"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever;Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors;Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey."
"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever;Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors;Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey."
"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever;Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors;Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey."
"Still stands the forest primeval; but far away from its shadow,
Side by side, in their nameless graves, the lovers are sleeping.
Under the humble walls of the little Catholic churchyard,
In the heart of the city, they lie unknown and unnoticed.
Daily the tides of life go ebbing and flowing beside them,
Thousands of throbbing hearts, where theirs are at rest and forever;
Thousands of aching brains, where theirs no longer are busy;
Thousands of toiling hands, where theirs have ceased from their labors;
Thousands of weary feet, where theirs have completed their journey."
In the ancient graveyard of "Old Swedes" is buried Alexander Wilson, the American ornithologist, who was a native of Scotland, but lived most ofhis life in Philadelphia, dying in 1813. The largest church in the city is the Roman Catholic Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, fronting on Logan Square, an imposing Roman Corinthian structure of red sandstone, two hundred and sixteen by one hundred and thirty-six feet, and crowned by a dome rising two hundred and ten feet. The chief institution of learning is the University of Pennsylvania, the most extensive and comprehensive College in the Middle States, dating from 1740, and munificently endowed, which occupies, with its many buildings, a large surface in West Philadelphia, and has three thousand students. This great institution originated from a building planned in 1740 for a place in which George Whitefield could preach, which was also used for a charity school. This building was conveyed to trustees in 1749 to maintain the school, and they were in turn chartered as a college in 1753 "to maintain an academy, as well for the instruction of poor children on charity as others whose circumstances have enabled them to pay for their learning." This charitable feature is still maintained in the University by free scholarships.
Philadelphia is eminently a manufacturing city, and its two greatest establishments are the Cramp Shipbuilding yards in the Kensington district and the Baldwin Locomotive Works on North Broad Street, each the largest establishment of its kind in America. The city has spread over a greater territory thanany other in the United States, and sixteen bridges span the Schuylkill, with others in contemplation, its expansion beyond that river has been so extensive. The enormous growth of the town has mainly come from the adoption of the general principle that every family should live in its own house, supplemented by liberal extensions of electrical street railways in all directions. Hence, Philadelphia is popularly known as the "City of Homes." As the city expanded over the level land, four-, six-, eight-and ten-room dwellings have been built by the mile, and set up in row after row. Two-story and three-story houses of red brick, with marble steps and facings, make up the greater part of the town, and each house is generally its owner's castle, the owner in most cases being a successful toiler, who has saved his house gradually out of his hard earnings, almost literally brick by brick. There is almost unlimited space in the suburbs yet capable of similar absorption, and the process which has given Philadelphia this extensive surface goes on indefinitely. The population is also regarded as more representative of the Anglo-Saxon races than in most American cities, though the Teuton numerously abounds and speedily assimilates. The greatest extent of Philadelphia is upon a line from southwest to northeast, which will stretch nearly twenty miles in a continuous succession of paved and lighted streets and buildings.
FAIRMOUNT PARK AND SUBURBS.
Philadelphia, excepting to the southward, is surrounded by a broad belt of attractive suburban residences, the semi-rural region for miles being filled with ornamental villas and the tree-embowered and comfortable homes of the well-to-do and middle classes. Down the Schuylkill is "Bartram's Garden," now a public park, where John Bartram established the first botanic garden in America, and where his descendants in 1899 celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of his birth on June 2, 1699. His grandfather was one of the companions of William Penn, and John Bartram, who was a farmer, mastered the rudiments of the learned languages, became passionately devoted to botany, and was pronounced by Linnæus the greatest natural botanist in the world. Bartram bought his little place of about seven acres in 1728, and built himself a stone house, which still exists, bearing the inscription, cut deep in a stone, "John and Ann Bartram, 1731." He wrote to a friend describing how he became a botanist: "One day I was very busy in holding my plough (for thou seest I am but a ploughman), and being weary, I ran under a tree to repose myself. I cast my eyes on a daisy; I plucked it mechanically and viewed it with more curiosity than common country farmers are wont to do, and I observed therein many distinct parts. 'What a shame,' said my mind, orsomething that inspired my mind, 'that thou shouldst have employed so many years in tilling the earth and destroying so many flowers and plants without being acquainted with their structure and their uses.'" He put up his horses at once, and went to the city and bought a botany and Latin grammar, which began his wonderful career. He devoted his life to botany, travelled over America collecting specimens, and died in 1777. At the mouth of the Schuylkill River is League Island, where the United States has an extensive navy yard, and a reserve fresh water basin for the storage of naval vessels when out of commission. The attractive Philadelphia suburban features spread westward across the Schuylkill, and are largely developed in the northwestern sections of Germantown and Chestnut Hill, Jenkintown and the Chelten-hills. In this extensive section the wealth of the people has of late years been lavishly expended in making attractive homes, and the suburban belt for miles around the city displays most charming scenery, adorned by elaborate villas, pleasant lanes, shady lawns and well-kept grounds.
The chief rural attraction of Philadelphia is Fairmount Park, one of the world's largest pleasure-grounds. It includes the lands bordering both sides of the Schuylkill above the city, having been primarily established to protect the water-supply. There are nearly three thousand acres in the Park,and its sloping hillsides and charming water views give it unrivalled advantages in delicious natural scenery. At the southern end is the oldest water reservoir of six acres, on top of a curious and isolated conical hill about ninety feet high, which is the "Fair Mount," giving the Park its name. The Schuylkill is dammed here to retain the water, and the Park borders the river for several miles above, and its tributary, the Wissahickon, for six miles farther. The Park road entering alongside the Fairmount hill passes a colossal equestrian statue of George Washington, and beyond a fine bronze statue of Abraham Lincoln, and also an equestrian statue of General Grant. The roadways are laid on both sides of the river at the water's edge, and also over the higher grounds at the summits of the sloping bordering hills, thus affording an almost endless change of routes and views. The frequent bridges thrown across the river, several of them carrying railroads, add to the charm. An electric railway is constructed through the more remote portions, and displays their rustic beauty to great advantage. All around this spacious Park the growing city has extended, and prosperous manufacturing suburbs spread up from the river, the chief being the carpet district of the Falls and the cotton-mills of Manayunk, the latter on the location of an old-time Indian village, whose name translated means "the place of rum." In this Park, west of the Schuylkill, washeld the Centennial Exposition of 1876, and several of the buildings remain, notably the Memorial Art Gallery, now a museum, and the Horticultural Hall, where the city maintains a fine floral display. William Penn's "Letitia House," his original residence, removed from the older part of the city, now stands near the entrance to the West Park.
A large part of the northeastern bank of the Schuylkill adjoining the Park is the Laurel Hill Cemetery. Its winding walks and terraced slopes and ravines give constantly varying landscapes, making it one of the most beautiful burial-places in existence. In front, the river far beneath curves around like a bow. Some of its mausoleums are of enormous cost and elaborate ornamentation, but generally the grandeur of the location eclipses the work of the decorator. Standing on a jutting eminence is the Disston Mausoleum, which entombs an English sawmaker who came to Philadelphia without friends and almost penniless, and died at the head of the greatest sawmaking establishment on the Continent. At one place, as the river bends, the broad and rising terraces of tombs curve around like the banks of seats in a grand Roman amphitheatre. Here is the grave of General Meade who commanded at Gettysburg. In a plain, unmarked sepulchre fronting the river, hewn out of the solid rock, is entombed the Arctic explorer who conducted the Grinnell expedition in search of Sir John Franklin, Dr. Elisha KentKane. A single shaft on a little eminence nearby marks the grave of Charles Thomson, the Secretary of the Continental Congress that made the Declaration of Independence. Some of the graves are in exquisite situations, many having been chosen by those who lie there. Here are buried Thomas Godfrey, the inventor of the mariner's quadrant; General Hugh Mercer, who fell at the head of the Pennsylvania troops in the Revolutionary battle of Princeton, the Scots' Society of St. Andrew having erected a monument to his memory; Commodore Isaac Hull, who commanded the American frigate "Constitution" in the War of 1812 when she captured the British frigate "Guerrière;" Harry Wright, the "father of base-ball," who died in 1895; and Thomas Buchanan Read, the poet-artist. At the cemetery entrance is the famous "Old Mortality" group, carved in Scotland and sent to Philadelphia. The quaint old Scotsman reclines on a gravestone, and pauses in his task of chipping-out the half-effaced letters of the inscription, while the little pony patiently waits alongside of him for his master and Sir Walter Scott to finish their discourse.
The peculiar charm of Philadelphia suburban scenery, however, is the Wissahickon—the "catfish stream" of the Indians. This is a creek rising in the hills north of the city, and breaking through the rocky ridges, flowing by tortuous course to the Schuylkill a short distance above Laurel Hill. It isan Alpine gorge in miniature, with precipitous sides rising two to three hundred feet, and the winding road along the stream gives a charming ride. Populous suburbs are on the higher ridges, but the ravine has been reserved and carefully protected, so that all the natural beauties remain. A high railway bridge is thrown across the entrance of the gorge at the Schuylkill, and rounding, just beyond, a sharp rocky corner, the visitor is quickly within the ravine, the stream nestling deep down in the winding fissure. For several miles this attractive gorge can be followed; and high up on its side, in a commanding position near the summit of the enclosing ridge, one of the residents has placed a statue of William Penn, most appropriately bearing the single word at its base—"Toleration." This splendid gorge skirts the northwestern border of the popular suburb of Germantown, and the creek emerges from its rocky confines at the foot of Chestnut Hill, where it rends the ridge in twain, and the hillsides are dotted with attractive villas. This is a fashionable residential section whose people have a magnificent outlook over the rich agricultural region of the upper Wissahickon Valley and the hills beyond.
In Germantown is the historic Chew House, bearing the marks of cannon balls, which was the scene of the battle of Germantown in October, 1777, when the British under Lord Howe, then holding Philadelphia, defeated General Washington, and the darkestperiod of the Revolution followed, the Americans afterwards retiring to their sad winter camp at Valley Forge. This suburb of Germantown is almost as old as Philadelphia. It was originally settled in 1683 by Germans who came from Cresheim, a name that is preserved in the chief tributary of the Wissahickon. Their leader was Daniel Pastorius, who bought a tract of fifty-seven hundred acres of land from William Penn for a shilling an acre, and took possession on October 6th. Their settlement prospered and attracted attention in the Fatherland. In 1694 a band of religious refugees, having peculiar tenets and believing that the end of the world was approaching, determined to migrate to Germantown. They were both Hollanders and Germans, and came from Rotterdam to London, whence, under the guidance of Johannes Kelpius, they sailed for America upon the ship "Sara Maria." They were earnest and scholarly men, and Kelpius, who was a college graduate, was a profound theologian. They called themselves the "Pietists." Upon their voyage they had many narrow escapes, but every danger was averted by fervent prayers. Their vessel ran aground, but was miraculously floated; they were nearly captured by the French, but, mustering in such large numbers on the deck of the "Sara Maria," they scared the enemy away; they were badly frightened by an unexpected eclipse of the sun; but in every case prayers saved them, and onJune 14th they safely landed in Chesapeake Bay, marching overland to the Delaware and sailing up to Philadelphia, where they disembarked.
In solemn procession, on June 23, 1694, led by Kelpius, they walked, two and two, through the little town, which then had some five hundred houses. They called on the Governor, William Markham, representing Penn, and took the oath of allegiance to the British Crown. In the evening they held a solemn religious service on "the Fair Mount," at the verge of the Schuylkill. In it they celebrated the old German custom of "Sanct Johannes" on St. John's eve. They lighted a fire of dry leaves and brushwood on the hill, casting into it flowers, pine boughs and bones, and then rolled the dying embers down the hillside as a sign that the longest day of the year was past, and the sun, like the embers, would gradually lose its power. The next morning was the Sabbath, and they went out to Germantown, where they were warmly welcomed. They built their first house, since called the Monastery, near the Wissahickon Creek, where they worked and worshipped. Their house they called "The Woman of the Wilderness," and upon its roof, day and night, some of them stood, closely observing the changing heavens. With prayers and patience they watched for the end of the world and the coming of the Lord, and they obeyed the ministry of Kelpius. He lived in a cave, and as his colony of enthusiasts graduallydwindled, through death and desertion, he came to be known as the "Hermit of the Wissahickon." Here he dug his well two centuries ago, and the "Hermit's Pool" still exists. He constantly preached the near approach of the millennium, and exhibited his magical "wisdom stone." Finally, wearying yet still believing, he gave up, cast his weird stone into the stream, and in 1704 he died, much to the relief of the neighboring Quaker brethren, who did not fancy such mysterious alchemy so near the city of Penn. These "Pietists," or "Kelpians," as they were afterwards called, dispersed over the country, and had much to do with guiding the religious life and mode of worship among the early German settlers in Pennsylvania. Everywhere in German Pennsylvania there are traces of their influence, and especially at Ephrata and Waynesboro they have had pious and earnest followers. After the death of Kelpius, their last survivor in Germantown was Dr. Christopher DeWitt, famed as a naturalist, an astronomer, a clock-maker and a magician. He was a close friend of John Bartram, lived an ascetic life, became blind and feeble, and finally died an octogenarian in 1765, thus closing with his life the active career of the Kelpian mystics.
THE SCHUYLKILL RIVER.
One of the romances of Fairmount Park is attached to the little stone cottage, with overhangingroof, down by the Schuylkill River bank, where tradition says that the Irish poet, Tom Moore, briefly dwelt when he visited Philadelphia in the summer of 1804. This cottage tradition may be a myth, but the poet when here composed an ode to the cottage and to the Schuylkill, which is as attractive as the bewitching river scene itself. The famous ballad begins:
"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curledAbove the green elms that a cottage was near,And I said, 'If there's peace to be found in the world,A heart that was humble might hope for it here.'"
"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curledAbove the green elms that a cottage was near,And I said, 'If there's peace to be found in the world,A heart that was humble might hope for it here.'"
"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curledAbove the green elms that a cottage was near,And I said, 'If there's peace to be found in the world,A heart that was humble might hope for it here.'"
"I knew by the smoke that so gracefully curled
Above the green elms that a cottage was near,
And I said, 'If there's peace to be found in the world,
A heart that was humble might hope for it here.'"
Tom Moore's letters written at that time generally showed dislike for much that he saw on his American journey, but he seems to have found better things at Philadelphia, and was delighted with the Quaker hospitality. His ode to the Schuylkill shows that its beauties impressed him, and gives evidence of his regard for the people:
"Alone by the Schuylkill, a wanderer roved,And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;But far, very far, were the friends that he loved,And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh."The stranger is gone—but he will not forget,When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!"
"Alone by the Schuylkill, a wanderer roved,And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;But far, very far, were the friends that he loved,And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh."The stranger is gone—but he will not forget,When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!"
"Alone by the Schuylkill, a wanderer roved,And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;But far, very far, were the friends that he loved,And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
"Alone by the Schuylkill, a wanderer roved,
And bright were its flowery banks to his eye;
But far, very far, were the friends that he loved,
And he gazed on its flowery banks with a sigh.
"The stranger is gone—but he will not forget,When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!"
"The stranger is gone—but he will not forget,
When at home he shall talk of the toil he has known,
To tell with a sigh what endearments he met,
As he stray'd by the wave of the Schuylkill alone!"
The Schuylkill River is the chief tributary of the Delaware, an Allegheny Mountain stream about onehundred and twenty miles long, coming out of the Pennsylvania anthracite coal-fields, and falling into the Delaware at League Island in such a lowland region that its mouth is scarcely discernible. In fact, the early Dutch explorers of the Delaware passed the place repeatedly and never discovered it; and when the stream above was afterwards found by going overland, and traced down to its mouth, they appropriately called it the Schuylkill, meaning the "hidden river." The Indian name was the "Gans-howe-hanne," or the "roaring stream," on account of its many rapids. The lowest of these, which gave the name of the "Falls" to a Philadelphia suburb, was obliterated by the backwater from the Fairmount water-works dam. The river valley is populous, rich in manufactures and agriculture, and, as it winds through ridge after ridge of the Allegheny foothills, displays magnificent scenery. Both banks are lined with railways, which bring the anthracite coal from the mines down to tidewater.
Journeying up the Schuylkill, we pass the flourishing manufacturing towns of Conshohocken and Norristown and come into the region of the "Pennsylvania Dutch," where the inhabitants, who are mostly of Teutonic origin, speak a curious dialect, compounded of German, Dutch, English and some Indian words, yet not fully understood by any of those races. These industrious people are chiefly farmers and handicraftsmen, and they make up much of the populationof eastern Pennsylvania, while their "sauerkraut" and "scrapple" have become staple foods in the State. Twenty-four miles above Philadelphia, alongside a little creek and almost under the great Black Rock, a towering sandstone ridge, was the noted Valley Forge, the place of encampment of Washington's tattered and disheartened army when the defeats at Brandywine and Germantown and the loss of Philadelphia made his prospects so dismal in the winter of 1777-78, one of the severest seasons ever experienced in America. The encampment is preserved as a national relic, the entrenchments being restored by a patriotic association, with the little farmhouse beside the deep and rugged hollow, near the mouth of the creek, which was Washington's headquarters. Phœnixville and Pottstown are passed, and Birdsboro', all places of busy and prosperous iron manufacture, and then the river valley leads us into the gorge of the South Mountain.
READING AND POTTSVILLE.
The diminutive Schuylkill breaks its passage through this elevated range, with Penn's Mount on one side and the Neversink Mountain on the other, and here is located the most populous city of the Schuylkill Valley—Reading, with seventy thousand population, a seat of iron-making and extensive railway shops, having a fertile agricultural region in the adjacent valleys. This expanding and attractive citygives its name to, and obtains much of its celebrity from the "Philadelphia and Reading Railway," the colossal financial institution whose woes of bankruptcy and throes of reconstruction have for so many years occupied the attention of the world of finance. This great railway branches at Reading, and its western line runs off through red sandstone rocks and among iron mills and out upon a high bridge, thrown in a beautiful situation across the Schuylkill, and proceeds over the Lebanon Valley to the Susquehanna River at Harrisburg. This rich limestone valley, between the South Mountain and the Blue Ridge, is a good farming district, and also a wealthy region of iron manufacture. The Reading system also sends its East Pennsylvania route eastward to Allentown in the Lehigh Valley, and thence to New York. Factory smokes overhang Reading, through which the Schuylkill flows in crooked course, spanned by frequent bridges, and puffing steam jets on all sides show the busy industries. A good district surrounds Reading in the mountain valleys, and the thrifty Dutch farmers in large numbers come into the town to trade. The high forest-clad mountains rise precipitously on both sides, with electric railways running up and around them, disclosing magnificent views. The "old red sandstone" of these enclosing hills has been liberally hewn out to make the ornamental columns for the Court House portico and build the castellated jail, and also the red gothic chapeland elaborate red gateway of the "Charles Evans' Cemetery," where the chief townsfolk expect, like their ancestry, to be buried. The visitor who wishes to see one of the most attractive views over city, river, mountain and distant landscape can climb by railway up to the "White Spot," elevated a thousand feet above the river, on Penn's Mount. This point of outlook is an isolated remnant of Potsdam sandstone, lying, the geologists say, unconformably on the Laurentian rock.
Loop of the Schuylkill from Neversink Mountains
Loop of the Schuylkill from Neversink Mountains
Beyond Reading, the Schuylkill breaks through the Blue Ridge at Port Clinton Gap, eighteen miles to the northwest. The winding and romantic pass is about three miles long, and just beyond there is, at Port Clinton, a maze of railway lines where the Reading Company unites its branches converging from various parts of the anthracite coal-fields. The Little Schuylkill River here falls into the larger stream, and a branch follows it northward to Tamaqua, while the main line goes westward to Pottsville. The summit of the Blue Ridge is the eastern boundary of the coal-fields, and the country beyond is wild and broken. The next great Allegheny ridge extending across the country is the Broad Mountain beyond Pottsville, though between it and the Blue Ridge there are several smaller ridges, one being Sharp Mountain. The country is generally black from the coal, and the narrow and crooked Schuylkill has its waters begrimed by the masses ofculm and refuse from the mines. Schuylkill Haven, ninety miles from Philadelphia, is where the coal trains are made up, and branches diverge to the mines in various directions. Three miles beyond is Pottsville, confined within a deep valley among the mountains, its buildings spreading up their steep sides, for here the malodorous and blackened little river breaks through Sharp Mountain. This is a city of fifteen thousand people, and the chief town of the Schuylkill or Southern coal-field, which produces ten millions of tons of anthracite annually. The whole country roundabout is a network of railways leading to the various mines and breakers, and there are nearly four hundred miles of railways in the various levels and galleries underground. We are told that in the eighteenth century John Pott built the Greenwood Furnace and Forge, and laid out this town; and afterwards, when coal-mining was developed, there came a rush of adventurers hither; but of late years Pottsville has had a very calm career.
To the northward of the Schuylkill or Southern coal-field, and beyond the Broad Mountain, is the "Middle coal-field," which extends westward almost to the Susquehanna River, and includes the Mahanoy and Shamokin Valleys. Both these fields also extend eastward into the Lehigh region; and it is noteworthy that as all these coal measures extend eastward they harden, while to the westward they soften. The hardest coals come from the Lehigh district, andthey gradually soften as they are dug out to the westward, until, on the other side of the main Allegheny range, they change into soft bituminous, and farther westward their constituents appear in the form of petroleum and as natural gases. The region beyond Pottsville is unattractive. Various railways connect the Schuylkill and Lehigh regions, and cross over or through the Broad Mountain. The district is full of little mining villages, but has not much else. It is a rough country, with bleak and forbidding hills, denuded of timber by forest fires, with vast heaps of refuse cast out from the mines, some of them the accumulations of sixty or seventy years. Breakers are at work grinding up the fuel, which pours with thundering noise into the cars beneath. The surface is strewn with rocks anddébris, and the dirty waters of the streams are repulsive. These blackened brooks of the Broad Mountain are the headwaters of the Schuylkill River.
THE NEW JERSEY COAST RESORTS.
The Delaware River divides Pennsylvania from New Jersey, and at Camden, opposite Philadelphia, there has grown another large city from the overflow of its population. Ferries, and at the northern end of Philadelphia harbor an elevated railway bridge, cross over to Camden, while for miles the almost level surface of New Jersey has suburban towns and villas, the homes of thousands whose businessis in Philadelphia. The New Jersey seacoast also is a succession of watering-places where the population goes to cool off in the summer. The whole New Jersey coast of the Atlantic Ocean is a series of sand beaches, interspersed with bays, sounds and inlets, a broad belt of pine lands behind them separating the sea and its bordering sounds and meadows from the farming region. This coast has become an almost unbroken chain of summer resorts from Cape May, at the southern extremity of New Jersey, northeastward through Sea Isle City, Avalon, Ocean City, Atlantic City, Brigantine, Beach Haven, Sea Girt, Asbury Park, Ocean Grove, Long Branch, Seabright, etc., to Sandy Hook, where the long sand-strip terminates at the entrance to New York harbor. To these many attractive places the summer exodus takes the people by the hundreds of thousands. The chief resort of all is Atlantic City, which has come to be the most popular sea-bathing place of the country, the railroads running excursion trains to it even from the Mississippi Valley. Three railroads lead over from Philadelphia across the level Jersey surface, and their fast trains compass the distance, fifty-six miles, in an hour. The town is built on a narrow sand-strip known as Absecon Island, which is separated from the mainland by a broad stretch of water and salt meadows. Absecon is an Indian word meaning "the place of the swans." The beach is one of the finest on the coast, and alongits inner edge is the famous "Board Walk" of Atlantic City, an elevated promenade mostly forty feet wide, and four miles long. On the land side this walk is bordered by shops, bathing establishments and all kinds of amusement resorts, while the town of hotels, lodging-houses and cottages, almost all built of wood, stretches inland. The population come out on the "Board Walk" and the great piers, which stretch for a long distance over the sea. It is the greatest bathing-place in existence, and in the height of the season, July and August, fifty thousand bathers are often seen in the surf on a fine day, with three times as many people watching them. Enormous crowds of daily excursionists are carried down there by the railways. The permanent population is about twenty thousand, swollen in summer often fifteen- or twenty-fold. Atlantic City is also a popular resort in winter and spring, and is usually well filled at Eastertide.
The other New Jersey resorts are somewhat similar, though smaller. Cape May, on the southern extremity of the Cape, is popular, and has a fine beach five miles long. The coast for many miles northeastward has cottage settlements, the beaches having similar characteristics. Many of these settlements also cluster around Great Egg Harbor and Barnegat Bay, both favorite resorts of sportsmen for fishing and shooting. Asbury Park and Ocean Grove are twin watering-places on the northern Jersey coastwhich have large crowds of visitors. The former is usually filled by the overflow from the latter, who object to the Ocean Grove restrictions. Ocean Grove is unique, and was established in 1870 by a Camp Meeting Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Here many thousands, both young and old, voluntarily spend their summer vacations under a religious autocracy and obey the strict rules. It is bounded by the sea, by lakes on the north and south, and by a high fence on the land side, and the gates are closed at ten o'clock at night, and all day Sunday. The drinking of alcoholic beverages and sale of tobacco are strictly prohibited, and no theatrical performances of any kind are allowed. No bathing, riding or driving are permitted on Sunday, and at other times the character of the bathing-dresses is carefully regulated. There is a large Auditorium, accommodating ten thousand people, and here are held innumerable religious meetings of all kinds. The annual Camp Meeting is the great event of the season, and among the attractions is an extensive and most complete model of the City of Jerusalem.
To the northward is Long Branch, the most fashionable and exclusive of the New Jersey coast resorts, being mainly a succession of grand villas and elaborate hotels, stretching for about four miles along a bluff which here makes the coast, and has grass growing down to its outer edge almost over the water. In the three sections of the West End,Elberon and Long Branch proper, the latter getting its name from the "Long branch" of the Shrewsbury River, there are about eight thousand regular inhabitants, and there come here about fifty thousand summer visitors, largely from New York. The great highway is Ocean Avenue, running for five miles just inside the edge of the bluff, which, in the season, is a most animated and attractive roadway. The hotels and cottages generally face this avenue. The most noted cottages are the one which General Grant occupied for many years, and where, during his Presidency in 1869-77, he held "the summer capital of the United States," and the Franklyn Cottage, where President Garfield, after being shot in Washington, was brought to die in 1881. The most famous show place at Long Branch is Hollywood, the estate of the late John Hoey, of Adams Express Company, who died there in 1892, its elaborate floral decorations being much admired.
SHACKAMAXON TO BRISTOL.
Journeying up the Delaware from Philadelphia, we pass Petty Island, where the great Indian chief of the Lenni Lenapes, Tamanend, had his lodge—the chieftain since immortalized as St. Tammany, who has given his name to the Tammany Society of politicians who rule New York City. Petty on the old maps is called Shackamaxon Island, a derivation of the original Indian name of Cackamensi. St. Tammanyis described as a chief who was so virtuous that "his countrymen could only account for the perfections they ascribe to him by supposing him to be favored with the special communications of the Great Spirit." In the eighteenth century many societies were formed in his honor, and his festival was kept on the 1st of May, but the New York Society is the only one that has survived. Farther up, the Tacony Creek flows into the Delaware, the United States having a spacious arsenal upon its banks. The name of this creek was condensed before Penn's time, by the Swedes, from its Indian title of Taokanink. Beyond, the great manufacturing establishments of the city gradually change to charming villas as we move along the pleasant sloping banks and through the level country, and soon we pass the northeastern boundary of Philadelphia, at Torresdale. This boundary is made by the Poquessing Creek, being the aboriginal Poetquessink, or "the stream of the dragons."
Across the river, on the Jersey shore, formerly roamed the Rankokas Indians, an Algonquin tribe, whose name is preserved in the Rancocas Creek, which is one of the chief tributaries flowing in from New Jersey. At Beverly, not far above, is one of the most popular suburban resorts, the villas clustering around a broad cove, known as Edgewater, which appears much like a miniature Bay of Naples. Over opposite is the wide Neshaminy Creek, flowing down from the Buckingham Mountain in Pennsylvania, itsIndian title of Nischam-hanne, meaning "the two streams flowing together," referring to its branches. The earliest settlers along this creek were Scotch-Irish, and their pastor in 1726 was Rev. William Tennent, the famous Presbyterian preacher, who founded the celebrated "Log College" on the Neshaminy, "built of logs, chinked and daubed between, and one story high," as it was well described. From this simple college, which was about twenty feet square, were sent out many of the famous Presbyterian preachers of the eighteenth century; and from it grew, in 1746, the great College of New Jersey at Princeton, and in 1783 Dickinson College, at Carlisle, Pennsylvania, besides many other schools which were started by its alumni. William Tennent's son, Gilbert, was his assistant and successor. The great Whitefield preached to an audience of three thousand at this College in 1739. He was attracted there by Gilbert Tennent's fame as a preacher, and of him on one occasion wrote, "I went to the meeting house to hear Mr. Gilbert Tennent preach, and never before heard I such a searching sermon; he is a son of thunder, and does not regard the face of man."
The Delaware River broadens into two channels around Burlington Island, having on either hand the towns of Bristol and Burlington, both coeval with the first settlement of Philadelphia, and Bristol at that early day having had an ambition to become the locationof Penn's great city. The ferry connecting them was established two years before Penn came to Philadelphia, and in the eighteenth century they had a larger carrying trade. Bristol began in 1680 under a grant from Edmund Andros, then the Provincial Governor of New York, for a town site and the ferry, which is curiously described in the Colonial records as "the ferry against Burlington," then the chief town in West Jersey. The settlement was called New Bristol, from Bristol in England, where lived Penn's wife, Hannah Callowhill. It was the first county seat of Bucks when Penn divided his Province into the three counties—Chester, Philadelphia and Buckingham. It was for many years a great exporter of flour to the West Indies. Its ancient Quaker Meeting House dates from 1710, and St. James' Episcopal Church from 1712; but the latter, which received its silver communion service from the good Queen Anne, fell into decay and has been replaced by a modern structure. Its Bath Mineral Springs made it the most fashionable watering-place in America in the eighteenth century, but Saratoga afterwards eclipsed them, and their glory has departed. Prior to the Revolution, Bristol built more shipping than Philadelphia; and, while quiet and restful, its comfortable homes and the picturesque villas along the Delaware River bank above the town tell of its prosperity now.
OLD BURLINGTON.
The ancient town of Burlington, clustered behind its "Green Bank" or river-front street on the New Jersey shore, antedates Philadelphia five years. The Quaker pioneers are believed to have been the first Europeans who saw its site. The noted preacher George Fox, in 1672, journeyed from New England to the South, and rode on horseback over the site of Burlington at Assiscunk Creek, reporting the soil as good "and withal a most brave country." When Penn became Trustee for the insolvent Billynge, a Proprietor of West Jersey, much of his land was sold to Quakers, who migrated to the American wilderness to escape persecution at home. Thus Burlington was the first settlement founded by Quaker seekers after toleration in the New World:
"About them seemed but ruin and decay,Cheerless, forlorn, a rank autumnal fen,Where no good plant might prosper, or againPut forth fresh leaves for those that fell away;Nor could they find a place wherein to prayFor better things. In righteous anger thenThey turned; they fled the wilderness of menAnd sought the wilderness of God. And dayRose upon day, while ever manfullyWestward they battled with the ocean's might,Strong to endure whatever fate should be,And watching in the tempest and the nightThat one sure Pharos of the soul's dark sea—The constant beacon of the Inner Light."
"About them seemed but ruin and decay,Cheerless, forlorn, a rank autumnal fen,Where no good plant might prosper, or againPut forth fresh leaves for those that fell away;Nor could they find a place wherein to prayFor better things. In righteous anger thenThey turned; they fled the wilderness of menAnd sought the wilderness of God. And dayRose upon day, while ever manfullyWestward they battled with the ocean's might,Strong to endure whatever fate should be,And watching in the tempest and the nightThat one sure Pharos of the soul's dark sea—The constant beacon of the Inner Light."
"About them seemed but ruin and decay,Cheerless, forlorn, a rank autumnal fen,Where no good plant might prosper, or againPut forth fresh leaves for those that fell away;Nor could they find a place wherein to prayFor better things. In righteous anger thenThey turned; they fled the wilderness of menAnd sought the wilderness of God. And dayRose upon day, while ever manfullyWestward they battled with the ocean's might,Strong to endure whatever fate should be,And watching in the tempest and the nightThat one sure Pharos of the soul's dark sea—The constant beacon of the Inner Light."
"About them seemed but ruin and decay,
Cheerless, forlorn, a rank autumnal fen,
Where no good plant might prosper, or again
Put forth fresh leaves for those that fell away;
Nor could they find a place wherein to pray
For better things. In righteous anger then
They turned; they fled the wilderness of men
And sought the wilderness of God. And day
Rose upon day, while ever manfully
Westward they battled with the ocean's might,
Strong to endure whatever fate should be,
And watching in the tempest and the night
That one sure Pharos of the soul's dark sea—
The constant beacon of the Inner Light."
In the spring of 1677 the "goode shippe Kent," Gregory Marlowe, master, sailed from London, bound for West Jersey, with two hundred and thirty Quakers, about half coming from London and the others from Yorkshire; two dying on the voyage. They ascended the Delaware to the meadow lands below the mouth of Assiscunk Creek, landing there in June, and in October made a treaty with the Indians, buying their lands from the Rancocas as far up as Assunpink Creek at Trenton. Their settlement was first called New Beverly, and then Bridlington, from the Yorkshire town whence many of them came, but it finally was named Burlington. They made a street along the river, bordered with greensward, and called the "Green Bank," and drew a straight line back inland, calling it their Main Street, and the Londoners settled on one side and the Yorkshiremen on the other. The old buttonwood tree, to which was moored the early ships bringing settlers, still stands on the Green Bank, a subject of weird romance. Elizabeth Powell, the first white child, was born in July, 1677. The next May, 1678, they established a "Monthly Meeting of Friends" at Burlington, of which the records have been faithfully kept. In June the graveyard was fenced in, and the old Indian chief, Ockanickon, a Quaker convert to Christianity, was among the first buried there. In August the first Quaker marriage was solemnized in meeting, this first certificate being signed by ten men and threewomen Friends as witnesses. In 1682, just as Penn was coming over, they decided to build their first meeting house—a hexagonal building, forty feet in diameter, with pyramidal roof, which was occupied the next year. In 1685 they decided that a hearse should be built, the entry on the record being an order for a "carriage to be built for ye use of such as are to be laid in ye ground."
Burlington grew, and was long the seat of government of the Province of West Jersey, being the official residence of the Provincial Governors, the last of whom was William Franklin, natural son of Benjamin Franklin. It had wealthy merchants and much shipping, and, despite its peacefulness, equipped privateers to fight the French. Its famous old Episcopal Church of St. Mary had the corner-stone laid in 1703 under the favor of Queen Anne, who made a liberal endowment of lands, much being yet held, and gave it a massive and greatly prized communion service. This old church is cruciform, with a little belfry, and a stone let into the front wall bears the inscription "One Lord, one faith, one baptism." In the extensive churchyard alongside is the modern St. Mary's Church, of brownstone, with a tall spire, also cruciform. This is the finest church in Burlington. When "Old St. Mary's" was built with its belfry, the Friends did not like the innovation, and long gazed askance at the "steeple house," as they called it; so that Talbot, the first rector, sturdily retaliated,calling the Quakers "anti-Christians, who are worse than the Turks." Many of St. Mary's parishioners of to-day are descended from these maligned Quakers. The early records of the Meeting are filled with entries showing that charges were brought against members for various shortcomings. One was admonished for "taking off his hat" at a funeral solemnized in the "steeple house;" others gave testimony of "uneasiness" on account of the placing of "gravestones in the burial-ground;" a query was propounded, "Are Friends in meeting preserved from sleeping or any other indecent behavior, particularly from chewing tobacco and taking snuff?" A record was also made of testimony against "a pervading custom of working on First days in the time of hay and harvest" when rain threatened. The descendants of these good people have established St. Mary's Hall and Burlington College, noted educational institutions. Probably the most famous son of Burlington was the distinguished novelist, James Fenimore Cooper, born in 1789, but taken in his infancy by his parents to his future home at Cooperstown, in Central New York. The town was bombarded by the British gunboats that sailed up the Delaware in 1778, but since then the career of Burlington has been eminently peaceful.
BORDENTOWN AND ITS MEMORIES.
Above Burlington Island the Delaware winds around a jutting tongue of flat land, "Penn's Neck,"which is one of the noted regions of the river, the ancient "Manor of Pennsbury." This was Penn's country home, originally a tract of over eight thousand acres, the Indian domain of "Sepessing." His house, which he occupied in 1700-01, was then the finest on the river, but it long ago fell into decay, and the manor was all sold away from his descendants during the eighteenth century. At the eastern extremity of "Penn's Neck," on the New Jersey shore, is White Hill, with the village of Bordentown beyond, up Crosswick's Creek. Here is a region redolent with historical associations. The old buildings along the river bank were the railway shops of the famous "Camden and Amboy," whose line, coming along the Delaware shore, goes off up Crosswick's Creek to cross New Jersey on the route to New York. Above is the dense foliage of Bonaparte Park, now largely occupied by the Convent and Academy of St. Joseph. Bordentown was a growth of the railway, having been previously little more than a ferry, originally started by Joseph Borden. Its most distinguished townsman was Admiral Charles Stewart, "Old Ironsides" of the American navy, a relic of the early wars of the country, his crowning achievement being the command of the frigate "Constitution" when she captured the two British vessels, "Cyane" and "Levant." He was the "Senior Flag Officer" of the navy when he died in 1860 on his Bordentown farm, to which he had returned. Theold house where he lived is on a bluff facing the river. He was the grandfather of the noted Irish leader, Charles Stewart Parnell.
To Bordentown, in 1816, Joseph Bonaparte, the ex-King of Naples and of Spain, and eldest brother of Napoleon, came to live, as the Count de Survilliers, and bought the estate known since as Bonaparte Park. It was through Stewart's persuasion, mainly, that he located there, the estate covering ten farms of about one thousand acres. Lafayette visited him in 1824, and Louis Napoleon, afterwards Napoleon III., in 1837. Joseph returned to Europe in 1839, dying in Florence in 1844. Another famous resident of Bordentown was Prince Murat, the nephew of Napoleon and of Joseph, and the son of the dashing Prince Joachim Murat, who was King of the Sicilies, and was shot by sentence of court-martial after Waterloo. Prince Murat came in 1822, bought a farm, got married, lived a rather wild life, but was generally liked, and, going through various fortunes, returned to France after the Revolution of 1848 and was restored to his honors. He was with Marshal Bazaine in the capitulation of Metz in 1870 and became a prisoner of war, and died in 1878.
THE STORY OF CAMDEN AND AMBOY.
The great memory of Bordentown, however, is of the famous railroad, originally begun there, whose managers for nearly a half-century so successfullyruled New Jersey that it came to be generally known throughout the country as "the State of Camden and Amboy." In the little old Bordentown station, which still exists, set in the bottom of a ravine, with the house built over the railroad, were for many years held the annual meetings of the corporation; and its magnates also met in almost perpetual session, to generally run things, social, political and financial, for the State of New Jersey, and semi-annually declare magnificent dividends. Not far from this station a monument marks the place of construction of the first piece of railway track in New Jersey, laid by the Camden and Amboy Company in 1831. Upon this track the first movement of a passenger train by steam was made by the locomotive "John Bull," on November 12th of that year. This granite monument, erected in 1891 to commemorate the sixtieth anniversary, stands upon a foundation composed of the stone blocks on which the first rails were laid, and two of these original rails encircle it. A bronze tablet upon the monument represents the old "John Bull," with his primitive whisky-cask tender, and the two little old-time passenger coaches which made up the first train he drew. Thus began the great railroad highway between the two chief cities of the United States.
The original method of transport between Philadelphia and New York was by steamboat on the Delaware to South Trenton, stages from Trenton to New Brunswick on the Raritan River, and then bysteamboat to New York. This was the "Union Line," which for many years carried the passengers, and of which John Stevens was the active spirit. He conceived the first idea of a railway, and in 1817 procured the first railway charter in America for a railroad upon his stage route between Trenton and New Brunswick. In subsequent years there were advocates both of a railway and a canal across New Jersey, his son, Robert L. Stevens, being the railway chieftain, while Commodore Robert F. Stockton championed the canal, the rival projects appearing before the New Jersey Legislature in 1829-30, and causing a most bitter controversy. It is related that the conflict was ended in a most surprising manner. Between the acts of a play at the old Park Theatre in New York, Stevens and Stockton accidentally met in the vestibule, and after a few minutes' talk agreed to end their dispute by joining forces. The result was that on February 4, 1830, both companies were chartered—the "Camden and Amboy Railroad and Transportation Company" and the "Delaware and Raritan Canal Company." In furtherance of this compromise, what is known as the celebrated "Marriage Act" was passed a year later, creating the "Joint Companies," their stock being combined at the same valuation, though each had a separate organization. They were given a monopoly of the business, paying transit dues to the State of ten cents per passenger and fifteen cents per ton of freightcarried, and this afterwards practically paid all the expenses of the New Jersey State Government. The railroad was completed between Bordentown and Amboy in 1832, and on December 17th the first passengers went through, fifty or sixty of them. It was a rainy day, and the cars were drawn by horses, for they could not in those days trust their locomotive out in the rain. The next year regular travel began, galloping horses taking the cars from Bordentown over to Amboy in about three hours, there being three relays. Later in the year the locomotive "John Bull" took one train daily, each way. In 1871 all the railway and canal properties of the two companies, which had become very extensive, were absorbed by the Pennsylvania Railroad, which pays as rental 10 per cent. annual dividends on the stocks.
The line of the Delaware and Raritan Canal begins at Crosswick's Creek in Bordentown, and is constructed alongside the Delaware River up to Trenton, and thence across New Jersey to the Raritan River at New Brunswick. This is a much-used "inside water route," and it had one of the old lines of the railroad constructed on the canal bank all the way. It was in former times a very profitable route, and is said to have made most of the dividends of the old monopoly, as it carried the greater part of the freight between the cities. It was originally projected in 1804, but the scheme slumbered for years. When the route was surveyed through Princeton,where Commodore Stockton lived, he became interested, and he induced his father-in-law, John Potter, of South Carolina, who had over $500,000 in the United States Bank, to withdraw the money and invest it in the canal, he being the chief shareholder. Thus his fortune was not only saved from the bank's subsequent collapse, but was increased by the profitable investment. The canal is forty-three miles long, with fourteen locks in its course, having an aggregate rise and fall of one hundred and fifty feet. Its enlargement to the dimensions of a ship canal is suggested.
THE TRENTON GRAVEL.
In journeying up the Delaware and approaching Trenton, we have passed through a region of most interesting geological development. All along are evidences of the deposit of the drift from above, which is popularly known as the "Trenton gravel." The Delaware flows southeast from the Kittatinny Water Gap to Bordentown, and then, impinging against the cretaceous stratified rocks of New Jersey, abruptly turns around a right-angled bend and goes off southwestward towards Philadelphia. The river has thus deposited the Trenton gravels, composed of the drift of most of the geological formations in its upper waters, throughout its course, on the Pennsylvania side from Trenton down below Philadelphia. This deposit is fifty feet deep on the river bank in Philadelphia, and underlies the river bed for nearly ahundred feet in depth. At Bristol the deposit stretches two miles back from the river, and at Trenton it is almost universal. The material, which in the lower reaches is generally fine, grows coarser as the river is ascended, until at Trenton immense boulders are often found imbedded. We are told by geologists that at the time of the great flood in the river which deposited the gravel, the lower part of Philadelphia, the whole of Bristol and Penn's Neck and almost all Trenton were under water. The gravel has disclosed bones of Arctic animals—walrus, reindeer and mastodon—and also traces of ancient mankind. The latter have been found at Trenton and on Neshaminy Creek, indicating the presence of a race of men said to have lived about seven thousand years ago. The river has also made immense clay deposits all along, which was done at a time when the water flowed at a level more than a hundred feet higher than now.
In the early geological history of the Delaware it is found that all southern New Jersey lay deep beneath the Atlantic, whose waves broke against the ranges of hills northwest and north of Philadelphia, and an inlet from the sea extended into the great Chester limestone valley behind them. This whole region, then probably five hundred feet lower than now, was afterwards slowly upheaved, and the waters retreated. Subsequently the climate grew colder, and the great glacial ice-cap crept down from Greenlandand Labrador, forming a huge sea of ice, thousands of feet thick, which advanced on the Delaware to Belvidere, sixty miles north of Philadelphia. Then there came another gradual change; the land descended to nearly two hundred feet below the present level, and again the waters overflowed almost the whole region. This was ice-cold, fresh water, bearing huge icebergs and floes, which stranded on the hills, forming a shore on the higher lands northwest of Philadelphia. The river channel was then ten miles wide and two hundred feet deep all the way down from Trenton, and a roaring flood depositing the red gravel along its bed. As the torrent, expending its force, though still filled with mud and sand from the base of the glacial ice-cap, became more quiet, it laid down the clays, the stranded icebergs dropping their far-carried boulders all along the route. This era of cold water and enormous floods is computed to have occupied a period of about two hundred and seventy thousand years, and then the "Ice Age" finally terminated. The land rose about to its present level, the waters retreated, and elevated temperatures thawed more and more of the glaciers remaining in the headwaters, so that there came down the last great floods which deposited the "Trenton gravel." The river was still wide and deep, and Arctic animals roamed the banks. Mankind then first appeared, living in primitive ways in caves and holes, and hunting and fishingalong the swollen Delaware ten thousand years ago. Occasionally they dropped in the waters their rude stone implements and weapons, which were buried in the gravel, and, being recently found, are studied to tell the story of their ancient owners. The river deposited its gravel and the channel shrunk with dwindling current, moving gradually eastward as it eat its way into the cretaceous measures. The primitive man retired, making way for the red Indian, and the present era dawned, with the more moderate climate, and with again a slow sinking of the land, which the geologists say is now in progress.
TRENTON AND ITS BATTLE MONUMENT.
Trenton, the capital of New Jersey, is thirty miles from Philadelphia, a prosperous city with seventy thousand people. The first and most lasting impression many visitors get of it is of the deep rift cut into the clays and gravels of the southern part of the town, to let the Pennsylvania Railroad go through. Here, as everywhere, are displayed the lavish deposits of the "Trenton gravel" as the railway passes under the streets, and even under the Delaware and Raritan Canal, to its depressed station alongside Assunpink Creek of Revolutionary memory, the chief part of the city spreading far to the northward. Trenton is as old as Philadelphia, its reputed founder being Mahlon Stacy, who came up from Burlington Friends' Meeting, while the settlement was namedfor William Trent, an early Jersey law-maker. The Trenton potteries are its chief industry, established by a colony of Staffordshire potters from England, attracted by its prolific clay deposits; and the conical kilns, which turn out a product worth five or six millions of dollars annually, are scattered at random over the place. Their china ware has been advanced to a high stage of perfection, and displays exquisite decoration. The Trenton cracker factories are also famous. The finest building is the State House, as the Capitol is called, the Delaware River's swift current bubbling over rocks and among grassy islands out in front of the grounds. At Broad and Clinton Streets, the intersection of two of the chief highways, mounted as an ornament upon a drinking-fountain, is the famous "Swamp Angel" cannon, brought from Charleston harbor after the Civil War. This was one of the earliest heavy guns made, plain and rather uncouth-looking, about ten feet long, and rudely constructed in contrast with the elongated and tapering rifled cannon of to-day, and it rests upon a conical pile of brownstone. It was the most noted gun of the Civil War, an eight-inch Parrott rifle, or two-hundred-pounder, and, when fired, carried a one-hundred-and-fifty-pound projectile seven thousand yards from a battery on Morris Island into the city of Charleston, which was then regarded as a prodigious achievement. It is a muzzle-loader, weighing about eight tons, and burst after firing thirty-sixrounds at Charleston, in August, 1863, the fracture being plainly seen around the breech.
Trenton's great historical feature is the Revolutionary battlefield, now completely built upon. Washington, having crossed the Delaware on Christmas night, in the early morning of December 26, 1776, marched down to Trenton, and surprised and defeated the Hessians under Rahl, who were encamped north of Assunpink Creek. A fine battle-monument stands in a small park adjoining Warren Street, at the point where Washington's army, coming into town from the north, first engaged the enemy. Here Alexander Hamilton, then Captain of the New York State Company of Artillery, opened fire from his battery on the Hessians, who fled through the town, along Warren, then called King Street. The monument is a fluted Roman-Doric column, rising one hundred and thirty-five feet, surmounted by a statue of Washington, representing him standing, field-glass in hand, surveying the flying Hessians, his right arm pointing down Warren Street. The elevated top of this monument gives a grand view over the surrounding country, the course of the Delaware being traced for miles. The subsequent fortnight's campaign ending in the battle of Princeton revived the drooping spirits of the Americans, and was said by as accomplished a soldier as Frederick the Great to be among "the most brilliant in the annals of military achievements." Trenton is at the head of tidewater on the Delaware,the stream coming down rapids, known as the "Falls." On the Pennsylvania side is Morrisville, called after Robert Morris, who lived there during the Revolution. His estate subsequently became the home of the famous French General Jean Victor Moreau, the victor at Hohenlinden, who was exiled by Napoleon in 1804. He returned to Europe afterwards at the invitation of the Czar Alexander, and devised for him a plan for invading France. They were both at the battle of Dresden in 1813, and were consulting about a certain manœuvre when a cannon ball from Napoleon's Guard broke both Moreau's legs, and he died five days afterwards.
PRINCETON BATTLE AND COLLEGE.
A few days after Washington's victory at Trenton, Cornwallis, in January, 1777, advanced across Jersey to crush the Americans, but he was repulsed at the ford of Assunpink Creek in Trenton. Then Washington resorted to a ruse. Leaving his camp-fires brightly burning near the creek at night to deceive the enemy, he quietly withdrew, and made a forced march ten miles northeast to Princeton, and fell upon three British regiments there, who were hastening to join Cornwallis, defeating them, and storming Nassau Hall, in which some of the fugitives had taken refuge. Trenton is in Mercer County, named in honor of General Hugh Mercer, who fell in this battle, at the head of the Philadelphia troops.Princeton is a town of about thirty-five hundred inhabitants, a quiet place of elegant residences, in a level and luxuriant country. It is the seat of the College of New Jersey, originally founded at Elizabeth, near New York, in 1746, and transferred here in 1757. It is best known as Nassau Hall, or Princeton University, being liberally endowed, and having notable buildings surrounding its spacious campus, and is a Presbyterian foundation, which has about eleven hundred students. The original Nassau Hall erected in 1757, but burnt many years ago, was so named by the Synod "to express the honor we retain in this remote part of the globe to the immortal memory of the glorious King William the Third, who was a branch of the illustrious House of Nassau." Dr. John Witherspoon, the celebrated Scotch Presbyterian divine, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, was for thirty years its President, and among the early graduates were two other signers, Richard Stockton and Benjamin Rush. The final conflict of the battle of Princeton raged around this venerated building, and Washington presented fifty guineas to the College to repair the damage done by his bombardment. In the adjacent Presbyterian Theological Seminary have been educated many able clergymen. In Princeton Cemetery are the remains of the wonderful preacher and metaphysician, Jonathan Edwards, who became President of the College in 1758, dying shortly afterwards. Apanegyrist, describing his merits as a great Church leader, compressed all in this remarkable sentence: "These three—Augustine, Calvin and Jonathan Edwards." His son-in-law and predecessor as President was Rev. Aaron Burr; and near his humble monument is another, marking the grave of his grandson, who was an infant when the great preacher died, and whose career was in such startling contrast—the notorious Aaron Burr, Vice-President of the United States.
MARSHALL'S WALK.
The Delaware River above Trenton is for miles a stream of alternating pools and rapids, with canals on either side, passing frequent villages and displaying pleasant scenery as it breaks through the successive ridges in its approach to the mountains. Alongside the river, in Solebury, Bucks County, in the early part of the eighteenth century, was the humble home of the pioneer and hunter, Edward Marshall, who made the fateful "walk" of 1737, the injustice of which so greatly provoked the Indians, and was a chief cause of the most savage Indian War of Colonial times. All the country west of the Delaware, as far up as the mouth of the Lackawaxen River, was obtained from the Indians by the deception of this "walk." The Indians in those early times measured their distances by "days' journeys," and in various treaties with the white men transferred tracts of land by the measurement of "days' walks." William Pennhad bought the land as far up as Makefield and Wrightstown in Bucks County, and after his death his descendants, Thomas and Richard Penn, became anxious to enlarge the purchase, and this "walk" was the result. After a good deal of preliminary negotiation, several sachems of the Lenni Lenapes were brought to Philadelphia, and on August 25, 1737, made a treaty ceding additional lands beginning "on a line drawn from a certain spruce tree on the river Delaware by a west-northwest course to Neshaminy Creek; from thence back into the woods as far as a man can go in a day and a half, and bounded in the west by Neshaminy or the most westerly branch thereof, so far as the said branch doth extend, and from thence by a line to the utmost extent of the day and a half's walk, and from thence to the aforesaid river Delaware; and so down the courses of the river to the first-mentioned spruce tree." The Indians thought this "walk" might cover the land as far north as the Lehigh, but there was deliberate deception practiced. An erroneous map was exhibited indicating a line extending about as far north as Bethlehem on the Lehigh, and this deceived the Indians. The white officials had previously been quietly going over the ground far north of the Lehigh, blazing routes by marking trees, all of which was carefully concealed, and Marshall and others had been employed on these "trial walks." A reward of five hundred acres of land was promised the walkers.
Marshall and two others, Jennings and Yeates, were selected to do the walking, all young and athletic hunters, experienced in woodcraft and inured to hardships. The walk was fixed for September 19th, under charge of the Sheriff, and before sunrise of that day a large number of people gathered at the starting-point at Wrightstown, a few miles west of the Delaware. An obelisk on a pile of boulders now marks the spot at the corner of the Quaker Burying Ground, bearing an inscription, "To the Memory of the Lenni Lenape Indians, ancient owners of this region, these stones are placed at this spot, the starting-point of the 'Indian walk,' September 19, 1737." The start was made from a chestnut tree, three Indians afoot accompanying the three walkers, while the Sheriff, surveyors and others, carrying provisions, bedding and liquors, were on horseback. Just as the sun rose above the horizon at six o'clock they started. When they had gone about two miles, Jennings gave out. They halted fifteen minutes for dinner at noon, soon afterwards crossed the Lehigh near the site of Bethlehem, turned up that river, and at fifteen minutes past six in the evening, completing the day's journey of twelve hours actual travel, the Sheriff, watch in hand, called to them, as they were mounting a little hill, to "pull up." Marshall, thus notified, clasped his arms about a sapling for support, saying "he was almost gone, and if he had proceeded a few poles farther he must have fallen." Yeates seemed lessdistressed. The Indians were dissatisfied from the outset, claiming the walk should have been made up the river, and not inland. When the Lehigh was crossed, early in the afternoon, they became sullen, complaining of the rapid gait of the walkers, and several times protesting against their running. Before sunset two Indians left, saying they would go no farther, that the walkers would pass all the good land, and after that it made no difference how far or where they went. The third Indian continued some distance, when he lay down to rest and could go no farther.
The halt for the night was made about a half-mile from the Indian village of Hokendauqua, a name which means "searching for land." This was the village of Lappawinzoe, one of the sachems who had made the treaty. The next morning was rainy, and messengers were sent him to request a detail of Indians to accompany the walkers. He was in ugly humor and declined, but some Indians strolled into camp and took liquor, and Yeates also drank rather freely. The horses were hunted up, and the second day's start made along the Lehigh Valley at eight o'clock, some of the Indians accompanying for a short distance through the rain, but soon leaving, dissatisfied. The route was north-northwest through the woods, Marshall carrying a compass, by which he held his course. In crossing a creek at the base of the mountains, Yeates, who had become very lameand tired, staggered and fell, but Marshall pushed on, followed by two of the party on horseback. At two o'clock the "walk" ended on the north side of the Pocono or Broad Mountain, not far from the present site of Mauch Chunk. The distance "walked" in eighteen hours was about sixty-eight miles, a remarkable performance, considering the condition of the country. The terminus of the "walk" was marked by placing stones in the forks of five trees, and the surveyors then proceeded to complete the work by marking the line of northern limit of the tract across to the Delaware River. This was done, not by taking the shortest route to the river, but by running a line at right angles with the general direction of the "walk;" and after four days' progress, practically parallel to the Delaware, through what was then described as a "barren mountainous region," the surveyors reached the river, in the upper part of Pike County, near the mouth of Shohola Creek, just below the Lackawaxen.
The Indians were loud in their complaints of the greediness shown in this walk, and particularly of the carrying of the surveyors' line so far to the northward, which none of them had anticipated. Marshall was told by one old Indian, subsequently, "No sit down to smoke—no shoot squirrel; but lun, lun, lun, all day long." Lappawinzoe, thoroughly disgusted, said, "Next May we will go to Philadelphia, each one with a buckskin, repay the presents, and takethe lands back again." The lands, however, were sold to speculators, so this was not practicable, and when the new owners sought to occupy them, the Indians refused to vacate. This provoked disputes over a half-million acres, a vast domain. The Penns, to defend their position, afterwards repudiated the surveyors, and they never fulfilled their promise to give Marshall five hundred acres. This did not mend matters, however, and the Lenni Lenape Indians' attitude became constantly more threatening, until the scared Proprietary invited the intervention of their hereditary enemies, the Iroquois Confederation, or Six Nations. In 1742 two hundred and thirty leading Iroquois were brought to Philadelphia, and the dispute submitted to their arbitration. They sided with the Proprietary, and the Lenni Lenapes reluctantly withdrew to the Wyoming Valley, part going as far west as Ohio. But they thirsted for revenge, and when the French began attacking the frontier settlements, these Indians became willing allies, making many raids and wreaking terrible vengeance upon the innocent frontiersmen throughout Pennsylvania. Marshall, who never got his reward, removed his cabin farther up the Delaware, above the mouth of the Lehigh. The Indians always pursued him, as an arch-conspirator, for a special vengeance. They attacked his cabin, killing his wife and wounding a daughter, he escaping by being absent. They made a second attack, and killed a son.His whole life was embittered by these murders, and he lost no opportunity for retaliation, removing, for greater safety, to an island in the river. They pursued him for forty years, a party of Indians, during the Revolution in 1777, coming all the way from Ohio to kill him, but he eluded them and escaped. His closing years, however, were passed peacefully, and he died at the age of ninety at his island home in the Delaware.
THE NARROWS AND THE FORKS.
The Tohickon Creek, the chief stream of Bucks County, flows into the Delaware at Point Pleasant, its Indian name of Tohick-hanne meaning "the stream crossed by a drift-wood bridge." Here in the river are many rapids or "rifts," some having been given curious names by the early raftsmen who used to "shoot" them—such as the "Buck Tail rift," the "Cut Bite rift," the "Man-of-War rift," the "Ground Hog rift," and the "Old Sow rift." The river makes many sweeping curves in passing through the gorges, and it displays the Nockamixon Rocks or "Pennsylvania Palisades," a series of about three miles of beetling crags, of rich red and brown sandstone, rising four hundred feet, almost perpendicularly, and making a grand gorge known as the Narrows. The ridge which the river thus bisects is known as Rock Hill in Pennsylvania, and across in New Jersey stretches away to the northeast as theMusconetcong Mountain. Above, the Musconetcong River, the Indian "rapid runner," flows in at Reigelsville, a town on both sides of the Delaware. This was the Indian village of Pechequeolin in the early eighteenth century, where iron works, the first on the Delaware, were started in 1727, famous for making the "Franklin" and "Adam and Eve" stoves that were so popular among our ancestors, the latter bearing in bold relief a striking representation of our first parents in close consultation with the serpent. Just above, the Delaware comes out through the massive gorge of the Durham Hills or South Mountain, north of which the Lehigh River flows in from the southwest amid iron mills and slag heaps, with numerous bridges bringing the various Lehigh coal railways across from Easton to Phillipsburg. This is the confluence with the Lehigh, known in early times as the "Forks of the Delaware." To this place the Lenni Lenapes often came to treat and trade with the Penns, and a town was founded there when John Penn was the Proprietor. He was then a newly-married man, and had courted his bride, a daughter of Lord Pomfret, at her father's English country-house of Easton in Northamptonshire. So the new town was called Easton and the county Northampton, at the junction of the Delaware with the Indian Lechwiechink, signifying "where there are forks." This name was shortened to Lecha, and afterwards became the Lehigh. The two towns literallyhang upon the hillsides, Mount Parnassus looking down upon Phillipsburg, named after the old chief Phillip, who had the original village there, while Easton is compressed between the South Mountain and the long ridge of Chestnut Hill, rising seven hundred feet, where the Paxinosa Inn recalls the sturdy Paxanose, the last of the Shawnee kings who lived east of the Alleghenies. Through these towns and across the bridges spanning the Delaware roll constant processions of coal trains bringing the anthracite out from the Lehigh and Wyoming coal-fields to market.
Easton dates from 1737 and has about fifteen thousand people, but its growth did not come until the coal trade was developed. The Lehigh Canal started this, and upon it Asa Packer was a boatman before the railway era, and carried goods for the industrious Frenchman, Ario Pardee, who then had a mill and store at Hazleton, back in the interior. These were the two leaders in developing the Lehigh coal trade. The chief institution of Easton is Lafayette College, a Presbyterian foundation, its main building being Pardee Hall, a gift of Ario Pardee. It is largely a school of the mine, and is devoted to that branch of scientific research. Here often came the famous Teedyuscung, the eloquent sachem of the Lenni Lenapes, who, in the councils at the "Forks," pleaded for his people's rights. The last remnant of his tribe, having been pressed fartherand farther towards the setting sun, now live as the "Delaware Indians" out in Oklahoma, there being barely ninety of them, where Hon. Charles Journeycake, at last advices, was the "King of the Delawares," the successor of Teedyuscung and of St. Tammany. Phillipsburg was originally settled by Dutch, and its prosperity was based chiefly on the Morris Canal, which crossed New Jersey through Newark to New York harbor, a work since abandoned for transportation purposes. It was a wonderful canal in its day, crossing mountain ranges of nine hundred feet. This was made possible by the high elevation of Lake Hopatcong, which furnished most of the water for the levels. While some of the elevations were overcome by locks, the greater ones were mounted by inclined planes up which the boats were drawn, the machinery of the planes being worked by water-power taken from the higher canal levels. Its chief usefulness now is the supply of water to Newark, the descent from Lake Hopatcong on that side being nine hundred and fourteen feet. This beautiful lake, supplied with the purest spring water, is nine miles long and about four miles wide, dotted with islands, its rock-bound shores encompassed by surrounding mountains giving charming scenery. Small steamboats navigate it, and the name Hopatcong means "Stone over the Water," referring to an artificial causeway of stone the Indians had, connecting with one of the islands, but which is now submerged.