|)ul)lican, to show that it believed in the need of a strong national government. It soon changed its name and as the Whig party was prominent in American [K)litical history for the next twenty-five years. All of these (k-rman governors except the last named were elected by the Democrats. Most of them were also opposed by Democrats, for the political campaigns in A HALF-CENTURY OF POLITICAL LIFE 8l Pennsylvania in those days were mainly between dif- ferent factions of that party. One of the questions on which the Democrats split was the method of nominat- ing candidates for state offices. At first such nomina- tions had been made by members of the legislature, but now the custom of holding state conventions for that purpose was arising. The first national nominating con- vention was held in 1831 by the Anti-Masonic party. This was a new and short-lived party established to oppose secret societies. For a time it was very strong in Pennsyl- vania, and in 1835, with the help of the Whigs and aided by the disunion among the Democrats, it elected Joseph Ritner to the governorship. 44. The Growth of the State. — Pennsylvania nearly doubled its population between 1790 and 1810, and more than doubled it during the next; thirty years. Settlers were going in great numbers to the western part of the state and more slowly to its northern part. Many new counties were organized in both of these sections. New farms were cleared and cultivated, forges and factories sprang up, mines were opened, and many public improve- ments were made. These years of material advancement were also a time of social and moral progress. Steps were taken to lessen crime and to improve the condition of the poor. Persons who were in jail because they could not pay their debts were better treated, and presently imprisonment for debt w^as abolished. A model state prison was established and criminals received more humane treatment. The Pennsylvania Hospital was "a national honor." Lotteries which had been very common began to be frowned upon, 82 IILSIUKV Ol- I'LXNSYLVANIA and there was a general movement in favor of temperance and better morals. Education was encouraged and a literature worthy of the name Ixgan to appear. The first forty years of the nineteenth century witnessed the 'steady growlli of democratic feeling everywhere in America. The plain people called for a larger part in the management of the government. They asked, among otiier things, that every man should have the right to vote, that all officers should be elected, and that judges should no longer hold office for life. As the new states in the west were formed they made constitutions in which these demo- cratic demands were granted. One by one the old states brought about the same result by amending their consti- tutions or by making new ones. Ever since the Pennsyl- vania constitution of 1790 was adopted there had been de- mands for its revision. In 1825 the matter was submitted to the people, but they decided to do nothing at that time. Ten years later they voted to call a state constitutional convention. 45. The Constitution of 1838.— On May 2, 1837, this constitutional convention met at Harrisburg. It contin- ued in session in tliat city and in Philadelphia, at intervals, until February 22, 1838, when its work was completed. Many of the strong men of the state sat in this convention and the imjiortant questions at issue were debated with great ability. In October, 1838, the people by a small majority adopted the new constitution, which thus became the fundamental law of the commonwealth. Pennsylvania was governed under the constitution of 1838 until the first day of January, 1874. The new constitution made very little change in the A HALF-CENTURY OF POLITICAL LIFE 83 form of the legislature, but somewhat increased its powers. It forbade the governor to hold his office longer than six in any term of nine years. His power to appoint officers was greatly limited. This was the most important change made at this time. Henceforth all county officers were to be elected by the people. The judges were to be appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the senate. Under the constitution of 1790 the senate had no power to limit the governor in this way. Judges were no longer to hold offices for life. Those of the supreme court were to serve for fifteen years; those in the county courts for shorter terms. The bill of rights in the constitution of 1790 was unchanged. CHAPTER VIII THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND TRAVEL 46. Early Travel and Transportation. — At the opening of our national history inland commerce was still carried on by the methods of the colonial period.^ In the eastern section of the state heavily laden wagons crept slowly along the country roads toward Philadelphia or moved homeward with such goods as that city offered for sale. Farther west long trains of pack-horses wound along bridle-paths through the forests and over the moun- tains. The mail service was slow and very uncertain. Many of the stage-coach lines had suspended business during the Revolution, but with the return of peace they began to resume their former service. In those days travel and transportation were slow, diffi- cult, expensive, and sometimes dangerous. The roads were in a wretched condition. On the best of them the ruts were deep, the hills steep, and in the spring the mud seemed bottomless. Sometimes travelers had to help the driver tug the coach out of it. The larger rivers were crossed by ferries until long after 1790. The first per- manent bridge over the Schuylkill was opened in 1805. In 1 784 it cost twelve and one-half cents per pound to send goods on pack-horses from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. In 1803 the freight for hauling most articles of merchandise between the same cities was five dollars per hundred pounds. ' Section 20. (84) THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND TRAVEL 85. 47. The Era of the Turnpike. — With the return of pros- perity after 1 790 there arose an insistent demand for better roads. The people were now devoting all their energy to the arts of peace, and they felt that they must have cheaper transportation for the products of their industry. Penn- sylvania was one of the first states to engage in a great system of public improvements. It was its policy to en- courage the people of the more populous counties, by liberal charters and grants of tolls, to form companies and build highways for themselves, while in the more sparsely settled sections the state spent its own money for roads and bridges. During the last part of the eighteenth century two English engineers, Telford and Macadam, devised a method of making splendid turnpikes of broken stone. Between 1792 and 1794 a private company built the first stone turnpike in the United States from Philadelphia to Lancaster. This famous "Lancaster Pike" was a success from the first and gave a great impetus to western travel through Pennsylvania. Soon other turnpikes were con- structed and old roads were improved. The era of turnpike building in Pennsylvania came be- tween 1800 and 1830. Most of these highways were of local interest only, connecting neighboring towns, but a few were longer and of great commercial importance. Nearly all the turnpike companies of this time were aided by state appropriations. In spite of the high tolls charged upon them, turnpikes were an important factor in the in- land commerce of the state down to the middle of the nine- teenth century. After 1830 the people began looking to canals and railroads for transportation and turnpike build- 86 HISTORY OF PFA'XSVLXANIA ing declined. For some years many plank roads were built as a substitute for turnjjikes for short distances, but they did not last long. Many of the old turnpikes, how- ever, are still in excellent condition. Soon after the Lancaster Pike was completed a turnpike was extended by way of Carlisle and Bedford to Pitts- burgh. This highway was called the State Road, and for years it was more traveled than any other road in Pennsyl- vania. Soon after 1800 the Northern or Huntingdon Turnpike was o})cned to Pittsburgh. This road ascended the Juniata Valley and thence crossed the mountains to the valley of the Conemaugh. In 1804 a through line of stage-coaches was established from Philadelphia to Pitts- burgh. The trip took about seven days and a through ticket cost from fourteen to twenty dollars. Special rates were made to emigrants, who were carried west in large covcTed wagons. Emigrant travel formed a large portion of the business along the turnpike. In 181 1 the United Slates government began the construction of the National Road, This was a fine highway, forty feet wide at its narrowest point, which ran west from Cumberland, Mary- land, to Wheeling, West Virginia, and from there was ex- tended into Ohio. Seventy-five miles of this great road joining the east and the west were in Pennsylvania. For many years the turnpike thoroughfares between Pittsburgh and the east were great arteries of trade and travel. .Along them "The Conestoga wagons with their fine Deep-dusted, six-horse teams in heavy gear, High hames and chiming bells — THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND TRAVEL 87 bore the commerce of the state. These wagons were very numerous. As many as a hundred would follow in a close row; "the leaders of one wagon with their noses in the trough of the wagon ahead." Great droves of cattle, sheep, and hogs from western Pennsylvania and Ohio followed these roads to the markets of Baltimore and Philadelphia. Past the plodding teams and slowly moving herds dashed the stage-coaches with their four horses at a gallop. At short distances along the pikes were wayside taverns where horses were changed, and travelers, team- sters, and drovers found accommodations. The stirring scene when the stages of rival lines with horns blowing, streamers flying, and horses on the full run thundered up to one of these inns was part of the life which has long since departed. 48. The Rivers as Roads. — The settlers of Pennsylvania followed the example of the Indians in using the rivers for transportation purposes. The birch bark canoe early gave place to the skiff. Soon rafts and flat-boats which floated with the current were used for down-stream traffic, and keel-boats which could be pushed up stream by poles were common. Keel-boats play a large part in the history of river navigation in western Pennsylvania. They were called Durham boats upon the waters of the eastern part of the state. Boat building was a flourishing business in early Pittsburgh. After the Revolution much attention was given to im- proving the rivers for navigation purposes. Their chan- nels were cleared of rocks and deepened where necessary, and arrangements were made for carrying goods around the more difficult rapids. This work of making the rivers 88 HISTORY OF I'K\\SVL\AN'IA more useful has gone on all throu.^h the nineteenth cen- tury. By means of dams the water has been deepened and locks enable boats to pass the dams. The Monongahela river in particular has been much improved in this way. The early river traffic was heavy and important. It is said that one hundred and fifty thousand bushels of wheat were brought down the Susquehanna in j 790. In 1812 a barrel of Hour could be mo\e(l down the same river from southern New York to Columbia for twenty-five cents. It cost one dollar to send it thence by land to Philadelphia. The flour, bacon, and whiskey of western Pennsylvania found a way to market down the Ohio and the Mississippi to New Orleans. In later years the coal of the Monon- gahela valley and the iron, lumber, and petroleum along the Alleghany came down these rivers to Pittsburgh. 49. The Steamboat. — The value of the rivers as high- ways was greatly increased by the invention of the steam- boat. In the later years of the eighteenth century several men were working at the problem of propelling vessels by steam. After many trials, John Fitch, a native of Connecti- cut, who was then living in Philadelphia, invented a steam- boat which made regular trips on the Delaw^are river be- tween Philadelphia and Trenton during the summer of 1790. The enterprise did not pay and the boat was aban- doned . It was reserved for a native of Pennsylvania, Robert Fulton, to associate his name with the invention of the steamboat. r\iUon was born in Little Britain, Lancaster county, in 1765. He had a marked taste for drawing and painting, and at the age of twenty-one went to England where he became a pupil of another Pennsylvanian, the ROBERT FULTON. 90 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA great a nisi, Hcnjamin West. However, he soon found his true field of labor in mechanical invention. During a residence of some years in England and France he invented several macliines, did much to promote canal improvement, and made a submarine torpedo-boat. Turning his atten- tion to the j)roblem of navigation by steam, with the finan- cial aid of Robert R. Livingston, Fulton built the Clermont, the first successful steamboat in the world. On her trial tri]) in 1807 this boat steamed from New York to Albany in thirty-two hours. From this time steam navigation developed rapidly. In 1809 a steamboat was making regular trips on the Delaware between Philadelphia and Burlington, and soon steam ferry- boats were going back and forth across that river. In 181 1 the first steamboat upon the Ohio w'as launched at Pitts- burgh. Before long steamboats of light draft were plying on the Allegheny and Monongahela rivers. The first iron steamboat in the United States was built at York in 1825 and used upon the Susquehanna. The importance of ri\i-r steamboats in saving labor and in promoting the development of the Middle West can hardly be overesti- mated. With them trafiic in both directions upon the western waters became easy and profitable. Before the railroads were built Pittsburgh was the great starting- point in the river trade. More than three thousand river steamers have been built in that city. 50. The First Canals. William Penn suggested the jxjssibility of opening a continuous waterway from the Delaware to the Susquehanna by way of the Schuylkill and one of its branches. In 1772 Franklin described the e.xperience of Fngland with canals and recommended their THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND TRAVEL ^i construction in America. Owingtothe lack of moneynoth- ing was done in this direction until after the Revolution. Probably the earliest canal in Pennsylvania v^as the Conewago Canal in York county, completed in 1797. In 1 791 a company v^as formed to connect the v^^aters of the Susquehanna and the Schuylkill. The following year another company was organized to build a canal from Norristown to Philadelphia. Work was delayed on these projects by financial difhculties, and in 181 1 the two com- panies were united under the name of the Union Canal Company. By 1827 the Union Canal was completed from the Susquehanna to the Schuylkill near Reading, where it connected with the Schuylkill Canal, which had been opened from Philadelphia to Pottsville two years earlier. At this time the packet boat Planet made regular trips between Philadelphia and Reading, the fare being two dollar's and a half. A canal connecting the Delaware with Chesapeake Bay was completed in 1829, and the opening of the Delaware and Raritan Canal a little later made an inland water route all the way from New York by way of Philadelphia and Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore, Washington, Norfolk, and Richmond. The Lehigh Canal carried the coal of Mauch Chunk to the Delaware at Easton. Other canals v/ere built in various parts of the state. In 1840 there were about one thousand miles of canal in Pennsylvania. After the railroads were built traffic on the canals rapidly de- clined and many of them were abandoned. In 1900 only about three hundred and forty miles of canal were open for navigation in the state, and for most of this distance very little business was done. 92 IIISTURV Ul- I'KXXSVLVANIA 51. The Great Pennsylvania Canal. — Fhc Eric Canal insured tu Xcw York the bulk of the western trade, unless something could be done to lower the cost of carrying go(xls between Pittsburgh and the East. Realizing this fact, the people of Pennsylvania in 1826 entered upon the most extensive scheme of public improvement that they have ever undertaken. They determined to build a great highway of commerce from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. After a careful survey it was decided to build a railroad to Columbia. A canal was to extend from Columbia up the Susquehanna river to the mouth of the Juniata, and thence up that stream to HoUidaysburg. From this point a Portage Railroad, thirty-six miles long, was to cross the Alleghany Mountains to Johnstown. From here a canal was to follow the Conemaugh, Kiskiminetas, and Alleghany rivers to Pittsburgh. On July 4, 1826, ground was broken at Harrisburg, and eight years later the great thoroughfare of canal and rail- road was open to traffic from the Delaw^are to the Ohio. The Portage Railroad was constructed with five planes on each side of the mountains. At the head of each slope tluTe was a stationary engine, which drew up or let down cars by an endless wire rope. There was a similar arrange- ment on a steej) grade near Philadelphia and another at Columbia. A great feeder of the Pennsylvania Canal as- cendi'd the Suscjuehanna Ri\'er and its west branch to Williams[X)ri and I^ock Haven, and another division fol- lowed the north branch from Northumberland to the New York State line. For many years this great state system of canals was an important factor in the commercial life of the commonwealth. In 1857 the main line of the THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND TRAVEL 93 Pennsylvania Canal was bought by the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and sooner or later all the other canals owned by the state were sold. The main canal w^as soon abandoned by the railroad and all the branches have now fallen into disuse. The state constructed the Pennsylvania system of canals and connecting railroads, but the shippers had to furnish their own cars, boats, and motive power. Many trans- portation companies arose to take charge of this business. At first the cars were drawn by horses or locomotives on the same line of track, but so much trouble arose because the horse cars delayed the steam trains that the use of horses was forbidden. The canal boats were drawn by horses and mules. Freight rates were lower than by wagon, but still much higher than they are since the railroad has displaced the canal. In 1837 it cost $2.35 per hundred pounds to send merchandise like dry goods or shoes from Philadelphia to Pittsburgh. By 1849 the rate on these articles had fallen to 90 cents. There was much passenger travel as wtII as freight service on the canals. Boats used exclusively for carrying passengers were called packet boats. Charles Dickens, who traveled by one of these packets on the Pennsylvania Canal in 1842, has left us this charming picture of the experience : "The exquisite beauty of the opening day, when light came gleaming off from everything; the lazy motion of the boat, when one lay idly on the deck, looking through, rather than at, the deep blue sky ; the gliding on at night, so noise- lessly, past frowning hills, sullen with dark trees, and sometimes angry in one red burning spot high up where unseen men lay crouching round a fire ; the shining out of 94 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA the bright stars, undisturbed by noise of wheels or steam or any sound than the liquid ripjjling of the water as the boat went on— all these were jnire delii^hts." 52. The Day of the Railroad. — Short railways for hauling coal or stone were used in England as early as the seven- teenth century. They were operated by hand or horse- power. The first railway of this type in the United States was built in Boston in 1807. It was a temporary affair. The first permanent tramway in America was constructed bv Thomas Lcipcr, near Philadelphia in 1809, to carry stone from a fjuarry to the river. Soon other tramways were built. There was one in Armstrong county, Pennsyl- vania, as early as 1818, while railroads of this kind several miles in length were built at Mauch Chunk and from Carbondale to Honesdale before 1830. These roads were used to carry coal. At the beginning of the nineteenth century Oliver Evans, the most ingenious of early American inventors, was experimenting in Philadelphia upon the use of steam as a motive power. The first locomotive regularly used to carry freight and passengers was made by George Stej^henson, in England, in 1825. In the search for faster and cheaper means of travel and transportation the American people began to turn their attention to railroads between 1825 and 1830. By the latter year such roads had been begun in IMaryland, Penn- sylvania, South Carolina, and New York, and thirty-six miles had been completed in the whole country. In 1834 the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad was opened, and before 1840 several short railroads had been built in the state. In the meantime locomotives were being improved and ra})idly taking the place of horses as the motive power. THE HIGHWAYS OF TRADE AND TRAVEL 95 The work of railroad building went steadily and swiftly forward with the years. By i860 the whole north and middle west had been knit together by bands of iron. Before the Civil War the railroads had displaced the turn- pikes and canals as the great arteries of trade and travel. The days of the stage-coach and the packet boat were gone forever. The saving in the time and cost of trans- portation revolutionized commerce and largely accounts for the marvelous growth of the whole country. The rail- road has played the leading part in the task of building up the industries and developing the vast natural resources of Pennsylvania. CHAPTER IX THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES 53. Agriculture. — In the early days of the nation nearly everyone in Pennsylvania, as elsewhere, made a living by farming or in some form of trade or commerce. Since then many industries have developed in the state, but agriculture has ahvays retained the foremost place. In the fertility of its soil and in the variety and quality of the products of its farms Pennsylvania is unsurpassed by any other state in the Union. For some years after 1789 the opening of new markets in Europe and the increasing de- mands for food stuffs at home due to the rapid growth of })()puhition made farming a very prosperous business. Too often our early agricultural methods were wasteful and unscientific and tended rapidly to exhaust the fertility of the soil. .About the middle of the nineteenth century we began to import commercial fertilizer from South .America and a little later to manufacture it ourselves. Washington recommended the establishment of a govern- ment (le])artment to promote intelligent agriculture, but it was 1839 before Congress appropriated any money for the purchase of new varieties of seeds and plants, and the Bureau of .Agriculture was not organized until 1862. Early farm implements were of the rudest pattern. Spades, pitchforks, j)Iows, and grain cradles were of home manufacture. Their iron parts were clumsily wrought over THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES 97 the forge of the neighborhood blacksmith. About one hundred years ago Joseph Smith, of Philadelphia, invented an iron plowshare which soon came into use. The mowing machine was invented in 1833, and for fifty years after that time the inventions and improvements of agricultural machinery were well-nigh numberless. The saving in time and in the cost of labor due to machinery has been as great on the farm as in any other industry. 54. Trade and Commerce. — Trade flourished in Phila- delphia before the Revolution. With the dawn of inde- pendence there were high hopes for even greater commercial success. Hitherto the British policy had largely restricted American trade to English ports. Now the whole world was opening to it. At first these hopes were not realized. The weak government of the Confederation was unable to make satisfactory commercial treaties with other countries, but with the establishment of a strong national government in 1789 our commerce entered upon a period of swift development. One great authority says, "The growth of American shipping from 1789 to 1807 is without parallel in the history of the commercial w^orld." x\s the only port of a rich state Philadelphia shared largely in this prosperity. The exports of Pennsylvania in those days were wheat, flour, salted beef and pork, shingles, ship timber, and other products of its farms and forests. From England came manufactured goods of all sorts; from the West Indies, rum, sugar, and molasses; while the rich trade with China and India supplied tea, spices, muslins, and silks. The shipping merchants rapidly grew rich. Chief among them was Stephen Girard. A native of France and a 98 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA sailor in iiis youth, Girard established himself in Phila- deli)hia before the Revolution, prospered in business as a merchant and mariner, and left $9,000,000, an enormous fortune for that time. Stephen Girard was a strange character. Roujj;]! and forbidding in appearance, crabbed in manner, miserly in little things, he was frugal, indus- trious and masterful, and in public matters open handed and generous. He made large gifts to many public insti- tutions in his will, and with princely generosity endowed Girard College, a splendid school for orphan boys. This era of commercial prosperity came to an end with the English encroachments upon our trade after 1806 and with our own embargo and non-intercourse laws. There was a revi\-al of foreign trade after the War of 181 2, but Philadelphia never recovered her commercial supremacy, which then jxisscd to New York. 55. Money and Banks.— In the early history of the state the people suffered great inconvenience from the lack of an adequate supply of good money. The Continental paper money issued during the Revolution was nearly valueless and had dropped out of circulation. The coins in common use were English shillings and sovereigns and French and vSj)anish sihvr pieces, and even these were insuflficient in amount. In 1792 Congress provided for the coinage of gold and silver, but the supply of these metals fell short of the needs of the country. State banks issued notes or promises to pay which were intended to circulate as money, but the people could never be quite sure that they would be paid. In 1791 a national Ixmk was established and its notes provided a sujjj^ly of good paper money for some years. STEPHEN GIRARD. lOO HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA When the charter of this bank ex])ire{l in 1811 it was not renewed . Tliis left a free field for the state banks. Soon a lar<^e number of these banks were chartered in Pennsyl- vania. 'I'his craze for state banks again filled the country with bank notes of uncertain value. By 1816 many of these notes were so ]X)or or worthless that Conpjress estab- lished a second United States bank. Nicholas Biddle, a brilliant financier of Philadelphia, was the president of this bank for many years, and it was with him that President Jackson wa^ed the famous contest which ended with the defeat of the eilort to renew the charter of the bank in 1832, and in the removal from it of the money of the United States. Meanwhile state banks were becoming more and more numerous. Much of the paper money in common use in Pennsylvania down to the time of the Civil War consisted of state bank notes, some of which were of un- certain value. 56. The Rise of Factories. — Aside from the household industries, like sj^inning and weaving, and the work in the Siiw-mills, grist-mills, and shipyards, there was very little manufacturing in Pennsylvania before the Revolution. It was the {X)licy of England to discourage it as far as j)ossil)le. During the war necessity was the mother of invention. The people had to make many things or do without them. In Philadelphia hundreds of people were employed in spinning flax and wool and in making linen and woolen cloth. The stockings of Germantown and Bethlehem were well known. Muskets were manufac- tured at Lancaster. Hut with the return of peace the American people again became dependent upon England for most manufactured goods. THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES loi The second half of the eighteenth century was a period of industrial revolution in England. Up to this time all manufacturing had been done by hand with the aid of very simple tools and machines. Now Arkwright invented a spinning-machine and Cartwright the power loom. About the same time James Watt made the steam-engine, thus providing power to drive the new machines. Soon Eli Whitney, in this country, invented the cotton gin. This made it possible to supply the demand of England for more cotton. These labor-saving machines and others like them changed the industrial and social life of England and America. Before this time manufacturing was carried on in homes or small shops. Now great factories were built and cities grew up about them. This factory system has played a great part in making the world what it is to-day. These great changes were taking place just as the United States was becoming a nation. In 1789 the members of Congress from Pennsylvania urged that duties upon im- ports should be so laid as to "protect our infant indus- tries." The real need at this time, however, was to secure machinery like that which England was using. This was difficult, as the English laws prohibited the expor- tation of machines. Tench Coxe, a Philadelphia manufac- turer, tried to procure a full set of Arkwright machinery, but the models were seized by the English custom officers. Samuel Slater, a skilled English artisan, brought the plans to America in his mind and built a cotton mill at Paw- tucket, Rhode Island. Soon a mill in Philadelphia was fitted with machinery for cotton, wool, and hemp. Woolen mills were set up at other places in the state, and merino sheep were imported from Spain. 102 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA Thu ni[)i(l growth of American manufacturing dates from the Embargo Lawand the Warof i8i 2. When capital no longer found profitaljle investment in ships and cargoes it was used to build and equip factories. During the war r^nglish goods could not be imported and the American manufacturers had the market to themselves. Prices were high and manufacturing was greatly stimulated. In 181 3 Pennsylvania stood first among the states in the value of its manufactured ])roducts. This place it held for some time, but l)efore i860 Xew York led the states in the value of manufactures, with Pennsylvania in second place. Upon the return of peace in 181 5 the American markets were flooded with foreign goods. At once there was an outcry from the men who had invested their capital in manufacturing. They contended that because of the high price they paid for labor and their lack of machinery they could not compete with the English manufacturers. Congress listened to them and passed the tariff law of 1816. This law {protected the manufacturers in this country by imposing a duty upon competing imported goods. This tax increased the cost of the foreign goods to the American consumer and in this way enabled the American goods to command a higher price. In 1824 the tariff was raised. • Because of its large manufacturing interests Pennsylvania was strongly in favor of liigli protection. In 1827 a con- vention at Harrisburg urged still higher duties, and the high tariff law of 1828 pleased Pennsylvania better than it did any other state. A high protective tariff and its dej)osits of coal and iron liave combined to make Pennsyl- vania the manufacturing state it has become. THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES I03 57. The Use of Coal. — The existence of coal in Pennsyl- vania was known before the Revolution. In 1766 an- thracite coal was discovered in the Wyoming Valley, and two years later it was used in the forge fire of one of the blacksmiths in that region. In 1770 coal was found near Mahanoy and Shamokin, and during the following years its presence was noted in various sections of the state. The first settlers in Pittsburgh fed their fires with fuel dug from a bluff before the town. In 1776 the arsenal at Carlisle used coal which had been brought down the Sus- quehanna in boats from the Wyoming Valley to Harris- burg. This was the first shipment of anthracite coal ever made in America. In 1 791 a hunter made the first discovery of coal in the Lehigh region near the present town of Mauch Chunk. A specimen was sent to Philadelphia; the Lehigh Coal-mine Company was formed, and men were soon at work digging. With difficulty and loss some coal was brought down the Lehigh and the Delaware to Philadelphia, but the people did not know how to burn it, wood was plentiful, and the enterprise was abandoned. In 1804 the first boat load of bituminous coal from Clearfield county came down the Susquehanna River to Columbia. Within a few years this coal was sold in all the towns along the Susquehanna. It is claimed that coal was used in a blacksmith forge at Valley Forge as early as 1806. The real growth of the anthracite coal industry dates from the War of 181 2. The stimulus given to manufactur- ing at that time created a demand for a better and cheaper fuel. In 181 2 White and Hazard, who were engaged in wire making at the Falls of the Schuylkill, found out how 104 HISTORY OF PENN'SVLNAXIA to use hard coal to advantaf^c in hcatin<^^ iron. With the rise of a considerable demand for coal the real difficulty was one of transportation. After a time this problem was solved by the canals and railroads. The anthracite coal fields were tapped by the Lehigh Canal in 1820 and by the Schuylkill Canal in 1825. The Philadelphia and Reading, the first of the great coal-carrying railroads, was chartered in 1833. In the meantime there was much experimenting with illuminating gas. Philadelphia began to Ix- lighted with gas in 1837. The first coke ovens were built at Connellsville in 1842. Pennsylvania has nearly all the anthracite coal in the United States in an area of less than five hundred square miles in Lackawanna, Luzerne, Carbon, Schuylkill, and Northumberland counties. The cities of Scranton and Wilkes Barre and many other busy towns have grown up in this region. ,A large part of the state west of the Alle- ghany Mountains is underlaid with some of the thickest beds of bituminous coal in the whole country. The great hive of industry which centers at Pittsburgh owes its existence in large part to this wealth of fuel. 58. The Early Iron Industry. — Iron ore is found in many of the counties of Pennsylvania. Its presence was known to William Penn, who mentions "iron in divers places" as one of the resources of his province, and adds, "there is much of it." The first iron works in the colony were estab- lished by Thomas Rutter in 1 716 on Manatawney Creek, near Pottstown. About the same time an English Quaker named Samuel Nutt built a forge at Coventry, in the north- ern part of Chester county. Soon after this Nutt built a furnace on French Creek. This was the second furnace THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES 105 in the province, one having been built a Httle earUer at Colebrookdale in Berks county. Forges and furnaces multiplied and soon pig iron was exported to England, v^hile pots, kettles, andirons, and similar articles were cast or forged for home use. Before 1776 there were foundries, rolling-mills, nail-works, and wire-mills in Pennsylvania. These early forges and foundries were small affairs, but growth continued after the Revolution. The iron works at Phoenixville date from 1 790. The same year the first iron furnace west of the x\lleghanies was opened in Fayette county. Before many years mills for the manufacture of sheet iron and nails were set up in the western part of the state. The first rolling-mill in the United States to roll iron bars was erected in Fayette county in 1816. In the meantime there was a marked development of the iron industry in the counties of Chester, Lancaster, and Berks in the east, and furnaces were at work in the Juniata Valley. The richest deposits of ore were found in the Cornwall mines near Lebanon. The first foundry at Pittsburgh was established in 1803, It was early seen that its fine facilities for water transporta- tion made Pittsburgh a natural center for the rising iron trade. The Monongahela and the Alleghany brought ores and fuel to the young city, while the Ohio carried the products of its mills and foundries to the growing west. At first charcoal had been used for fuel in smelting iron. The gradual introduction of the use of coal in the blast furnaces about 1840 revolutionized the iron industry. From that time the Pittsburgh region, with its well-nigh inexhaustible supplies of bituminous coal, was destined to be one of the great iron centers of the world. Io() HISTORY OK I'I:NNSVL\ ANIA 59. Forests and Saw=mills. — "Penn's Woodland" was well named. Xo i)art of America has finer forests and few states have surpassed Pennsylvania as producers of lumber. From its earliest setdement there were saw-mills ujxjn its streams. The products of its forests were exported in the colonial period. Later the shipyards of Philadel- phia, Erie, and Pittsburgh used much timber. After 1825 the canals brought great quantities of lumber to Philadelj^hia. A great expansion of the lumber industry came in re- six)nse to the demand created by the rise of factories, the making of machinery, and the building of railroads. Now vast forests of white pine and hemlock on the upper Sus- fjuehanna and its tributaries and the headwaters of the Allegheny and its branches were attacked. After 1840 the luml)er interest centered in Williamsport. Here a boom was built to liold the logs that the spring freshets in the rivers brought down in vast numbers from the pineries above. Many saw-mills converted these logs into lumber. For years Lock Haven was the second lumber town of the state. In i860 Pennsylvania stood first among the states in the numlx-r of ]um1)ering establishments and in the amount of cai)ital invested in the industry. While white j)ine imd hemlock have furnished a very large proportion of its lumber, large quantities of oak, maple, and chestnut have also been cut in the state. 60. Petroleum and Natural Gas. — Petroleum was the last of the great natural resources of the state to be devel- oyx'd. The early French explorers noticed its existence and the Indians used it as a medicine. Later small (quantities of oil were collected from tlie streams, but it did THE GROWTH OF INDUSTRIES 107 not become a commercial product until 1859, in which year Edwin L. Drake bored an oil well near Titusville which yielded twenty-five barrels a day by pumping. Many other wells were at once bored. Some of them proved to be "gushers" or flowing wells. The early oil industry of Pennsylvania was confined to Venango and its neighboring counties in the northwestern part of the state. Titusville, Oil City, and Bradford were the great oil centers. Some years later productive wells were opened in Washing- ton and Greene counties. Natural gas was frequently found in boring for oil, but at first it was allowed to go to waste. After 1870 it began to be used for heating residences and lighting streets, and about ten years later as a fuel in manufacturing establish- ments. The first well in the state opened expressly for gas was bored in 1878. Soon a great amount of gas was used for fuel. Pennsylvania has always been the largest consumer of natural gas of all the states. CHAPTER X THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTE/Vl 61. Early Educational Conditions. — For fifty years after the Revolution proi^ress in education was slow in Pennsyl- vania. Some of the church schools of the colonial time ami others like lliem continued to do good work.^ But the mass of the people were too poor, too thinly scattered over a wide extent of territory, and many of them too indifferent to the value of education, to make the necessary effort to provide schools for their children. There were many educated men in the state, it is true, but a large part of the ])eo])le, while forceful and energetic, were crude and ig- norant. The State Constitution of 1776 authorized the establish- ment of schools in each county "with such salaries to the masters paid by the public as may enable them to instruct youth at low prices." The article on education in the Constitution of 1790 provided that schools should be set uj) throughout the state "in such a manner that the poor may be taught gratis." By a series of laws beginning in 1802 steps were taken to secure the free instruction of the j)oor. These laws fell far short of establishing a free school system. They tended rather to distinguish the children of the rich from those of the ])0()r. .Attendance Uj)on these "|)auj)er schools" was despised by the poor as a public ' Section 24. (108) THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEJM 109 badge of their poverty; the wealthy shunned them as de- grading. Dr. William Darlington, a prominent scientist of those early days, describes the country school-teachers of his time as "often low-bred, intemperate adventurers of the .Old World." Webster's Spelling-book and Readers, Daboll's Arithmetic, Lindley Murray's Grammar, and Morse's Geography were some of the text -books in common use. Joseph Lancaster, an English Quaker, had devised a plan by which one master could teach several hundred pupils. It was his method to instruct a select group of older children and then have them teach the other pupils under his supervision. In 1818 Lancaster was brought to Philadelphia and his system was tried there for several years, only to be finally abandoned. The leaders of public opinion in Pennsylvania were gradually coming to realize the backward state of education in the commonwealth. In 1831 the educational committee of the state House of Representatives summed up existing conditions as follows: "The private schools throughout the state have been found inadequate to the wants of the people. Where schools have been established complaints are made of their inefficiency owing to the want of competent teachers and of some system by which their better regulation may be secured." The previous year a committee of Philadelphia working men reached the same conclusions and suggested as a remedy the establishment of "a system of universal free and equal public education." 62. The Great School Law of 1834.— Every governor of the state for forty years had urged upon the Legislature the need of better schools. Governor Hiester speaks for them no HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA all when he calls it "an imperative duty to introduce and supjx3rt a liberal system of education." But the people were indifferent, and in this matter the Legislature paid very little heed to the advice of the governors. Governor (k-orge Wolf, a teacher and an ardent friend of education, succeeded where others had failed. In his annual message of 1831 he said, "I am thoroughly per- suaded that there is not a single measure of all those which will engage your deliberation in the course of the session of such intrinsic importance to the general prosperity and ha])piness of the people of the Commonwealth as a general diffusion of the means of moral and intellectual cultivation among all classes of our citizens." Beyond providing a school fund this Legislature did nothing. But the people were waking up. Leading men were agitating the subject by speech and writing. Public meetings were held all over the state. Petitions for a better system of education were jHjuring in uj)on the Legislature. In 1832 the House of Representatives passed a school bill, but it w^as defeated in the Senate. The following year Governor Wolf made education the chief feature in his message, and on March 15, 1834, the "Act toestablish a general system of education by common schools" was passed. This is the most im- fxjrtant event in the educational history of Pennsylvania. The passage of the act of 1834 was the beginning of free schools for the entire state. The law made each township or borough in the state a school district and provided for the election of directors. The county courts were to ap- jx^int inspectors whose duty it was to visit the schools and to examine and grant certificates to teachers. At first the districts were not required to establish schools, but if they THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM iii did not they should receive no part of the state appropria- tion or of the county tax. 63. Thaddeus Stevens, the Champion of Education. — With the passage of the law of 1834 it seemed that the fight for free schools was won. As a matter of fact, it had just begun. When the districts came to decide whether they would accept the act and establish schools there was a bitter contest. The ignorant, the selfish, and the conserva- tive people of the state opposed a free school system. The Germans and the Friends took the same position. They were opposed to separating the school from the church. Many of the German churches and the Friends' meetings had their own schools and naturally did not want to see them destroyed. The opposition in the German counties was the most stubborn and successful. At first only about one-half the districts in the state accepted the law and organized schools. The enemies of the new school law now resolved to de- stroy it. They made the school question an issue in the election of members of the Legislature, and sent to Harris- burg a body of men opposed to free schools. The Senate made quick work and by a vote of nearly two to one sent to the House of Representatives a bill repealing the act of 1834. The House was said to contain a majority of thirty in favor of the repeal and the friends of the schools were well-nigh hopeless. Fortunately in this moment of its peril the free school system found a worthy champion. Thaddeus Stevens, a native of Vermont, who had come to Pennsylvania as a teacher and later had studied law, was a representative from Adams county. In his old age he was to be the 112 HIbTORV OF PENNSYLVANIA dominant niLiiibcrof the national Hoiiscof Representatives in tlie reconstruction (jf the southern states after the Civil War. Now in the prime of manhood he led the free school forces with a ])ersuasive eloquence which saved the school law of 1834 from being swej)t from the statute book. In the great debate upon the question of repeal he concluded one of the most convincing speeches ever made in Penn- sylvania with these words: "Who would not rather do one living deed than to have his ashes enshrined in ever burnished gold? Sir, I trust that when we come to act on this question, we shall take lofty ground — look beyond the narrow space which nowr circumscribes our vision — beyond the passing, fleeting ]x)int of time on which we stand — and so cast our votes that the blessings of education shall be conferred upon every son of Pennsylvania — shall be carried home to the poorest child of the poorest inhabitant of the meanest hut of your mountains, so that even he may be prepared to act well his part in this land of freemen, and lay on earth a broad and solid foundation for that enduring knowledge which goes on increasing through increasing eternity." Under the eloquent leadership of Thaddeus Stevens the repeal of the law of 1834 w^as not only defeated, but the Legislature was persuaded to pass an act simplifying and strengthening the free school system. The loyal support given the cause of popular education by Governor Wolf and by his successor. Governor Ritner, greatly aided in bringing about this result. 64. The School System Grows.— The passage of this new and luttcr school hiw in 1836 marks the real foundation of the common school system of the state. At this time the THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM 113 secretary of the commonwealth acted as superintendent of common schools. From 1835 to 1838 this office was filled by Thomas H. Burrowes, whose zeal and ability as an organizer and whose lifelong devotion to the cause of public education give him a foremost place among the benefactors of the state. At first there was much opposi- tion to the schools and for some years progress was slow. The course of study was meager, teachers were often without preparation for their work and always very poorly paid. The need of reform began to be clearly seen by 1850, and the next ten years witnessed the rapid growth of the school system. In 1852 the first number of the Pennsylvania School Journal appeared, and before the end of the same year the State Teachers' Association was organized. A great forward step was taken in 1854 when the office of county superintendent of schools was created. Three years later the state superintendency of schools was made a separate office and a law providing for the training of teachers in normal schools was passed. In 1866 James P. Wickersham was appointed state superintendent of common schools. Though but little past forty years of age, Mr. Wickersham had been a teacher in the common schools, the principal of Marietta Academy, the first county superintendent of Lancaster county, and the founder of the first State Normal School. He was the greatest educational leader that Pennsylvania has ever had. For the next fifteen years every part of the school system felt the quickening touch of his spirit. The yearly expendi- tures for school purposes were increased nearly threefold ; the state appropriations to common schools went up nearly 114 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA as much; many school-houses were built; provision was made for city and borout^h superintendents; teachers salaries were advanced, and the length of the school term was increased. The most striking feature of American educational de- velopment during the past forty years has been the estab- lishment and rai)id growth of high schools. The Central High School for boys in Philadelphia, the first one in the slate, was founded in 1837, and three years later that city ojx,'ned a similar school for girls. Pittsburgh, Easton, and other cities early established high schools, but because of the existence of many private academies in the state the demand for them did not begin to be general until Super- intendent W'ickersham's time. Since then they have sprung uj) with marvelous rapidity, until now practically every city and borough and many townships have schools of this grade. Nor has the state been neglectful of its flefective and (k])endent children. Liberal appropria- tions have been made for schools for the deaf, the blind, the feeble minded, and for the orphans of soldiers of the Civil War. 65. The Old Time School. — Side by side with the growth of the school system there has gone on a similar develop- ment in the spirit and work of the school itself. Instead of a school term of from seven to ten months the children of seventy- five years ago were fortunate if they saw the inside of a school-house for three months in a year. As a mle this school-house was unpainted and dingy, and scantily furnished with a few narrow, .rickety benches. Sometimes a slab or plank fastened against the wall served as a desk. Maps, charts, and blackboards were JAIMES P. WICKERSHAM. (B. F. Saylor, photographer.) Il6 HISTORY OF I'KNXSYLVAXIA almost unknown. In this school the master — in those days it was far more often a master than a mistress — ruled with a hand of iron. Punisliment was swift and certain. It mi.t^ht be a box on the ear, the ferule on the hand, or the rod on the back. Some teachers were inge- nious in devisinj.^ unusual punishments, such as holding out a book at arm's length or standing in a stooping posture with the finger on the head of a nail in the floor. '!"hr teacliing was as old fashioned as the discipline. The beginner spent some weeks in learning the names of the letters of the alphabet. He was then promoted to the spelling book, in which the first lessons were made up of long lists of syllables beginning with ah, eh, ib, or ra, sa, ta . These lists must be committed to memory. The words in the s[)eller were grouped according to their number of syllables. The advanced classes were spelling words like these, all taken from a single lesson in one of the old s])ellers, metempsychosis, papilionaceous, pharmaco- poeia. After the spelling book came the Reader. The rules for good reading were short and definite: read fast, mind the stops and marks, and speak up loud. Whether the j)Uj)il understood what he read did not matter. Writing was done with cjuill pens, which the master made and mended. There might be a little grammar and geography, but the crown of the old time course of study w^as arith- mitic. Here the children committed to memory the rules in the book and then "ciphered." The boy w^ho had cij)here(l through the Rule of Three was supposed to have arithmetic enough for the common purposes of life. If he went clear through the Miscellaneous Questions in the back of the book he was thought to have a genius for THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM 117 figures. We smile now at the school of our grandfathers, but many earnest boys and girls attended it, and out of it came much sound learning and many strong and noble characters. 66. The Training of Teachers. — The need of better teachers was early recognized in Pennsylvania, though the state as a whole was slow in making adequate provision for their training. Many of the early academies and semi- naries were founded in part to qualify teachers for the com- mon schools. A little later it was the policy of the state to grant money to academies and colleges on the condition that they train a certain number of teachers. The Phila- delphia Model School, opened in 1818, was probably the first school in the United States specially established to prepare teachers for their work. This school grew into the Philadelphia Normal School for girls. Every state superintendent of common schools from the time of Thomas H. Burrowes recommended the establishment of State Normal Schools, but it was not until 1857 that such schools were authorized by law. Under the influence of James P. Wickersham, then superintendent of schools in Lancaster county, a county normal school had been opened at Millersville in 1855, and four years later this school became the first State Normal School in Pennsylvania. Since that time the number has grown until now the state has thirteen flourishing training-schools for teachers. A few of the cities maintain training-schools of their own. Some of the State Normal Schools, like Mansfield, Kutztown, and West Chester, grew out of earlier academies; others, like Shippensburg and Indiana, originated in the generous action of the communities in which they are located; all n8 llIMokV OK I'KNNSVLXANIA of ihcm were made jjussiblc by the subscriptions of public sj)iriti.'(l citizens. Tiie Normal Schools of Pennsylvania are jirivate institutions recognized and aided by the state. The Normal Schools have not been the only agencies in the training of teachers. Educational papers and books, teachers' associations, local and state, and the county institutes have all had their part in this work. Among b{x)ks on teaching written by Pennsylvanians those of James P. W'ickersham and Edward Brooks are especially noteworthy. Mr. Wickersham is the author of the stand- ard history of education in the state. 67. Colleges and Universities. — We have seen^ how the first college of the state grew up in Philadel])hia. Its fortunes were at a low ebb during the Revolution, but in 1 791 it entered upon its career as the University of Penn- sylvania. This university did not become a vigorous institution, however, until the days of Provost Stille, after the Civil War. To its early departments of arts, law, and medicine others have been added from time to time, until now almost all branches of learning can be studied in it. The University of Pennsylvania is now one of the foremost seats of learning in America. Other worthy state edu- cational institutions of later date are the University of Pittsburgh, and State College, a great school of agriculture and engineering in Centre county. Pennsylvania has more than thirty colleges, large and small. Most of them owe their origin to the zeal for learning of the various religious denominations. Among several colleges founded by the Presbyterians are Dickin- son, at Carlisle, Allegheny, at Meadville, and Lafayette, at ' Section 24. THE RISE OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM liQ Easton. Dickinson and Allegheny later passed into the hands of the Methodists. The Reformed Church con- trols Franklin and Marshall, at Lancaster. Bucknell University, at Lewisburg, was founded by the Baptists, and Pennsylvania College, at Gettysburg, by the Lutherans. Among several worthy Catholic colleges are St. Thomas, at Villanova, in Delaware county, and St. Vincent, in West- moreland county. The Friends are justly proud of Haverford and Swarthmore. Lehigh University, at Beth- lehem, is a monument to the generous public spirit of Asa Packer, whose gifts have richly endowed it. Bryn Mawr is one of the leading colleges for women in America. Lin- coln University, in Chester county, provides a liberal edu- cation for colored men. There are a number of other small but useful colleges in the state, while Philadelphia is a centre of education in medicine, in design and industrial art, and in business. CHAPTER XI SLAVERY AND POLITICS 68. The Early Anti=slavery Record of Pennsylvania. — The Quakers were among the earliest enemies of human slavery. Years before the Revolution, John Woolman, one of their j)reachers, spoke and wrote against it with great power. The first anti-slavery society in America was formed in Philadelphia in 1775. It at once began to ask the Legislature to set the slaves free, and, as we have seen, this was soon done by the gradual emancipation act of 1 780. Hien by protest and petition the Friends began the long struggle for freedom for all men in the nation. Rep- resentatives of Pennsylvania spoke in no uncertain tone against the slave trade and against the stealing of free negroes under the pretense that they were runaway slaves. At the time of the Missouri Compromise the senators and representatives from Pennsylvania stoutly resisted the extension of slavery into the territory beyond the Missis- si] )pi and by a unanimous vote the Legislature of the state apj)rove(l their course. The American Anti-slavery Society was organized in Philadelphia in 1833. It declared "that the slaves ought instantly to be set free and brought under the protection of the law." Its members sought with voice and pen to arouse the people against the evils of slavery. For a time John G. Whittier, the poet of the anti-slavery cause, was the editor of an abolition paper in Philadelphia. (120) SLAVERY AND POLITICS I2i Many people in Pennsylvania were bitterly opposed to the work of the abolitionists. The politician eager to curry favor with the south, the merchant anxious to protect his southern market, the timid citizen who feared that the discussion of the slavery question might disturb the peace of the country, the rabble in the cities hating the negro and always ready for a riot, all agreed in their desire to silence the anti-slavery leaders. Mobs broke up their meetings, destroyed their printing presses, and sometimes wrecked their houses. The streets of Philadelphia witnessed many of these riotous scenes. In one such affair in that city forty-four houses were damaged or destroyed. Finding it difficult to rent halls for their meetings, the anti-slavery men built a meeting-place of their own, called Pennsyl- vania Hall. Shortly after it was completed in 1838 this building was burned by a mob. During these years when so many northern men were willing to yield to the southern demand that all anti-slavery agitation be suppressed. Governor Ritner spoke out boldly in defense of free speech: "Let us," he said, "never yield the right of free discussion of any evil that may arise in the land or in any part of it." wSome of the anti-slavery leaders thought that they ought to take the question of abolition into politics. In 1840 these men formed the Liberty party, and nominated James G. Birney, a native of Kentucky, for president and Thomas Earle, of Penn- sylvania, for vice-president. Only about seven thousand votes were cast for this ticket, but in 1844 the Liberty party polled over sixty thousand votes. In 1845 James Russell Lowell came to Philadelphia to live and there began his vigorous anti-slavery writing. 122 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA 09. State Politics. — Party feeling ran very high at the first election under the Constitution of 1838, and Governor Ritner was defeated by David R. Porter, the candidate of the Democrats. Both parties claimed a majority in the House of Representatives, and there was a long and disor- derly wrangle over the organization of that body. A crowd of excited ]K)liticians gathered at Harrisburg, and the gov- ernor, fearing violence, called out a small force of militia. Some bucksh(jt cartridges intended for these troops were captured and distributed as souvenirs. Because of this incident the whole affair is known as the "Buckshot War." It was settled without bloodshed. There was a great financial panic in the United States in 1837, and for some years the whole country suffered from hard times. Pennsylvania had borrowed heavily to build canals and railroads, and it was necessary to continue to borrow in order to extend and re]:)air these public works. In 1842 there was no money in the treasury to pay the interest on the bonds. The state suffered in reputation for a time, but in the end every dollar of its debt was paid. The management of the canals and railroads by the state proved to be a source of much political corruption. The party in power used the employees to help control elections, and so managerl the business of these public works as to favor its frirnds and injure its enemies. P'or these reasons the people came to feel that these highways of commerce ouglit not to be owned by the state, and finally they were all sold to private companies. After serving two terms Governor Porter gave way to another Democrat, Francis R. Shunk, of Pittsburgh. Early in his second term Governor Shunk resigned because SLAVERY AND POLITICS 1 23 of ill health and soon afterward died. By the terms of the Constitution of 1838 William F. Johnston, the speaker of the Senate, became acting governor. He was a Whig, and when, in 1848, Pennsylvania gave her vote to Zachary Taylor for president, the popularity of that hero of the Mexican War helped the Whigs to elect Mr. Johnston governor for a full term. In 1852 the Democrats re- turned to power and William Bigler, of Clearfield, became governor. 70. Pennsylvanians in the Service of the Nation. — Dur- ing the first sixty years of the nineteenth century the office of secretary of the treasury was held nearly half the time by citizens of Pennsylvania. Albert Gallatin was succeeded by Alexander J. Dallas, who founded the second Bank of the United States. Richard Rush, who had been attorney- general and minister to England, had charge of the treasury in the cabinet of John Quincy Adams. Mr. Rush was de- feated for the vice-presidency in 1828 and later was min- ister to France. Samuel D. Ingham was Andrew Jack- son's first secretary of the treasury, and William J. Duane was removed from that office by the same president be- cause he refused to order the government deposits removed from the Bank of the United States. Walter Forward was appointed head of the treasury department by President Harrison, and William j\I. ^Meredith was given the same position by President Taylor. Several other Pennsylvanians held cabinet positions during this period. Among them were William Jones, secretary of the navy during the War of 181 2; James M. Porter and William Wilkins, secretaries of war in Presi- dent Tyler's cabinet; James Campbell, President Pierce's 124 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA |X)st master-general; and Henry 1). Gili)in and Jeremiah S. Black, attorneys-i^eneral. Mr. Black was also secretary of state for a short time near the close of Buchanan's administration. Henry Baldwin and Robert C. Grier were associate justices of the Supreme Court of the United States. (jeorge M. Dallas, a son of Alexander J. Dallas, was chosen vice-president in 1844. The state sent many strong men to Congress. Charles J. Ingersoll, of Phila- delj)hia, was a leader in the House of Representatives just before the Mexican War. The longest term of service of any Pennsylvania senator before i860 was that of Daniel Sturgeon. He was called "the silent senator." Although a hard worker on committees. Senator Sturgeon made but one si)eech in the Senate and that speech contained only one sentence: "Any Senator who says anything that would tiiid to disruption of the Union is a black-hearted vil- lain." The most eminent Pennsylvania statesman of these years was James Buchanan. Born in Franklin county, educated at Dickinson College, in early life a Federalist, Mr. lUichanan became an ardent follower of President Jackson, and from his time was one of the leaders of the Democratic party. After a term in Congress he was sent as minister to Russia. He was United States senator from 1833 to 1845, when President Polk a])])ointe(l him secre- tary of state. He was our minister to f^ngland during the term of President Pierce, and in 1856 his party elected him the fifteenth president of the United States. He is the only son of Pennsylvania who ever held that oflkc. JAMES BUCHANAN. 126 IllMokN ()!• ri:\NSYL\ ANIA 71. The Mexican War and the Wilmot Proviso. — Presi- dent Polk's i)ur{)()sc to ac(iuire California and other terri- tory in the southwest brou,twv'gal ^ 1^^ -— «fl Bj^ ;^IH HP ^kSHhHIR^ .^sHH^^ w GENERAL GEORGE G. MEADE. 138 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA An advance guard of Union cavalry under General Buford occupied Gettysburg on the 30th of June and the next morning met the aj)proaching Confederates west of the town. Here began the most famous battle ever fought on American soil. In 1863 Gettysburg was a little town of twenty-five hundred people, lying in the midst of a peaceful farming region. To the west the blue line of the South Mountain stands out sharp and clear in the distance. Near the western limits of the town, and trending slightly to the southwest, lies Seminary Ridge. From the southern border of the town rises Cemetery Hill, which is prolonged southward as Cemetery Ridge. Some three miles south of Gettysburg, Cemetery Ridge rises suddenly into a steep, rocky hill called Little Round Top. Just beyond Litde Round Top is Round Top, a higher and forest-covered elevation. Between the two ridges named there is a beau- tiful valley with cultivated fields and here and there a farm- house. About half a mile west of Cemetery Ridge and well to the south in this valley lies a lower ridge crowned with a peach orchard. West of the Round Tops the ground is broken and partly wooded. Cemetery Hill curves back and falls away toward the southeast, and then rises in a bold and rocky diff called Gulp's Hill. Many roads radiate fnjm the town like the spokes of a wheel. Along these roads the Confederates were marching toward Gettysburg from the west, iIh- north, and the cast. The Union army was hurrying up from the south. (^n the morning of July ist Buford with his cavalry force held the Confederates in check west of the town until the first corps of the Union army arrived and formed a stronger PENNSYLVANIA IN THE CIVIL WAR 139 line of battle. Its commander, General Reynolds, was killed as the battle opened. For hours the fight raged furi- ously along this line. The losses were fearful. Several Pennsylvania regiments formed part of the "one thin line" which here repulsed the charging Confederate hosts. At least three of them, the 149th, 150th, and 1 51st, lost over fifty per cent, of their number, and in three others, the i2ist, i42d, and 143d, the losses were almost a s great. About noon the eleventh corps of the Union army reached Get- tysburg. Leaving one division to for- tify Cemetery Hill, General Howard advanced through the town to meet the Confederates who were now approaching from the north. Because its divisions were marching toward a common center the Confederate army reached the battle- field sooner than the widely scattered corps of the army of the Union. After fighting stubbornly until the late after- I40 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA noon the Union forces \vcst and north of Gettysburg were compelled by superior numbers to abandon their position and withdraw to a stronger one on Cemetery Hill. Here a new battle line was formed by General Hancock who had been sent fon\ard to represent General Meade. The Confederates contented themselves with occupying the town and holding the positions they had taken. Thus ended the first day. All night the Union troojjs came swarming in from the southward. General Meade reached the field at one o'clock in the morning. There was no fighting on July 2d until the afternoon was well advanced. Lee was planning his attack and Meade preparing for the defense. Instead of permanently occupying Cemetery Ridge General Sickles, who led the Union left wing, threw it forward to the peach orchard. This was the weak point in the Union line, and in the afternoon Tee's great lieutenant, Longstreet, struck it hard. For hours the tide of battle ebbed and flowed at the peach orchard and through the wheatfield and broken woodland behind it. There was a desperate struggle for the possession of Little Round Top, the key of the Federal position, but by the foresight of General Warren and by the utmost valor on the part of the troops who first reached it the hill was held by the Union forces. The troops of Sickles were finally driven back from their advanced posi- tion, but a strong line was held on Cemetery Ridge and Round Top was occupied . Toward night the Confederates made a fierce assault up the eastern slope of Cemetery Hill, but were hurled back with heavy loss. The Union line on Gulp's Hill had been weakened to reinforce the hard pressed left wing, and at the end of the day the Confeder- PENNSYLVANIA IN THE CIVIL WAR 141 ates seized a part of the hill. This position they held as night fell upon, the second day at Gettysburg. On the morning of July 3d after a hard struggle Meade drove the Confederates from the ground which they had taken on Gulp's Hill. Near midday silence rested on the ■bloody field for some time. Lee had been hampered in his campaign by the absence of his cavalry. Its leader, Stuart, rejoined him after a long ride in the course of which he had fought a sharp combat with Union cavalry at Hanover. He was now ordered to ride around the right of the Federal army and strike its rear, but this attack was defeated by the horsemen of Gregg and Custer. Lee had failed in his attacks on both wings of Meade's army. He now determined to break its center. About one o'clock more than one hundred Confederate guns opened fire upon this point. The Federal guns replied, and for two hours the earth shook under the most terrific artillery duel ever fought in America. Then the cannon grew silent, and fifteen thousand men, led by Pickett with his division of Virginians, assaulted the Union center. With matchless courage Pickett's men came steadily on under a fearful fire, and a handful of them under Armistead surged over the stone wall which marked the Union line, only to be beaten back with awful loss. The assault had failed. The battle of Gettysburg was over. The wave of secession had reached high-water mark and began to recede. "They fell, who lifted up a hand And bade the sun in heaven to stand ! They smote and fell, who set the bars Against the progress of the stars, And stayed the march of Motherland 1 142 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA " They stood, who saw the future come On through the fights' delirium I They smote and stood, who held the hope Of nations on that slippery slope Amid the cheers of Christendom. " God lives ! He forged the iron will That clutched and held that trembling hill." Two days later Lee began his retreat to \'irginia. The losses at (jettysburg were enormous. In killed, wounded, and j)ris()ners the Union army lost twenty-three thousand men, and the Confederate losses were almost as great. The wounded were tenderly cared for in the great war hospitals of the north. The thousands of dead were buried where they fell. Later the bodies of those who "here gave the last full measure of devotion" to their country were gathered into the national cemetery w^hich Lincoln dedicated with his immortal Gettysburg Address. The battlefield of Gettysburg is now^ a splendid park belonging to the nation. No shrine of patriotism in America can compat-e witli it. Every Pennsylvanian owes it a reverent visit. 78. Leaders in the Field and in the Government. — It was fitting that the three most conspicuous leaders on Pennsylvania's greatest battlefield should all be Pennsyl- vanians. George G. Meade, who held the chief command, was a Philadelphian. A distinguished engineer before the war, Meade had shown himself an officer of courage and ability in all the campaigns of the army of the Potomac, and he continued to lead that army under Grant until the end of the war. At Gettysburg he won imperishable fame. John F. Reynolds, who selected the battlefield and opened PENNSYLVANIA IN THE CIVIL WAR 143 the battle, was a native of Lancaster. He was a splendid soldier, whose death was regretted by friend and foe. It was a southern general who said of him, "No man died on that field with more glory than he; yet many died, and there was much glory!" Montgomery county was the early home of Winfield S. Hancock. Like Meade and Reynolds, a graduate of West Point and a soldier in the Mexican War, Hancock served the cause of the Union with great distinction from 1861 to 1865. Of striking personal appearance and dauntless courage, he won the confidence and inspired the devotion of his soldiers. He led his men through an awful fire at Fredericksburg. The first day at Gettysburg he rallied the retreating forces on Cemetery Hill. Severely wounded while meeting Pickett's charge, he was back on the field in time to take the "bloody angle" at Spottsylvania. "He never committed a blunder in bat- tle." Hancock held high rank in the army for years after the war, and in 1880 he was the Democratic candidate for the presidency. George B. McClellan, who led the army of the Potomac in the Peninsular campaign and at Antietam, was a native of Pennsylvania. He was the Democratic candidate for president in 1864. George A. McCall and John W. Geary were veterans of the Mexican War. McCall was the first commander of the Pennsylvania Reserves. Geary had been mayor of San Francisco and governor of the territory of Kansas. He served with distinction through- out the entire war and succeeded Curtin as governor of Pennsylvania. David M. Gregg was a gallant horseman who rose to the command of the cavalry of the army of the Potomac. William W. Averell, John F. Hartranft, GKXERAL WIXFIELD S. HANCOCK. PENNSYLVANIA IN THE CIVIL WAR 145 John G. Parke, J. Irvin Gregg, John R. Brooke, Roy Stone, and Galusha Penny packer were conspicuous among many brave and efficient Pennsylvania generals. The state laid a costly sacrifice upon the altar of freedom in George D. Bayard, Henry Bohlen, Strong Vincent, and Alexander Hays, slain in battle. The Keystone state was ably represented in the govern- ment of the nation during these trying years of civil strife. Simon Cameron, who had been twice elected to the Senate of the United States before the war and who served in that body for many years after it, was Lincoln's first secretary of war. Congress thought that he was not the man for the place, and early in 1862 he gave way to Edwin M. Stan- ton, a native of Ohio, who had lived in Pittsburgh for years. Stanton was our great war secretary. He had faults of temper, but his energy, integrity, courage, and iron will, his power to command the best service of others, and his burning patriotism made him "the stay of the president, the hope of the country," and a terror to the dishonest and the inefficient. The value of his services cannot be overestimated. When Congress met in special session on July 4, 186 1, Galusha A. Grow, a Pennsylvanian who had been a rep- resentative since 1850, was elected speaker of the House. He served in that office until 1863. From 1861 until his death in 1868 Thaddeus Stevens was the leader of the House of Representatives. As chairman of the committee on ways and means it was his duty to devise plans for rais- ing the revenue to carry on a great war and to take charge of the bills directing how the money should be spent. These heavy tasks were performed with the utmost 146 HISTORY OF PENNSVLN ANIA fidelity. He was also the .L^aiiding spirit in the reconstruc- tion of the southern states. Pennsylvania has never had a greater parliamentary leader than Thaddeus Stevens. It has been well said of him that "A truer democrat never btvalhed. He deemed no man so ]Joor or friendless as to be beneath the equal protection of the laws, and none so [xjwerful as to rise above their sway. Privilege never had a more powerful nor a more consistent foe." 79. The Fighting Men of Pennsylvania. — Three hun- dred and sixty-two thousand, two hundred and eighty- four Pennsylvanians fought in the Union army. In addition to this number about twenty-five thousand militia were called out in emergencies. This host of men came from every section of the state and from every class of the jK'oj)le. The crowded streets of the cities, the silent places of the mountains, the mines beneath the earth were all represented. From farm and factory, from railroad and lumber camp, there came a quick response to every call of "Father Abraham." Organized into regiments and drilled in camps of instruction, the soldiers were soon sent to tlie front. For three years they knew the life of the camp and the march, the picket line and the battlefield, and in many cases the hospital and the horrors of the southern [)rison. Thousands of them were killed in battle and more thousands died of wounds and of disease. When their work was done the survivors came home and quietly resumed tlu-ir places as peaceful citizens of the state. At the beginning of the war the Tegislature authorized the governor to procure a flag for each Pennsylvania regiment . These flags were presented by Governor Curtin in elo(iuent words and received with vows to guard them TIIADDEUS STEVENS. (From the original negative; photograph by B. Frank Saylor, Lancaster, Penna.). 148 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA faitlifully. These vows were kept upon well-nigh every battlefield of the war. Up and down the Shenandoah Valley, at \'icksburg, Chickamauga, Lookout ^Mountain, and Missionary Ridge, in Sherman's famous march to Atlanta and the sea, u]) the bloody ramparts of Fort Wagner and F(;rt Fisher, brave men followed the battle Hags of Pennsylvania. The greater number of the soldiers of the state were in tlic army of the Potomac, and their flags waved in the thickest of the fight in every battle of the Prii insular camjjaign, at Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chan- cellorsville, and Gettysburg, in the Wilderness campaign, before Petersburg, and in final triumph at Appomattox. When the war was over two hundred and eighteen of these torn and tattered battle flags were returned to the state. Tliey are now carefully preserved in the capital at Harris- burg. \\"\[h the memory of the men who followed them they are the most precious possession of the common- wealth. CHAPTER XIII POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 80. After the War. — In 1867 the great war governor was succeeded by General John W. Geary. Several years of unusual business prosperity followed the return of peace. New railroads were built, industry of every kind was active, and the vast material resources of the state were rapidly developed. During Governor Geary's administration the state debt was reduced ten million dollars. At this time the scope of the state government began to be enlarged. In 1872 a bureau of labor statistics and of agriculture was established. The following year commissioners were ap- pointed to promote the fishery interests of the state. In politics Pennsylvania had become strongly Republican. It gave its electoral vote to General Grant in 1868, and again in 1872. At the beginning of 1873 another gallant general of the Civil War, John F. Hartranft, became governor. The years following the war were a time of rapid rail- road construction in the United States. This led to much speculation. Vast sums of money were invested in the new roads, many of which could not pay the expenses of opera- tion. In 1873 a great financial panic swept over the country. It began with the failure of the banking house of Jay Cooke and Co. in Philadelphia. Tliis failure was wholly unexpected. Jay Cooke had given invaluable (149) I50 HISTORY OF PKNNSYLVANIA service' to tlic national government during the Civil War in heli)ing it to Ijorrovv money. He merits a place beside Rolxrt Morris as the financier of a great war. Like Morris, lie failed in the effort to promote the too rapid de- velo])nient of tlu' country. As the panic grew other banks and Inisiness houses failed, factories were closed, men were thrown out of work or their wages reduced, and there was much distress. For a time business was almost at a stand- still in the industrial districts of Pennsylvania. It was not until 1870 that ])rosperity was fully restored. The close of the first century of American independence was fittingly celebrated by a world's fair held in Fair- mount Park, Philadelphia, in 1876. Here in many great halls were displayed the vast resources of the United States and the arts and the manufactures of the whole world. The Centennial Fxposition was visited by nearly ten mil- lion ])eople. It marks the beginning of the education of the mass of our people in art and artistic things. 81. The Constitution of 1873.— Under the Constitution of 1S38 the evil custom had grown up of granting special l^rivileges to railroads, and to mining, manufacturing, and other com]xmies. This ])ractice of sjX'cial legislation led to much ])()litical corrujotion, and, in time, to a popular demand for a new state constitution. In 1871 the Legis- lature submitted to the people the question of making another constitution, and by a vote of almost five to one they dec idi'd to call a convention for that purpose. This convention met in Ilarrisburg in November, 1872, and before the close of that month adjourned to Phikidelphia, where most of its work was done. Its members were chosen from among the strongest and wisest men in the POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT I51 state. The constitution which they drew up was approved by the people in December, 1873, and on the first day of January, 1874, it became the supreme law of the common- wealth. The Constitution of 1873 made a number of important changes in the government of the state. All special legislation w^as absolutely forbidden. The number of members in each house of the state Legislature was in- creased. Hereafter the Legislature was to meet once every two years instead of holding annual sessions. The par- doning power of the governor was limited. Provision was made for the election of a lieutenant-governor. All judges were to be elected by the people. The fifteenth amendment to the Constitution of the United States made it necessary to change the words "white freeman" to "every male citizen" in describing the qualifications for voting. Pennsylvania is still governed under the Constitu- tion of 1873. Proposed amendments to this constitution must be approved by a majority of each branch of the state Legislature at two successive sessions. They are then sub- mitted to the people at a state election. If they receive a majority of the votes cast they are adopted. 82. The Present Government of the State. — The laws are made in Pennsylvania by a Legislature, called the General Assembly, and composed of'two houses, a Senate and a House of Representatives. The Senate has fifty members elected from single districts for a term of four years. One-half of the senators are elected every two years. The House of Representatives has about two hundred members, apportioned among the counties in proportion to their population. Each county must have at least one 152 HISTORY OF PENNSYL\'ANIA representative. Representatives are chosen for a term of two years. The Le<^islature meets in regular session on the first Tuesday in January of every odd year. To become a law a bill must pass each house of the Legislature by a majority of the votes of all its members and be signed by the governor or not vetoed by him within ten days. A bill may be passed over the governor's veto by two-thirds of,, all the members of each house. The governor is at the head of the executive department of the state government. He is chosen by the voters of the state for a term of four years and cannot be elected for two successive terms. It is his duty to enforce the laws of the state. He may grant pardons only upon the recom- mendation of the board of pardons, which is made up of the lieutenant-governor and three other state officers. Some of the other executive officers of the state are apfXDinted by the governor, others are elected by the people. The judicial power of the state is vested in the supreme court, in the superior court, and in the various county courts. The supreme court of Pennsylvania is composed of seven justices, who are elected by the people for a term of twenty-one years. The judge whose term of office first expires is the chief justice. The superior court is made up of seven judges, elected for a term of ten years. The busi- ness of these courts consists mainly in hearing appeals from the county courts. Murder cases and civil suits in which the amount of property in dispute is worth more than $1500 may be appealed to the supreme court. .'\ppeals in all other cases are made to the superior court Thr various criminal and civil cases are tried before juries POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 153 in the county courts. As a rule each county has one or more judges of its own, but sometimes two or three of the smaller counties are grouped together to form a judicial district. A voter in Pennsylvania must be a male citizen of the state, twenty-one years old. He must reside in the election district in which he votes at least tw^o months before the election. If twenty-two or more years old, he must have paid a state or county tax within two years, and at least a month before election. If not a native born citizen of the United States, he must have been naturalized at least one month before the election. If born in another state, he must live in Pennsylvania one year before he votes. Natives of Pennsylvania who have established a residence elsewhere may vote in six months after their return to this state. The most important unit of local government in Penn- sylvania is the county. There are now sixty-seven counties in the state. In each of them there are three commission- ers, a sheriff, a prothonotary, a treasurer, and various other county officers. The counties are divided into townships, in each of which there are supervisors who have charge of the roads, justices of the peace who issue warrants for the arrest of persons charged with crime and hold courts in which petty cases are tried, school directors who provide public schools and fix the school tax to help pay for them, and some other minor officers. The smaller towns may be organized as boroughs with a chief burgess and borough council. When a borough has ten thousand inhabitants it may become a city and its government is then given more power than that of a borough. Pcnn- 154 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA sylvania cities arc divided into three classes, those having 1,000,000 or more inhabitants, those whose population is between 100,000 and 1,000,000, and those having less than 100,000 inhabitants. Philadelphia is the only city of the first class in the state. Pittsburgh and Scranton are cities of the second class. 83. Labor Troubles, Strikes, and Riots. — The rapid growth of the industries of the state during and after the Civil War was attended by the development of two dis- tinct classes of people, the men who owned the capital invested in mines, factories, and railroads, and the labor- ers whom they employed. Soon the feeling began to grow among the working men that they were not getting a just share of the wealth which their work did so much to pro- duce. The result was a long series of disputes between capital and labor which have continued to our own time. The first serious strike in the coal regions occurred in 1868. The miners asked for an eight-hour day. The strike was unsuccessful in its immediate purpose, but it led to the develo])ment of an organization which strengthened the jH)sition of the miners for the future. Three years later a strike against a reduction of wages was attended with so much violence that it was necessary to send the militia to Scranton. The hard times, which lasted for several years after the panic of 1873 were marked by a long series of labor troubles. In 1874 the militia had to be sent to Susquehanna to |)Ut down the disorder incident to a railroad strike on the Erie road. From January to July, 1875, occurred the "long strike" in the Schuylkill and Lehigh coal regions. It ended in the surrender of the strikers. For vears the POLITICS AND GOVERNMENT 155 anthracite coal regions were terrorized by an Irish secret society called the Molly Maguires. Murders of mining bosses who were hated by the members of this order were frequent. Yet there were few arrests and for a long time not a conviction for murder in the first degree. At last in 1876, largely through the efforts of President Gowen of the Philadelphia and Reading Railroad and of James McParlan, a young Irish detective, nineteen of the Mollies were convicted and hanged, and the order stamped out. In 1877 there was a great railroad strike throughout the United States. This strike brought on the most serious and destructive riots that ever broke out in Pennsylvania. At Pittsburgh a vast amount of railroad property was de- stroyed and there was serious fighting between the militia and the strikers. The railroad bridge at Reading was burned, and there was much disorder at Scranton, Wilkes Barre, and other places. In 1892 an attempt of the Carnegie Steel Company to reduce the wages of its employees led to a very serious riot at Homestead in Allegheny county. In 1897 there was a strike for higher wages in the coal regions. This strike was marked by a serious collision between the sheriff and his deputies and a body of strikers at Lattimer in Luzerne county, in wliich twenty of the strikers were killed and many others wounded. The last great anthracite coal strike occurred in 1902. It brought on a coal famine and threat- ened still more serious trouble, which, fortunately, was averted by President Roosevelt, who prevailed upon the miners and the owners of the coal fields to submit their dispute to the arbitration of a commission which he ap- pointed. 156 HISTORY OF PENNSYLVANIA 84. Politics, State and National. — In 1879 Henry M. Hoyt, oi Wilkes Burrc, who had served as colonel of the 52(1 re«,Mment in the Civil War, became governor. During his term the National Guard was thoroughly reorganized. Ill indalc, 04 Carlisle, 80, 103, 118, ii,b Carlisle, Abraham, 63 Camijjie, Andrew, 162 ("ariunlers' Hall, 44 lartwriulu, loi Cedarcraft, iSi Cement, 165 Censors, Council of, 6? Centennial Exposition, 150 Center county, 118, 128 Chadds' Eord, 40-50 Chambersburg, 134, 136 Charles I, 2 Charles II, 6, 7 Chester, 20, 164, ibt> Chester county, 21, 35, 104, 105, 119, 168, 181 Christiana riot, 127-128 Church of England, 2, 22 Civic righteousness, 190 Classes, social, 28-29 Clearfield county, 103, 166 Cliveden, 28 Clymer, George, 49, 57 Coal, 16, 103-104, 162-163 Coatesvillc, 162 Coke, 163 Colcbrookdalc, 105 Colleges, 118-119 Columbia, 88, 92, 103, 136 Commerce, 29-30, 97-98, 171 Committee of Public Safety. 47 "Common Sense," 48 Conemaugh, 80, 92, 15O Concstoga wagons, 30, 71, 8O-87 Connecticut, 1 1 Connellsville, 1O3 Conservation, 1 80- 188 Constitution of the United States, 65- 09 Constitutionalists, 69 Constitutions, state, of 1701, 33-34; of 1770, O1-62; of 1790. 69-70; of 1838, 82-83; of 1873, 150-151 Continental Congress, first, 44-45; second, 46, 60, 64 Conventions, constitutional, of 177O, 60-O1; to ratify Federal constitu- tion, 6()-0(); constitutional, of 1780-1700, Og-70; constitutional, of 1837,82; constitutional, of 1873, 150-151 Conway cabal, 53 Cooke, Jay, 149-150 Cope, Edward D., 174 Cornwall, 105 Cornwallis, Lord, 50 Coventry, 104 Coxe, Tench, 101 Cramp, Charles H., 165-166 Cramp, William, 165-166 Cromwell, Oliver, 2 Cumberland county, 26,32; Vallev. 13, 136 Curtin, Andrew G., 130, 133-134 Curtin, Camp, 133 Custer, 141 Dallas, Alexander J., 75, 123 Dallas, George M., 124 Darlington, Dr. William, log Decatur, Stephen, 78 Delaware, 9; county, 119; river, 7,9, 13-14, 19, 20 Democratic-Republicans, 72, 73, 75, 80 Democrats, 80-81, 130, 156, 157 Dennie, Joseph, 178 Dickens, Charles, 93 Dickinson, 41, 42, 45, 47, 48, 57, 64, 66 Dickinson College, 118, 119, 124 Dixon, Jeremiah, 11 Dock, Christopher, 34 Drake, Edwin L., 107 Duane, William. 178 Duane, William J., 123 Dunkers, 24 Du Quesne, Fort. 32 Dutch in Pennsylvania, ig Earle, Thcjmas. 121 Easton, 119, 162, 164 Education, 34-35, 108-119, 188-189 Egan, Maurice Francis, 179 Elk county, 166 Elkton, 40 English, Thomas Dunn, 179 Ephrata, 36 Erie, 12, 78, 106 Erie, Lake, 13; battle of, 78 Estates of the Penns, 63 Evans, Oliver, 94 Ewing, 40 Excise, 73 Executive Council, 62 INDEX 193 Fairmount Park. 21, 150 Fayette county, 105 Federalists, 72, 73, 75, 80 Findlay, William, 78 Findley, William, 69 Fitch, John, 88 Fitzsimmons, Thomas, 57 Forney, John W., 178 P'ort Alercer, 52 Fort Mifflin, 52 Forty Fort, 53 Forward, Walter, 123 Fox, George, 2-3 Frame of Government, 8 Franklin and Marshall College, 119 Franklin, Benjamin, 23, 36-39, 46, 47, 48, 49, 57, 58, 64, 66, 90, 172 Franklin county, 26, 134 Fredericksburg, 134 Free Soilers, 129 Fremont, John C, 130 French and Indian War, 32 French Creek, 104 Friends, 2-4, 21-23, 34, 46-47, 62, iii, 119, 120 Fries, John, 74 Fries Rebellion, 74 Fritz, John, 162 Frontier, 31-32 Fugitive slave law, 126-127 Fulton, Robert, 88-89 Furness, Horace Howard, 178-179 Gallatin, Albert, 76, 123 Galloway, Joseph, 45, 46 Gas, 107, 163 Gazette, The Pennsylvania, 38 Geary, John W., 143, 149 Genet, 73 German governors, 78-81 Germans in Pennsylvania, 23-25, 40, 47, III Germantown, 24; battle of, 52, 100 Gettysburg, 119; battle of, 134-142 Gilpin, Henry 1)., 124 Girard College, 98 Girard, Stephen, 72, 97-98 Glass, 165 Government, 32-34, 151-154 Gowen, 155 Graham's Magazine, 178 Grant, General, 149 Great Valley, 12-13 Greene, 50 Greene county, 107 Gregg, David M., 141, 143 Gregg, J. Irvin, 145 Grier, Robert C, 124 Grow, Galusha A., 145 Hamilton, Alexander, 71, 72, 73, 76 Hamilton, Andrew, 35-36 Hancock, Winfield S., 140, 143 Hanover, 141 Hanway, Castner, 127 j Harrisburg, 102, 103, 122, 132, 136, 148 ! Hartranft, John F., 143, 149 j Hastings, Daniel H., 156 Haverford College, 119 Hayes, Isaac I., 175 Hayes, John Russell, 179-181 Hays, Alexander, 145 Hessians, 47 Hiester, Joseph, 78-79, 109-110 High schools, 114 Hillegass, Michael, 57 Home life, 30-31 Homestead, 155, 161 Honesdale, 94 Hooker, General, 136 Hopkinson, Francis, 57 Hopkinson, Joseph, 179 Hovenden, Thomas, 176 Howard, General, 139 Howe, General William, 49, 50, 51 Hoyt, Henry M., 156 Hudson, Henry, 19 Humphries, Charles, 45, 48 Huntingdon Turnpike, 86 Independence declared, 47-49 Independence Hall, 48, 131 Indiana, 117 Indians, 16-18, 31-32 Industrial justice, 189-190 Industries, miscellaneous, 166-168 Ingersoll, Charles J., 124 Ingcrsoll, Jared, 57 Ingham, Samuel D., 123 Irish in Pennsylvania, 22, 184 Iron, 104-105, 161-162 Irvine, James, 54 Jackson, Andrew, 80, 100, 123 James I, 2 James II, 6 Jasper, Margaret, i Jefferson, Thomas, 72, 73, 80 104 INDEX Johnston, William F., 123 Johnstown, 15^, i()i Jones, William, 123 Juniata, 14, 80, 105 Kane, Elisha K., 174-175 Kfith. Sir William, ^t, Kcnnctt Sf|uare, 22, 4q, 127, 181 Kensington, 129 Kiskiminelas, 92 Know Nothings, 129 Knyjihauscn, 49 Kutztown, 1 17 Labor troubles, 154-155 Labor unions, 161 Latkawanna county, 104 La Fayette, 50, 80 Lafayette College, 118 Lancaster, 30, 45, 50, 63, 78, 100, 119, 143 Lancaster county, 25, ^6, 88, 105, 127, 128, 168 Lancaster, Joseph, 109 Lancaster Pike, 85 Lattimer, 155 l^aws. important, 158-159 Lea, Ilenry C, 179 Lebanon, 105; county, 25; Valley, 13 Lee, Richard Henry, 48 Lee, Robert E., 134, 140, 141, 142 Legal profession, 35-36 Lehigh Coal-mine Company, 103 Lehigh county, 25; river, 14 Lehigh University, 119 Leidy, Jose|)h, 173 Leiper, Thomas, 94 "Letters of a Pennsylvania Farmer," .4-' Lewisburg, 1 19 Lewis, Elijah, 127 Liberty Hell, 48 Liberty party, 121 Lincoln, Abraham, 130, 131-132, 142 Lincoln University, 119 Liquor traftic, 156 Literature, 178-183 Livingston. Robert R., 90 Lloyd, Thomas, 22 Lock Haven, 92, 106 Loe, Thomas, 4. 5 Logan, (leorge, 75 Logan, James, 22-23, 33 Longstreet, 140 Lowell, James Russell, 121 Lumber, 106, 165 Lutheran Church, 24 Luzerne county, 104, 155 Macadam, 85 MacVeagh, Wayne, 158 Madison, James, 65-66 Mahanoy, 103 Manatawney Creek, 104 Mansfield, 117 Manufactures, 29, 100-102, 104-107 March, Francis A., 178 Marietta Academy, 113 Markham, William, 20 Maryland, 9-1 1 Mason and Dixon's line, 11, 25 Mason, Charles, 11 Matlack, Timothy, 61 Mauch Chunk, 94, 103 May, Captain, 19 McCall, George A., 143 McClclIan, George B., 143 McClure, Alexander K., 178 McKean, Thomas, 67, 74-75 McKecsport, 161 McMaster, John B., 179 McParlan, James, 155 Meade, George G., 136, 140, 141, 142 Medicine, 35 Mennonites, 24 Meredith, Samuel, 54 Meredith. William M., 123 Mexican War, 123, 126, 127 Mifflin, Thomas, 45, 55, 65, 71, 74 Militia, 49, 54, 132 Millersville, 117 Mitchell, S. Weir, 179 Molly Maguires, 155 Money, 63, 98-100 Monongahela river, 14, 88, 90, 105 Montgomery county, 25 Moravians, 24 Morris, George P., 179 Morris, Gouverncur, 66 Morris, Robert, 48, 49, 57, 58, 64, 66, 150 Morton, John, 45, 48, 49 Muhlenberg, Frederick A., 25, 57, 173; (K>UhiIf Hcinrich, 173; Henry M., 24-25; John Peter Gabriel, 24-25, 55, 173 Mural painting, 176-177 INDEX 195 National Republicans, So National road, 86 Native American Movement, 128-129 Neshaminy, 35 New Castle, 161 New Englanders in Pennsylvania, 27 Newspapers, 36, 178 New York, 12 Normal schools, 113, 11 7-1 18 Norristown, 50 Northampton county, 25, 32 Northumberland county, 104, 129 Nutt, Samuel, 104 Oakley, Violet, 177 Ohio river, 14 Oil City, 107 Packer, Asa, 119 Packer, William F., 129, 131 Paine, Thomas, 47-48 Panic of 1837, 122; of 1873, i49~i5o Paoli Massacre, 51-52 Parke, John G., 145 Parker, 127 Parties, 69, 72-73, 80-81 Pastorius, Francis Daniel, 24 Pattison, Robert E., 156 Peale, Charles Wilson, 175-176 Peale, Rembrandt, 176 Peary, Robert E., 175 Penn, Admiral, i, 5, 6, 7; John," son of Richard, 33; John, son of Wil- liam, 33; Richard, 33; Thomas, ^^^^■, William, early years, 1-2; becomes a Quaker, 4-6; acquires Pennsyl- vania, 6-7; his "Holy Experi- ment," 7-8; treaty with the In- dians, 17; first visit to Pennsyl- vania, 20-21; death, 33 Pennamite and Yankee War, 11-12 Pennell, Joseph, 177 Pennsylvania, acquired by Penn, 6-7; boundaries, Q-12; surface, 12-13; rivers and lakes, 13-15; natural resources, 15-16; colonial life in, 28-39; in the Revolution, 40-58; ratifies the Constitution, 66-69; in the War of 181 2, 76-77; growth of, 81-82; education in, 108-119; in the Civil War, 131-148; in the Spanish War, 158 Pennsylvania College, 119 Pennsylvania Hall, 121 Pennsylvania Railroad, 93, 169 Pennsylvania Reserves, 133, 143 Pennsylvania School Journal, 113 Pcnnypacker, Galusha, 145 Pennypacker, Samuel W., 157 Perkiomen, 24 Petroleum, 16, 106-107, 163-164 Philadelphia, 20, 28, 40, 41, 78, 86, 92, 100, 103, 104, 106, 119, 121, 128, 129, 130, 154, 164 Philadelphia and Reading Railroad, 104, 169 Philadelphia county, 21 Phoenixville, 105, 162 Pickett, 141-142 Pietists, 24 Pinchot, Giflord, 174 Pipe lines, 163 Pittsburgh, 12, 86, 90, 93, 103, 104, 105, 106, 154, 155, 161-162 Plank roads, 86 Poe, Edgar Allan, 178 Pollock, James, 129, 133 Pontiac, 32 Poor Richard's Almanac, 38 Portage Railroad, 92 Porter, David R., 122 Porter, James M., 123 Port Folio, the, 178 Potter county, 166 Potter, James, 54 Pottstown, 104 Presbyterians, 25-26, 34 Priestley, Joseph, 173 Printing, 36, 178 Proud, Robert, 179 Puritans, 2 Quakers (see Friends). Quay, Matthew Stanley, 157 Races in Pennsylvania, 21-27, 184-185 Railroads, 169-171 Ramsay, David, 179 Randall, Samuel J., 157 Read, Thomas Buchanan, 55, 181 Reading, 45, 91, 155, 162 Rcdemptioners, 28-29 Redfield, Edward W., 177 Reed, Josei^h, 63 Preformed Church, 24 Reid, Captain Mayne, 179 Republicans, 69, 72, 73, 129-130, 156, 157 196 IXDKX Kcvcrc. I'aul, 44 Revolt of Pennsylvania soldiers, 6.^ Revolution, causes, 40-44; opening scenes, 44-47 Reynolds, John !•'., i.^q, 142-143 Rhoads, Samuel, 45, 46 Riots, 121, 128-129, I54~i55 Rilner, Joseph, 80. 81, 112, 121, 122 Rillenhouse, David, 36, 57, 172 Rivers, 13-15, 87-88 Roach, John, 166 Roberts, John, 63 Roosevelt, 155 Ross, Betsy, 54; George, 45, 49; James, 74. 75 Rolhermel. Peter V., 17?) Rothrotk, Joseph T.. 174 Rush, Henjamin, 30, 35, 49, 57; Rich- ard, 75, 123 Rutter, Thomas, 104 Sabbath school, 36 Sargent, John S., 176-177 Sartain. John, 176; William, 176; Mniil y, 1 7f) Schlatter, Mil had, 24 School code of i 9 1 i . 159 School law of 1834, 109-111 Schools, 34-35, 108-119 Schuylkill county, 104; river, 14, 19, 20, 50, 151 Schwenkfeldcrs, 24 Science, 3<), 172-175 Scotch-Irish in Pennsylvania, 25-27, 40, 47 Scott, Thomas A., 169 Scranton, 104, 154, 155, 162, 164 Sergeant. John, 126 Shaikamaxon, 17 Shamokin, 103 Shenandoah Valley, 13, 136 Shiphiiildinn, i'i5-i06 Shijipen. Dr. William, 35 Ship|)ensl)urg, 117 Shuize, John Andrew, 80 Shunk, l-rancis R., 122-123 Sickles, (ieneral, 140 Signers of the Declaration of Independ- ence, 49 Slate, 1 05 Slater, Samuel, 101 Slaves, 29 Smilie, John. 69 Smith, Charles Emory, 158 Smith, Dr. William, 35 Smith, James, 49 Smith, Joseph, 97 Snyder, Simon, 75, 78 South Hethlchem, 162 South Mountain, 12-13 South wark, 129 .Sower, Christopher, 36 Springett, (iulielma, 6 Stage coaches, 31, 87 Stamp Act Congress, 41 Standard Oil Company, 164 Stanton, Edwin M., 145 State College, 118 Stale Teachers' Association, 113 St. Clair, Arthur, 55, 65, 71 Steamboats, 88-89 Steel, 161-162 Stecllon, 162 Steel Trust, 162 Stenton, j8 Stephenson, George, 94 Steuben, Haron, 53 Stevens, Thaddeus, 111-112, 145-146 Stewart, Charles. 78 Strikes. 154-155 Stone, Roy. 145 Stone, William A., 157 St. Thomas College, 119 Stuart, Edwin S., 157 Stuart, General, 134, 141 Sturgeon, Daniel, 124 Stuyvesant, 19-20 St. Vincent College, 119 Sullivan, (jcneral, 53-54 Sumter. Fort. 132 Susquehanna, 1 5, 14, 88, 92, 103, 136, 181 Swarthmore College, 119 Swedes in Pennsylvania, 19-20 Tanneries, 166 Tariff laws, 101, 102, 157 Taverns, 31, 87 Taylor, Bayard, 181-183 Taylor, George, 49 Taylor, Zachary, 123 Tea ship on the Delaware, 44 Tea tax, 42-4^ Telford, 85 Tener, John K.. 157 Tennant, Rev. William, 35 Text-books, 109 Textiles, 1O4 INDEX 197 Thomson, Charles, 57 Tioga county, 166 Titusville, 107 ' Tories, 46, 53, 62, 63 Towanda, 126 Transportation, 30, 84-95 Travel, 31, 84-95 Trusts, 1 60-1 61 Turnpikes, 85-87 Ulster, 25, 26 Underground Railroad, 12S University of Pennsylvania, 35, 118 University of Pittsburgh, 118 Upland, 20 Valley Forge, 52-53, 106 Van Dyke, Henry, 170 Venango county, 107 Villanova, 119 Vincent, Strong, 145 Virginia, 12 Walking purchase, 17-18 Wanamaker, John, 158 Warren, General, 140 Warren Tavern, 50 Washington county, 107 Washington, George, 45, 49, 52, 53, 65, 72, 74 Watt, James, loi Wayne, Anthony, 50, 52, 55, 71 Webster, Daniel, 45 Welcome, 20 Welsh in Pennsylvania, 22 West, Benjamin, 90, 175 West Chester, 117 Westinghouse, George, 171 Westmoreland county, 119 Wharton, Thomas, Jr., 62 Whigs, 80, 81, 123, 129 Whiskey Insurrection, 73-74 White and Hazard, 103, 104 Whitchill, Robert, 69 ^ Whitney, Eli, loi Whittier, John G., 120 Wickersham, James P., 113-114, 117, 118 Wilkes Barre, 11, 104, 155, 156, 164 Wilkins, William, 123 Williamsport, 92, 106 Willing, Thomas, 46, 48 Wilmerding, 171 Wilmot, David, 126 Wilmot Proviso, 126 Wilson, Alexander, 173 Wilson, James, 46, 48, 49, 57, 65, 66, 67 Wister, Owen, 179 Wolf, George, 80, no, 112 Woolman, John, 120 Wrightsville, 136 Wyoming Massacre, 53 Wyoming Valley, 11, 27, 53, 103 Yellow fever, 72 York, 30, 50, 90, 136 York county, 25 Zeisberger, David, 34 Zenger, Peter, 35-36 Zinzendorf, 34 M^e-^^'-r^t^ HK269-78 .^x 'i ^^-n^. 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