GIFT OF
L&LcyisucU fi>crx^uXL c/l \)~&v~wi
Celebration of the Two Hundred
and Thirtieth Anniversary
of the landing of
William Penn in Pennsylvania
held at the
WASHINGTON HOUSE
Chester, Pa.
SATURDAY, OCTOBER 26th, 1912
by the
COLONIAL SOCIETY OF PENNSYLVANIA
in association with
THE SWEDISH COLONIAL SOCIETY
Published by the
Colonial Society op Pennsylvania
1912.
*&1
,CS>
Printed by
Chester Timbs
EXERCISES.
At a special meeting of the Council of the Colonial
Society of Pennsylvania, held in the building of the His-
torical Society of Pennsylvania, Thirteenth and Locust
Streets, Philadelphia, on the afternoon of Wednesday,
September 25, 1912, the subject of the observance of the
Two Hundred and Thirtieth Anniversary of the landing of
William Penn in Pennsylvania, was discussed at length, it
being a custom of the Society to recognize annually that
anniversary by a gathering of its members in commem-
oration of that momentous event in the history of this
Province and Commonwealth. It chanced that the precise
date, October 28, fell this year — 1912 — on Monday; and
after a thorough discussion, it was decided that the func-
tion should be arranged for the afternoon of Saturday,
the 26th, since that would most likely insure a large at-
tendance of the members at the exercises. It was also
determined that the meeting should be held at the old
Colonial Inn, now the Washington House, in Chester, lo-
cated only a short distance from the actual spot where
William Penn landed, two hundred and thirty years ago. To
make all arrangements for the observances of the day,
a committee comprising Harold Edgar Gillingham, Henry
Heston Belknap and Henry Graham Ashmead was ap-
pointed, clothed with full power to act.
The twenty-sixth of October proved to be a delightful
Autumn day. A large number of the Colonial Society of
Pennsylvania members, as well as those of the Swedish
Colonial Society, who had been invited to participate in the
ceremonial observances of Penn's Landing, gathered in the
Washington House, comprising a representative body whose
proceedings on that occasion will enter into and find a
prominent place in the annals of Chester. The ancient
hostelry was tastefully decorated with the red and white
colors of the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania and with the
blue and gold colors of the Swedish Colonial Society. The
room in which Washington wrote his report of the Battle
of Brandywine, where the guests gathered, presented the
same color scheme, with "Old Glory" here and there ap-
264231
propriately displayed. The dining room, similarly decor-
ated, was divided by four tables running lengthwise of
the apartment, with a table at the head, at which, during
the exercises, sat Hon. Davis Page, President of the Colonial
Society, with Hon. William Ward, Jr., Mayor of Chester,
at his right, and Garnett Pendleton, Esq., at his left. Hon.
William Cameron Sproul, State Senator from Delaware
County, and Brigadier-General Davis, United States Army,
retired, a descendant of John Morton, the signer of the
Declaration of Independence, who had come from Syracuse,
New York, to attend the exercises, were among others who
were given places at this table.
In addition to the large number of members of the
Swedish Colonial Society who are also members of the
Colonial Society of Pennsylvania, the following members of
the former Society were present on this occasion by
invitation: Brigadier-General Charles L. Davis, U. S. A.,
(Retired), Count Adam de Trampe, Hon. William C. Sproul,
Hon. William B. Broomall, Col. Charles A. Converse, Col.
Frank G. Sweeney, Captain Alfred J. Erikson, Hon. David
M. Johnson, Howard Edwards, Douglas R. Faith, Samuel
Garrett, LeRoy Harvey, Harold Perot Keen, Edward W.
Keene, Charles P. Keith, Josiah Marvel, Levi Mattson, Henry
D. Paxson, Dr. Francis J. Roth, Ewing Stille and Isaac C.
Paxson, Dr. Francis J. Roth, Ewing Stille and Isaac C.
Yocum, Hiram Hathaway, Sr., John B. Hannum, Sr., guests
of Hiram Hathaway, Jr., Dr. Frank E. Johnson, James
Hanna, guests of Dr. John Welsh Croskey, and William A.
Irving, guest of Col. T. Edward Clyde.
The menu served comprised:
Celery Olives Almonds
Martini Cocktail
Oyster Cocktail
Cream of Tomato
Baked Blue Fish En Malelotte
Roast Filet of Beef
Stuffed Peppers Potatoes Rissole
Lettuce and Tomatoes
Roquefort Cheese Dressing
Neapolitan Ice Cream
Fancy Cakes Coffee Cigars
v v «
9
The menu was printed on the central pages of a booklet,
whose cover displayed the colors of the Colonial Society of
Pennsylvania and those of the Swedish Colonial Society —
in which was told the following:
STORY OF THE WASHINGTON HOTEL.
While the claim that the Washington House, in Chester,
Pennsylvania, is the oldest hostelry in actual duration, in
the original thirteen colonies is not advanced in this sketch
as a well established historical fact, certain it is that it takes
rank well to the fore as one of the most ancient public
houses in the United States. Built in 1747, in the one hun-
dred and sixty-five years that are included within its story,
it has never been put to other uses than an inn or tavern —
for the descriptive word " hotel " is of comparatively mod-
ern application to buildings used as public houses for the
entertainment of the traveling public. When Aubrey Bevan
erected this building, George II had for almost twenty
years ruled England and her dependencies; less than two
years before Culloden had seen the cause of the House of
Stuart sink in hopeless defeat; Robert Morris, the financier
of the Revolution was a mere lad of twelve; Washington,
a youth of fifteen, still attending school; John Morton, the
signer, was a stripling of twenty ; Wayne, " Mad Anthony,"
the Prince Rupert of the Revolution, was a prattling infant
of less than two; Benjamin Rush, the Father of American
Medicine and a signer of the Declaration, was a babe in
long dresses, and twenty-two years had yet to come and
go before the birth of Napoleon the Great.
The plot of ground upon which the " Pennsylvania
Arms " was erected was originally part of the grant of land
by the Swedish Crown to Joran Kyn (George Keen) and
on March 31, 1686, was patented by Penn's Commissioner
to James Sandelands, the son-in-law of Keen. At his death
the property descended to his second son, Jonas Sandelands,
who in 1720 sold it to John Wright. The latter is distin-
guished in our State annals as the founder of Lancaster
County. Wright in 1727 conveyed the land to William
Pennell, who in turn sold it to James Trigo. In the parti-
tion of the latter's estate, the tract was allotted to James
IO
Trigo, his son, who early in 1746 conveyed it to Aubrey
Bevan, to whom reference has already been made. During
the French War in 1747, the company commanded by
Captain Skannon, which had been recruited in New Castle
and Chester Counties, was cantoned in Chester, and part
of the company was quartered for a brief period at the
Pennsylvania Arms, the cost of which the county had to
pay. Aubrey Bevan died in 1761 and by will he devised
the tavern and curtilage to his daughter Mary, who had
intermarried with William Forbes. Forbes was the landlord
of the inn on November 7, 1764, the day Benjamin Franklin
came to Chester where he was to embark for England,
whither he went as the Commissioner of Pennsylvania and
Massachusetts to present to George III the grievances of
these colonies. On that occasion Franklin was accompanied
from Philadelphia by a cavalcade of more than three hun-
dred men of affairs in that city. The London packet, as
was then not unusual, was to receive its distinguished
passenger at this place and the leading men of the city and
Province had accompanied the then greatest man in all
the Colonies thus far, to wish him " God speed " in his
voyage and mission. The "Pennsylvania Arms," as the
Washington House was then named, was crowded with the
friends of " Poor Richard/' and until the bustling scenes of
the Revolution came to obliterate its impress, the day when
Franklin boarded the London packet at Chester was a theme
for reference and remembrance.
Another incident connected with the old hostelry is not
without interest, particularly to the bench and bar of Phila-
delphia. On August 15, 1768, the Supreme Provincial
Court was in session in the old building just across Market
Street. Chief Justice William Allen (for whom Allentown
is named and later attainted of treason) and his associates,
Thomas Willing (who as a member of the Continental Con-
gress voted against the adoption of the Declaration of
Independence) and John Lawrence, a lawyer of prominence,
presided at the trial of John Dowdle and Thomas Vaughn,
who were indicted for the murder of Thomas Shay, in the
preceding March. It chanced that day a tall gangling lad
of seventeen, attired in the smock frock which farmers and
field hands then wore, had brought a load of hay from
II
Edgmont township to deliver to William Forbes, at the
" Pennsylvania Arms." When the stripling had unloaded
the wagon he strolled across the street and timidly glanced
in at one of the windows. Benjamin Chew, the Attorney-
General, was haranguing the jury. The awkward lad
listened with awe-struck attention and at last inquired
from a bystander whether he could enter the court room.
He was told it was open to everyone, whereupon he shame-
facedly entered and took a seat near the door. Enrapt,
he lingered until the case was ended, the men convicted
and the sentence of death imposed. Next morning at break-
fast, for he did not reach home until a late hour of the
night, amid the laughter of the family he announced that
he was determined to be a lawyer and sway juries. He
did both, for fifteen years later William Lewis was a leader
of the Philadelphia bar, all due, he believed, to his visit
and delivery of the load of hay to Mine Host Forbes at the
" Pennsylvania Arms."
April 1, 1772, Forbes sold the tavern to William Kerlin.
The troublesome times at the eve of the Revolution were
at hand. Kerlin, a wealthy man for that day, was an ardent
Whig, and his house during all the war was a designated
post for the reception and dispatching of intelligence for
the patriots. On Christmas, Saturday, 1774, Richard Riley,
whose dwelling on the water front at Marcus Hook was
also a post, sent word to Kerlin that the tea ship " Polly,"
Captain Ayre, was following another ship up the Delaware,
for no pilot in the then heated condition of the public mind
dare venture to bring the " Polly " up the river. The
peculiar dark patches in her sails disclosed her identity.
From the " Pennsylvania Arms " Kerlin dispatched two
express riders on fleet horses to Philadelphia to notify the
committee that the long-expected vessel was on her way to
that port. It was late in the evening of Wednesday, July
3, 1776, when a mud-bespattered horse and rider stopped
at the " Pennsylvania Arms " and a tall man with a green
patch over his right eye to conceal a cancer, alighted. It was
Caesar Rodney who was making his noted ride of eighty odd
miles to cast his vote for the Declaration of Independence.
The day had been one of sweltering heat; in the afternoon
a heavy thunder storm had visited Delaware, but Rodney,
12
the delegate, had never slackened rein, but urged the high-
mettled roan mare he rode through the deluge of falling
water, covering himself and his horse with mud. Here
Rodney refreshed himself, and baited his roan pacer. The
night was well advanced for those days, when people retired
early, before he resumed his ride to Philadelphia, where
what he did the next day, July 4, 1776, is part of the history
of this nation.
It was the evening of August 24, 1777, a sultry Sabbath
day, when the American Army, sixteen thousand strong,
on its southward march to meet General Howe, encamped in
and around Chester. The hillsides were illuminated with
their campfires. That night Washington established his
headquarters at the " Pennsylvania Arms," while Lafayette
was entertained at the house of Caleb Coupland, an old
dwelling which until recently adjoined the " White Swan "
Inn, at Fourth and Market Streets, to the south. Eighteen
days later, Tuesday, September 11, 1777, the same army,
defeated that day at Brandywine, from early eve until long
after midnight straggled into Chester and assembled to
the east of Ridley Creek, extending along the old Queen's
highway up and beyond what is now known as Leiperville.
Washington, as before, made his headquarters at the
" Pennsylvania Arms," where, at midnight, in the east room
in the second story of the old hostelry, he wrote the only
report of that battle he ever made to Congress. The ancient
mahogany chairs which were part of the furniture of the
room that night and at other times when he was a guest,
are still preserved among the descendants of William Kerlin.
Sixty-eight days later Tuesday, November 18, 1777,
the " Pennsylvania Arms " presented a scene of unwonted
activity. The day was cool and raw. Lord Corn wal lis that
morning, with three thousand troops, comprising the Fifth,
Fifteenth, Seventeenth, Thirty-third and Fifty-sixth Regi-
ments, as well as a battalion of Hessians and Light Infantry,
together with twelve pieces of artillery, several howitzers
and a train of baggage, had marched from Philadelphia,
which he had left the day before. His design was to cross
the river at this point and reduce Billingport, N. J., in which
he succeeded. Major John Clark, of General Green's staff,
(who had been assigned by Washington on secret service,
13
without the knowledge of Green, and who reported Clark to
the Commander-in-chief as a deserter) , stood on the second-
story porch of the " Plow and Harrow," the tavern kept by
Mary Withy, then standing where is now the Cambridge
Trust Company's building, watching the movements of the
troops.
Cornwallis made his headquarters at the " Pennsyl-
vania Arms," where, surrounded by his brilliant staff, he
was the observed of all observers. The grandfather of the
writer, then a young man of nineteen, remembered the
bustling scene which in advanced years he would describe
to his children. Cornwallis, then in his thirty-ninth year,
as grandfather remembered him, was short and stocky in
figure, his prematurely gray hair, unpowdered, was worn
in a queue, his features were regular, but he suffered from
an affection of his left eyelid, which caused it to blink in-
cessantly, detracting somewhat from his appearance. He
was excessively nervous and his habit of raising his hand
to change the position of his hat every few minutes, was
very noticeable that day. Major Campbell, " handsome Mad
Archey," of his staff, was in excellent humor, as he always
was when battle was in the air. His bearing that day was
as reckless as it was three years later, when by a threat
to kill the lady, the clergyman and himself, he compelled
Rev. Edward Ellington, rector of the little English church
at Goose Creek, South Carolina, to perform the marriage
ceremony between the lovely Pauline Phelps, of Charleston,
and himself, an incident which has furnished a chapter or
two for William Gilmore Simms' novel " Katharine Walton."
It required nearly eight hours for the troops to be
transported from Chester to the New Jersey shore. The
eighty British men-of-war and transports lying off this
place furnishing the boats for the troops, while floats in tow
of launches from the vessels, carried the horses, artillery
and baggage wagons. Cornwallis and his staff were among
the last to embark, hence for half a day the " Pennsylvania
Arms " was absolutely in control of the ablest British
soldier entrusted with the command of an army in all our
war for Independence. Some of the overzealous Whigs later
charged Kerlin with disloyalty because, as they alleged,
that day he had furnished food supplies to the soldiers and
14
sailors of the enemy. But nothing further came of this
complaint.
It was at this hostelry that Washington, on Wednesday,
September 5, 1781, while hastening with the Continental
forces and the French auxiliary to Yorktown, " received the
agreeable news of the safe arrival of the Count de Grasse
in the Bay of Chesapeake with 28 sail of the line
and four frigates, with 3000 land Troops, which were
to be immediately debarked at Jamestown and form
a juncture with the American Army under the com-
mand of the Marquis de la Fayett." Cyrus Townsend Brady
in his " American Fights and Fighters " in the article
" Yorktown," (page 150) says that " Washington was so de-
lighted with the news that he rode back to Philadelphia
and informed Congress and Rochambeau." That Washing-
ton sent an express from Chester informing Congress and
the French general of the great news he had received
agrees with the tradition of the event in the Kerlin family,
but that he rode personally to Philadelphia is open to grave
question, inasmuch that the following day he wrote from
the Head of Elk, Maryland, to Count de Grasse, acknowledg-
ing the receipt of "Your Excellency's favor of the 2d
instant, and do myself the pleasure to felicitate you on the
happy arrival of so formidable a fleet of his Most Christian
Majesty in the Bay of Chesapeake under your Excellency's
command."
The war cloud having passed, the citizens of remote
parts of Chester County renewed their efforts to remove
the County Seat to a more central location, and during that
agitation, Joseph Hickman, an ardent removalist, penned a
doggerel ballad entitled, " Lament Over Chester's Mother,"
in which Kerlin is thus referred to :
" And then poor helpless Billy cries —
'Oh, how shall I be fed?
What shall I do if Mamma dies ?
I cannot work for bread.
1 These little hands have never wrought,
Oh, how I am oppressed!
For I have never yet done aught,
But hang on Mamma's breast.' "
15
On Monday, April 20, 1789, Washington, then on his
way to New York to be inaugurated the first President of
the United States, reached Chester at 7 o'clock in the morn-
ing. He was accompanied by General Thomas Mifflin, Gov-
ernor of Pennsylvania; Judge Richard Peters, the Speaker
of the Assembly, and First Troop of Philadelphia as a guard
of honor, who had met the President-elect at Naaman's
Creek, the State line, whither he had been escorted by the
authorities of Delaware. Washington traveled to Chester
in a coach and four, attended by Col. David Humphreys, his
aide, and Charles Thomson, " the perpetual secretary of
Congress," who had been dispatched to Mount Vernon to
officially notify the General of his election to the Presidency.
Thomson was well known in Chester, his first wife, Mary,
being the daughter of John Mather, a noted resident of
the town in the eighteenth century. The inhabitants of
this place flocked to the inn as the distinguished guests
alighted at the "Washington House," for Kerlin had
changed the name of the tavern to the one it has now borne
for one hundred and thirty years. All the urchins gazed
with admiration as the troops rode into the yard of the
inn; the jingling of swords, the champing of the bits by
the horses, the showy uniforms of the men, and the blare
of the trumpet, combined to produce a picture in the
memory of the onlookers that was never effaced. After
Washington had broken fast, the leading citizens of the
town assembled in the travelers' waiting room, now the
bar room, where Washington hearkened to the address of
welcome delivered by Dr. William Martin, then Chief Bur-
gess of Chester. His speech, which has been preserved, is
as follows :
" To His Excellency, George Washington, Esq.,
President of the United States :
"Sir: The inhabitants of the town of Chester, im-
pressed with the liveliest sentiments of esteem and
veneration for your Excellency's character, congratulate
themselves upon this opportunity being afforded them to
pay their respects to, and assure you of unfeigned joy that
swells their bosoms, while they reflect that the united
voices of millions have again called you from the bosom of
i6
domestic retirement to be once more the public guardian
of the liberty, happiness and prosperity of the United
America. From this event they entertain the most pleasing
expectations of the future greatness of the Western world ;
indeed they cannot but observe to your Excellency that the
torpid resources of our country already discover signs of
life and motion, from the adoption of the Federal Constitu-
tion. Accept, sir, our fervent wishes for your welfare —
may you be happy; may a life spent in usefulness be
crowned with a serene old age ; and may your future reward
be a habitation not built with hands, eternal in the
heavens."
Washington made a brief and unostentatious response,
after which a number of the then prominent residents were
presented to the President-elect. A delegation from Darbj"
followed in a formal presentation of a beautiful white steed,
which Washington accepted and rode during the rest of his
journey to New York, and during much of the exercises in
that city.
William Kerlin did not remain mine host of the Wash-
ington House until his death, for his will, proved April 29,
1805, in his devise of " the tavern house " to his daughter,
Sarah Piper, he states it was then " in the tenure of Isaac
Tucker," of whom I have no definite knowledge. Sarah
Piper, or Sarah Odenheimer, for she was a blooming widow,
noted for her figure and expert horsemanship, when Joseph
Piper first met her was riding, so that he saw her at her
best. The chanced visitor to Chester, for he was then em-
ployed in the Custom House of the Port of Philadelphia,
was presented to the attractive woman. He wooed and won
the dashing Widow Odenheimer. When the lease to Issac
Tucker expired, Joseph Piper resigned from the Custom
service and assumed direction of the Washington House.
Mine Host Piper was accorded the title of Major, and the
family tradition states that he had been an officer in the
War of the Revolution, but as he was a child of less than
ten years when that struggle ended, if he won that title by
service, he must have been in the Whisky Insurrection. He
died in 1829 and for nearly four years his widow carried
on the business, until 1833, when she leased the tavern to
Evan S. Way, who for one year had kept the Providence
17
Inn in Nether Providence township. Way was a politician
and while conducting the Washington House was nominated
and elected Sheriff of Delaware County. He succeeded
Major Samuel A. Price in that office. A peculiar incident
was that Major Price succeeded Way as landlord of the
hostelry in Chester in 1837. The latter had conducted a
hat manufactory in this city, was an influential and genial
gentleman, and in early life was reputed to be a strikingly
handsome man. In 1840, after William Henry Harrison had
received the Whig nomination for the Presidency, the old
general, accompanied by a number of gentlemen from New
York, in returning from Washington, stopped to dine at the
Washington House, and while here received the congratula-
tions of our citizens. After dinner had been served, the
cloth was drawn, wine, as was usual on such occasions,
was placed on the table, and several toasts were drunk. It
was observed that Harrison drank only water, and being
thereupon urged to take wine, he arose and said : " Gentle-
men, I have refused twice to partake of the wine cup, that
should have been sufficient; though you press the cup to
my lips not a drop shall pass the portals. I made a resolve
when I started in life that I would avoid strong drink, and
I have never broken it. I am one of a class of seven tee .i
young men who graduated, and the other sixteen fill drunk-
ards' graves, all through the habit of social wine drinking.
I owe all my health, happiness and prosperity to that reso-
lution. Will you urge me now?"
This incident and the remarks made by " Old Tippe-
canoe " were related by one of the gentlemen present on
that occasion nearly forty years thereafter, hence the
language used by Harrison at this dinner at the Washington
House may not be strictly accurate in words, but the
substance of what he then said is doubtless correctly
rendered.
Sarah Piper, in her will probated September 13, 1841,
directed that " the tavern house and thereto belonging, be
sold within one year after my decease." In compliance with
that provision, although a longer time than one year did
intervene, her executors sold, April 2, 1844, the premises
to Henry L. Powell, an ardent temperance advocate, who
declared that at the Washington House no intoxicating
i8
liquors should thereafter be sold to its patrons. On October
11, of the same year Powell conveyed the property to
Edwarl E. Flavill, who was also active in the cause of tem-
perance in Delaware County. Samuel West, an earnest
temperance advocate, engaged Edward Hicks, a Quaker
artist, to paint a swinging sign — one side delineating The
Landing of Penn at Chester and the other Penn's Treaty ( ?)
with the Indians at Shackamaxon, which when completed,
West presented to Flavill. The sign was first hung in jaws
which crowned a high pole planted near the curb at the
driveway to the stables in the courtyard. Early in June,
1845, the sign was put in place with imposing ceremonies.
It was Saturday afternoon and temperance lodges from
many of the townships in the county were present in regalia,
with banners, and in some instances accompanied by bands
of music. Rev. Anson B. Hard, Associate Rector of St.
Paul's, and Rev. Isaac R. Merrill, pastor of the Methodist
Church, conducted the religious exercises, while the oration
was delivered by John Wayne Ashmead, my father. Mr.
Band recently has had the old sign hung from the second
story of the porch on Market street, so that each side can
be seen by persons in the street.
The experiment of conducting the house on strictly
temperance principles proved an unprofitable venture and
Flaville at length disposed of the property January 1, 1849,
to Thomas Clyde, who had formerly conducted an extensive
general store in Chester and was largely interested in quar-
ries on Ridley Creek. During the panic of 1837 he lost
heavily by the failures of contractors, who were carried
down in the slump in business and values that followed.
For nine years Mr. Clyde continued to be landlord of the
Washington House, but as he insisted in continuing it as
a temperance inn, it was conducted with but little financial
success. His namesake and nephew, the late Thomas Clyde,
of steamship fame, a child of seven, on the death of his
parents in Ireland, was sent over to the United States, and
was an inmate of his uncle's household in Chester until he
attained his majority. In April, 1856, Thomas Clyde sold
the property to his son-in-law, John G. Dyer, who had been
an Inspector of the Customs at the Lazaretto, and later
interested in manufacturing. A man of pleasing address
19
and an attractive conversationalist, Mr. Dyer, who had re-
ceived license for the ancient hostelry, soon re-established
the Washington House as one of the most popular public
houses in the county. In 1868 he conveyed the premises
to his son, Col. Samuel A. Dyer. The latter was a man
of unusual business ability and forethought, and one to
whose liberality the City of Chester owes much for its
present prosperity. In after life he became a banker, was
the founder of the Chester National Bank, of which for
a number of years he was president. To his enterprise
and energy the City is indebted for its present street
railway system. Col. Dyer, on June 1, 1870, sold the Wash-
ington House to Henry Abbott, Jr., who continued as its
landlord for nearly a quarter of a century. Henry Abbott
died January 16, 1911. A clause in his will attracted wide-
spread attention throughout this country and was largely
copied by the press of Great Britain. He had had during all
his life a horror of being buried alive, hence it was to guard
against such a contingency that he inserted the following
clause in his will:
" It is my desire that for forty days after my decease
my body shall be kept in a vault with the lid of the coffin
unfastened, and be visited daily during that period, and
subsequently be interred in my burial lot in the grave where
my wife, Margaret J. Abbott, is buried in Chester Rural
Cemetery. If my body be interred before this my desire is
known, I direct that it be immediately disinterred and these
provisions fully carried out."
The obligations imposed by the will were faithfully
carried out by the executor, but it was a revolting duty to
the official, who daily visited the tomb to watch the slow
process of dust returning to dust.
On January 22, 1895, Henry Abbott sold the Wash-
ington House to Charles E. Morris. On Saturday afternoon,
April 19, 1902 — the hundred and twenty-seventh anniver-
sary of the Battle of Lexington — the Delaware County
Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, with
appropriate ceremonies unveiled a bronze tablet, which had
been placed in the wall on the right side of the main en-
trance to the Washington House, whereon in raised letters
were inscribed several of the noted historical incidents
20
which are associated with the story of the old hostelry.
Mine Host Morris had had the building tastefully decorated
for the*occasion. Draping the door opening into the room
in which Washington wrote the only report he ever made
to Congress in reference to the defeat at Brandywine, were
two large silk American flags which twenty-six years before
had been used as part of the decorations of the Roach Ship-
yard exhibit at the Centennial Exposition in 1876 at Phila-
delphia. The colors of the Daughters of the American
Revolution were everywhere conspicuous in the apartment
which Washington had occupied. Addresses were made by
Mayor Howard H. Houston, Henry Graham Ashmead and
Rev. Philip H. Mowry, D.D.
Charles E. Morris, on January 29, 1910, conveyed the
Washington House to William Band, Jr. Mr. Band is
peculiarly fitted to be in control of the old Colonial tavern,
with its wealth of historic associations. He venerates its
glorious past while still desirous that the Washington House
shall be equipped with all the conveniences of a modern
hotel. Recognizing that age is one thing which money
cannot buy, Mr. Band has carefully preserved in all the
changes made at the hotel, the dominant fact that the old
Washington House is one of the best examples of Colonial
architecture existing to-day in these United States, and has
historical associations clustering about it beyond that of
any other public house in all America.
HENRY GRAHAM ASHMEAD.
Chester, Pa., October 26, 1912.
REMARKS OF PRESIDENT PAGE.
When the cigars were lighted, President S. Davis Page
rapped for silence. Then he said:
"Gentlemen of the Colonial Societies: When I picked
up your menu here and found that I was down for
' Remarks/ I was a good deal astonished ; for, although one
who has been put in this exalted position by your votes must
expect to stand and deliver whenever called upon, yet, upon
this occasion, I thought we came down here for instruction
and entertainment at the hands of those who are more
familiar with the locality, and certainly vastly better in-
formed as to its history than I am. Since I have been
21
sitting here, however, although but a few minutes, I have
gotten some very interesting information on the subject
from the distinguished gentlemen who hold up my hands,
the one on the right and the other on the left (alluding to
the Mayor and Garnett Pendleton, Esq.).
" It occurs to me that if that remarkable citizen of the
world, William Penn, who landed so near this very spot,
the 28th of October, two hundred and thirty years ago,
were here to-day, the changes wrought in that time would
be bewildering indeed to him. What do you suppose would
be the emotions of that man if he could step out from the
grave, or land from that fabled boat that carried him across
the Styx — old Charon at the helm — what do you think
would be his emotions if he landed at this time in the year
of Grace, 1912, and looked at this fair town, to which we
have come, at the hospitable call of Mr. Ashmead and others
of our associates residing here ?
" You have a town here of 40,000 people, particularly
noted for its manufacturing industries. You have on the
one side the great works of Baldwin, enormous in their
potential production — if not in their present realization —
and on the other you have great silk and other mills of
varied activities. When I was told that the silk they have
produced in that silk mill is made out of the wood of the
mulberry tree, without the properties of the tree contained
in the leaf passing through the silk worm at all, it occurred
to me that perhaps William Penn, were he to come back
in this day of Grace, would be even more surprised at the
progresses and changes that have been made in the rela-
tion of man to man, in the improvements, in the utilities
and comforts of life, in the development of the power of
man over the elements of nature, even to harnessing the
lightning of the thunderbolt and bringing it here for our
comfort and entertainment, as we see it in the lights before
us, than were the dwellers of Jerusalem when they saw
the lame walk and the dumb speak and the lepers cleansed,
nineteen hundred years ago.
Altogether, as I get older, and there are not many here
who are older than I, it seems to me that the longer you
live the more astounding are the miracles that each day
brings forth; and when I sometimes hear people talking
22
about the story of the miracles in the Bible as being per-
haps too great a tax on their credulity, I feel like pointing
to the daily occurrences that we read of in the papers as
really presenting miracles as astounding almost as those
which God Incarnate, with a full and complete knowledge of
all the powers of nature, and with all of them within the
grasp of His hand, was able to and did do here on earth.
Really, we are living in a miraculous age ; and, with all that
we have and know and see, we can hardly realize, gentle-
men, what men like Penn did 230, 250 or 300 years ago,
when they left the centers of civilization and faced
the wilderness and the savagery beyond the seas; for
the good, not only of themselves, but of mankind, and
for the human race. What man of all of them did more
for the human race, in respect to its deliverance from the
thraldom of religious intolerance, and of civic oppression,
than this man whose landing on these shores we here and
now do celebrate? Let me say just here — I think it was
a most happy suggestion that we should come down here
to Chester at this time, near that sacred spot. Our meet-
ings, as you know, are usually held at this time of year
to celebrate this very event, the Landing of William Penn ;
and where better could we celebrate it than right here,
where, after stopping at New Castle, he made his first
landing? It was a particularly happy suggestion of our
fellow members living here and it has given great pleasure
and gratification to all of us, and I am sure I am speaking
on behalf of the members of both societies, of our own,
the Colonial Society, and the Swedish Colonial Society, of
which some of us are also members, enjoying together
this charming hospitality.
" I congratulate you all that we are here to-day. I
congratulate you for the kind Providence that has smiled
upon us, and who gave us such a lovely day to be here;
but particularly do I congratulate you that the Mayor of
the City of Chester will address us to-day and that my
friend, Mr. Garnett Pendleton, will instruct us as to the
associations connected with the place and recall some of
the men of it and their doings of long ago. I have the
pleasure of presenting to you the Hon. William Ward, Jr.,
Mayor of Chester."
23
MAYOR WARD'S ADDRESS.
Mr. Ward, as he arose, was welcomed with much clap-
ping of hands. This having ceased, he said :
" Mr. President and gentlemen of the Colonial So-
cieties: The City of Chester extends to you to-day, gen-
tlemen, a-visiting, a cordial, hearty welcome. We are
always glad to welcome the stranger within our gates,
but we are particularly honored this day and extend a
most generous welcome to you, the descendants of our early
settlers and pioneers.
" We of the City of Chester and the County of Dela-
ware, claim prominence in the story of this great Com-
monwealth. Within a radius of five miles of this city of
ours, all of the history of Pennsylvania was made during
the first four decades of our Colonial life. Over this par-
ticular locality have floated as the emblem of sovereignty,
the Swedish and Dutch flags, the red-crossed standard of
St. George, and our own " Old Glory," the best flag of all,
that at the conclusion of every struggle in which it has
engaged, has emerged from the smoke of battle, wreathed
with victory.
" Four miles to the east of where we meet to-day, in
what is now the township of Tinicum, the first permanent
settlement of the white man, within this State was made,
two hundred and seventy years ago.
" It was at Tinicum where Governor Printz, whom
we are told weighed near to four hundred pounds, and
had a capacity of four quarts of strong liquor each day,
built and erected Fort Gottenberg.
" There the Governor established his fort and his col-
ony and issued his decrees, and despite famine, misfortune
and disease held to his post and sowed the seed from which
has grown this glorious Commonwealth. He it was who
first inaugurated the policy of conciliation toward the In-
dians, an idea which the Proprietary in later years, shrewdly
adopted and emphasized.
" The Redman and the Swede lived in harmony and
perfect amity. The white man taught to the Indian his
latter day arts and perchance, some of his imperfections
and frailties. The Redman taught to the Swede his lore
24
of the forest primeval and drilled him in the conquest of
the woods and river stream.
" We know that the Swede used his foot as a weight
in trading with the Indians for their peltry, but the Redman
was not slow to learn and quickly sent forward the tallest
brav^ to act as yard-stick when the Swedes were paying
for furs or land with gaudy calico.
"This fact I would particularly impress; that the
Swedes in 1654 entered into a treaty with the Indians at
Tinicum, of which it is recorded that it 'has ever been
faithfully observed on both sides/ This treaty was made
twenty-eight years before the oft questioned meeting of
Penn with the aborigines, said to have taken place under the
great elm at Shackamaxon; an incident so noted whether
it be fact or myth, as to call forth Voltaire's often quoted
expression that ' It was the only treaty which has not been
sworn to, and which has not been broken.'
" And it would be as well to recall the fact that it was
the brush of the Quaker artist West, born at Swarthmore,
within four miles of where we are now assembled, that
has so largely contributed to the prominent place held by
Penn's treaty with the Indians, in the history of this Com-
monwealth, of this country and in the annals of the world.
" We first learn of Chester in 1644, then called Upland,
as a tobacco plantation, land afterwards granted by the
Swedish authorities to Joran Kyn.
" It may be noted that in the same year — 1644 — was
born William Penn, a peculiar association of incidents,
worthy at least of passing attention.
" The land on which the building stands in which we
are now gathered was included in that Swedish grant to
George Keen, for that is the English name of our foremost
early settler.
" I learn that among those with us this afternoon are
quite a number of the direct descendants of George Keen,
and I desire particularly to extend to those gentlemen a
hearty welcome to this city, the site of which two hundred
and sixty years ago was in the undisputed ownership
of their ancestor, the first permanent settler of Chester.
" The tide of life ran evenly and slow in the colony
and the years rolled on till 1682, the year that marked
J ) , I
DAUGHTERS OF THE
American Revolution
MARKS THIS HOUSE
AS THE PLACE WHERE WASHINGTON
WROTE AT MIDNIGHT, THE ONLY REPORT
OF THE BATTLE OF BRANOYWINE,
SEPT. 11,1777.
here Washington also received the
congratulations of the people of
chester upon his election as the
first president of the united states
APR!! 20 K89.
j >
Tablet on the Washington House
r°l
25
the coming of William Penn, for it was in that year that
our Quaker Proprietary first placed foot in his territory and
gave to the Province his name, and to the Nation of the
future the Keystone State of Pennsylvania.
" Chester claims the honor and distinction of contain-
ing the spot of ground where William Penn first landed in
this State. There has been much discussion as to the
accuracy of the spot designated and some criticism of the
style of marker erected.
"These are the facts: On November 8, 1850, the
corrected date from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar,
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania visited Chester, in
celebration of the one hundred and sixty-eighth anniver-
sary of Penn's landing in this town, then a borough, and
after the literary exercises which were held in the old
Methodist Church on Fifth Street, now a cigar factory,
were concluded, the assemblage in a body visited the site
where Penn first trod the earth of the Province, which
then and now bears his name.
" The places where the ancient trees had stood, under
which the Proprietary landed were still visible, the last
of the old pines had been up-rooted in a violent gale in
October, 1846. A survey was then made and as portions
of the stumps of the five trees, to one of which the boat
which bore William Penn from the ' Welcome ' to the shore
was made fast, were still discernible, it can be accepted as
a well ascertained fact that the marker, which was erected
in 1882, thirty-two years later, during the Bi-Centennial
observances, stands within at least twenty feet of the pre-
cise spot where the landing took place two hundred and
thirty years ago.
" As to the marker : It was not intended as an ela-
borate monument nor designed as a work of highest art.
The idea as to the form of the memorial stone was that of
John Struthers, whom it will be remembered, supplied
and superintended the placing of the stone work that en-
tered into the City Hall of Philadelphia, who suggested
that the marker should be in the form of a mile stone, as
symbolizing an epoch in the history of the Nation, just as
the old mile stones represented a measured distance on the
surface of the earth.
2,6
"I am informed that since the locating of this stone
in Chester the idea has been adopted in many of the coun-
tries of Europe and that on the Island of Runnymede,
where the great Magna Charta was signed by King John,
a stone o| like shape now marks the spot forever associated
with the story of human freedom.
" So passed the years. For the first forty odd years
Chester was the stage upon which was enacted almost the
entire history of the Province; and while the fears that
Penn and his advisers entertained that it was possible
that the claim of Lord Baltimore to its ownership might
be maintained, led him to select Philadelphia for his " Green
Country Town," Chester as a borough and city has held
prominent place in the annals of the Keystone State. From
this neighborhood came John Morton, whose decisive vote
gave Independence to the Colonies and as a consequence
birth to the United States.
" From the windows of this apartment we look down
upon the street where " Mad Anthony " Wayne drilled the
Continentals of this section from raw levees into martial
form. Here Commodore David Porter, one of the conspicu-
ous heroes of the second war with England made his home
and here was born his son, Admiral David Dixon Potter, a
brilliant figure of the Civil War. Only a stone's throw from
here Admiral David Glasgow Farragut went to school and
in this town he passed much of his boyhood days. Here
were born Rear Admiral Frederick Engle and Pierce Crosby
and here in Roach's Shipyard the present Naval establish-
ment of the United States had its birth. Out of the receding
past I have alluded to but a few incidents, which we as resi-
dents of Chester, and you, gentlemen, as citizens of Penn-
sylvania, may well be proud.
" To-day we welcome you to a progressive city of almost
fifty thousand souls, a hive of industry and toil, not content
to live only in the past — but striving for moral, industrial
and municipal betterment.
" Rich in our history, proud of our progress, loyal to our
people and to our glorious Commonwealth, Chester to-day
extends to you, gentlemen, a generous and cordial welcome."
(Applause.)
2 7
PRESIDENT PAGE:—
" Gentlemen of the Colonial Societies : After having
been admitted to the gates of Chester in the charming
manner in which the Mayor extended the welcome of the
town to us, let us now look beyond those gates, and
throw our minds back, not so far as two hundred and
thirty years ago, but one hundred and thirty years
ago, or thereabout, and think of the great men of that
time, to whom we, as descendants of some of them, and as
those who have profited by their sufferings and by their
work, should look back with veneration and the greatest
regard; but that veneration and regard is a matter simply
of lip service, if we do not lay their examples to our hearts
and endeavor to lead a little of the altruistic lives led by
those men who camped not far from here during that ter-
rible winter at Valley Forge. Among those men who did
and suffered so much, there was one man, who dared and
did so much that he was thought really to be beyond the
control of reason; and that man, forgetting himself, for-
getting even his surroundings at times, pressed on to any
risk, any danger, to any chance of suffering, to achieve and
to accomplish the design which he had in hand, in the
furtherance of the great plans which the General in com-
mand of the army at Valley Forge had conceived and
eventually carried to such a successful completion and
fruition ; " Mad Anthony Wayne " had reason in his mad-
ness, and in the toast which comes next, he is presented
to our contemplation as " Soldier and Citizen." Some men
in the discharge of one duty sometimes forget the other,
and there are men who would carry into their citizenship
some of the ideas perhaps which they may have imbibed
while filling the role of soldiers. The swords of Anthony
Wayne and of those who fought with him, wrote into the
hearts of their countrymen with the blood of their owners'
'regard for law/ And, in the discharge of their duty as
citizens, they obeyed the law; not the law founded on t* e
will of one man, but the law founded upon the consent of
a multitude of men, all equal before the law, but formed in
such a way that the power of the majority shall never be
exercised to the injury of the rights of the minority.
(Applause) Never can that principle be preserved should
28
there be any successful effort made at any time by any
men, under any call, by God or Devil, to override the written
law of the land and the Constitution of the United States
established by the labor and the blood of men like Anthony
Wayne — established I pray as the everlasting law of these
States, Us object being the control and limitation of
the powers of Government in the land; for there can
be no slavery greater than an unlimited exercise of the
powers of government, even if ostensibly and ostentatiously
for the good people, who should learn rather to govern
themselves, if we are to remain a free people.
" You who have paid any attention to history know
something of the efforts of our ancestors and forebears,
throughout all the ages, of the record, to limit and control
the powers of government. We want no extension of the
powers of government; the fewer laws we have, the
better; the more restricted the powers of government, the
safer the rights of the governed.
" Gentlemen, I have the honor to present to you Mr.
Garnett Pendleton, who will talk to us of ' Anthony Wayne,
Soldier and Citizen.' "
GARNETT PENDLETON'S ADDRESS.
Mr. President, Gentlemen of the Colonial Society of
Pennsylvania and Gentlemen of the Swedish Colonial So-
ciety: It is eminently fitting that organizations whose
prime object is the collection of data concerning the early
history of Pennsylvania should meet within the limits of
the old town and County of Chester; within the walls of
the ancient hostelry that so often sheltered majestic Wash-
ington and chivalrous Lafayette, and in plain view of a town
hall replete with civic associations and redolent of martial
memories, eight years the senior of that historic edifice
whence issued the declaration and the prophecy of American
independence.
" We are engaged in the manifold activities of modern
life, and enjoy the privileges of a high and complex civiliza-
tion. But are not unmindful of the rock whence we were
hewn. We realize that the present, with its wondrous
achievements and its magnificent possibilities, is the child
of a vigorous, an energetic and a glorious past.
2 9
" We honor and revere our ancestors and their con-
temporaries. They were men of resolute heart, iron nerve
and stern determination. We owe them a debt forever
insoluble. They braved the terrors and the perils of the
trackless wilderness that for us that wilderness might bud
and blossom as the rose. They battled with and expelled
the ruthless savage, that we here might have peace and
safety. They broke the rod of the oppressor that we might
bask in the sunlight of liberty.
" The proper study of mankind is man. The history
of the human race is an absorbing topic. American history
— the recital of our development from colony to Common-
wealth, from a group of communities lying along a narrow
seaboard into a compact and powerful and continent-wide
Republic, is a theme of ever-engrossing interest.
" The soldier is the great hero of secular history. His
courage, his apparent indifference to danger and death, the
battle array, the impetus of the charge; the pomp and
glorious circumstance of war elicit the enthusiastic admira-
tion of him who sees and of him who reads. The soldier
looms large in the annals of mankind. Peace is the offspring
of war; and liberty, the outcome of struggle; civilization
rears her marts and her palaces on the conquered domain
of barbarism.
" Too much of the work of the soldier has been in
furtherance of the personal ambition of the general. We
admire the transcendent military genius of Napoleon; but
realize that in his quest of glory and self aggrandizement
he prostituted his great gift to the subjugation and
oppression of his fellowman, and in his pursuit of world-
wide dominion drenched the earth in blood.
" To us as philanthropists and as patriots is offered
another and a fairer picture. For the character of Wash-
ington we cherish filial reverence and rejoice in the achieve-
ments of a soldier who fought for the liberation, and not
for the enslavement of his kind.
" To your consideration to-day is presented another
herald of freedom — a man, great in his willingness to serve
in a subordinate position, and great in his ability to fill with
distinction the highest station of danger and responsibility,
and by his strong personality, ardent patriotism and
30
courageous example, to lead armies to battle and to victory.
"We offer him as a splendid type of American — the
soldier-citizen, versed alike in the arts of war and of peace.
We feel pardonable pride in the fact that this soldier-citizen
was a native of the County of Chester, of which our own
County originally was a part.
"Anthony Wayne was born in Easttown Township,
January 1, 1745. He died at Presquisle, Erie, December 15,
1796. The intervening period between birth and death
covered one of the most momentous eras in the history
of mankind. Its opening found us a group of dependent
colonies. Its close left us a nation of free people.
"Wayne was born a subject, and died a citizen. In
the great drama that marked the transition from colony
to Commonwealth, this son of Pennsylvania, as an actor
stood very near the bright center of the stage.
" Anthony Wayne was a soldier by heredity, by natural
bent, and by reason of environment. His grandfather led
a regiment of dragoons and fought under William, of
Orange, in the Battle of the Boyne. His father repeatedly
joined in expeditions against the Indians.
"Wayne, in his early school life, was more distin-
guished as a leader in sports of a military character than
by devotion to his books. This is not strange. He was
reared in an atmosphere of strife. It was a time of wars
and rumors of war. As he emerged from infancy his mind
must have been filled and his imagination fired by stories
of the French and Indian struggle. Children breathe the
spirit of their sires. The child is father to the man; the
pastime of youth not seldom merges into the lifework of
maturity.
" For a time, however, it seemed as if such was not to
prove the case with our hero. As he approached manhood
he grew more studious, entered the Philadelphia Academy,
an institution afterward developed into the University of
Pennsylvania, and devoted himself to the science of mathe-
matics. He adopted the calling of surveyor, in which art
he became so proficient as to attract the friendly interest
of Dr. Franklin, through whose influence he, not yet of
legal age, was sent to Nova Scotia to ascertain the natural
advantages of that Province and to act as agent for a pro-
3'
ject of colonization. A satisfactory report of his investiga-
tions was followed by a grant to his company of some two
hundred thousand acres of land. Lots were laid out and
sold, a town plotted and a colony planted. He remained in
charge of the settlement till 1767. Further development
of the enterprise was arrested by the increasingly strained
relations between the Mother Country and her American
dependencies.
" Apparently drawing still further away from his des-
tined life-work, he returned to his farm and tannery at
Waynesborough, where he pursued the arts of peace until
summoned to the military activities of the Revolution.
Meanwhile his fellow citizens honored him by election to
various county offices.
" As the great crisis grew more imminent, men of in-
fluence gravitated to the control of affairs as inevitably as
water seeks its level. As we to-day look upon the animated
face and martial figure of the man, so well portrayed by
the heroic equestrian statue at Valley Forge; as we think
of his winning personality, his grace of manner, his force-
fulness of speech, the depth and positiveness of his
convictions and his uncalculating patriotism, we do not
wonder that his neighbors heaped political favors upon him
and that his soldiers gladly followed him, even to the deadly
breach — all reckless of the truth that too often, paths of
glory lead but to the grave.
" My theme is Anthony Wayne, soldier and citizen.
My aim was to sever the two and treat them separately.
But the aim has proved futile. Logically and chronologic-
ally the two are inseparably interwoven. The soldier is
the citizen, the citizen is the soldier, and the two are merged
in the patriot.
" Take an inventory of the man's activities in those
throbbing and eventful years of 1774-1775, and we see as
opposed to oppressive measures the policy of resistance,
constitutional, if adequate, by force of arms, if necessary.
Chairman of the committee proposing resolutions condemn-
ing the course of the ministry ; chairman of the committee
to carry out recommendations of the assembly in reference
to a military organization; and non-importation agree-
ment; member of the provincial convention to encourage
32
domestic manufactures, in anticipation of non-importation
of English goods ; author of the proposition that the free-
men of the county should be organized for military-
purposes ; member of the committee of safety; member
of the committee of correspondence; member of the legis-
lature. These employments by no means exhausted the
energies %f this man, destined for a yet more active field
of operations. Prior to the clash of arms he was of those
who hoped and worked for a peaceful solution of the burning
questions that agitated the mother country and her Colonies.
Even at that early date, as one of his biographers has
shrewdly phrased it, he believed in conducting negotiations
with sword in hand. Closely observing the progress of
events, he soon became convinced that the controversy could
only be settled by the arbitrament of battle. Prescient of
the coming struggle, he devoted himself to the study of
military tactics, his principal text books being Marshal
Saxe's Campaigns and Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic
Wars.
" Possessing all the ardor of a patriot, coupled with
an inborn courage and capacity for heroism, he yet realized
that raw recruits, led by inexperienced officers, however
ardent their patriotism, however elevated their heroism,
must fight an unequal battle with veteran soldiers com-
manded by generals expert in all the arts of war. Com-
bining in person and bearing all the elements of popularity,
he found no difficulty in attracting large numbers of young
men to his frequent drills. Into the minds of those young
men he instilled the principles and the technicalities of mil-
itary science. The news of Lexington and Bunker Hill
intensified patriotic fervor and the drilling and military
instruction became more assiduous and practical.
" In the exercise of a patriotic imagination let us revert
to those epochal days of the summer of 1775, when history
was in the making; when in front of, within and around
the old Town Hall, were marshalled the yeomanry of
Chester County ; when the fife and drum, the tread of armed
men awoke the echoes in old Market street, and excited to
new enthusiasm the aspirations of a liberty-loving people.
The central figure, the dominant spirit of the animated
scene is Anthony Wayne — of handsome face, flashing eyes,
33
noble physique — a man born to command; every inch a
soldier. We can understand something of his mastery over
men; something of his genius in the art and science of
military evolutions, when we know that in a few weeks of
training and instruction, he developed those volunteers into
a body of soldiers, soon, on many a bloody field, to prove
equal to the dread exigencies of war.
"Wayne was a strict disciplinarian. He brooked no
insubordination. When, later in his career, he encountered
the problem of disaffection and desertion, he met it with
characteristic energy and meted out swift and condign
punishment to all offenders. He believed firmly in the
inspiring influence of well-appointed accoutrements, and of
neatness in apparel and appearance. There is such a thing
as the psychology of dress. Some wit has declared that the
consciousness of being the most handsomely gowned woman
at a social function will afford more solid comfort to the
average woman than the assurance of her salvation.
" It is related of Dr. Joseph Parker, the great London
preacher of a past generation, that he kept in his vestry
a special suit of clothes and always donned this before
entering the pulpit. His theory was that in a very true
sense, clothes make the man, and that the public speaker
enjoys the freest mental activity and power and is most
effective and most impressive when suitably attired.
" Wayne shared this feeling, and in a letter to Washing-
ton set forth his views on the subject and his preference for
the bayonet as a weapon of warfare. He writes thus : ■ I
have an insuperable bias in favor of an elegant uniform and
soldierly appearance. So much so that I would rather risk
my life and reputation at the head of the same men, in
an attack, clothed and appointed as I could wish, merely
with bayonets and a single charge of ammunition, than
to take them as they appear in common, with sixty rounds
of cartridges.'
" Upon the eve of battle it was his order that his men
be washed, shaved and with hair cut. Sometimes the close
shave came in the midst of the conflict, but this did not
affect the principle.
" The men drilled at Chester in 1775 were soon to figure
in history as the Fourth Pennsylvania Battalion. On Janu-
34
ary 3, 1776, the Committee of Safety unanimously elected
Wayne colonel of this body. This was the opening of his
distinctively military career — a career with some inter-
missions coexistent with his remaining life; and covering
operations extending from Canada to Georgia and from
Ticonderoga to the great territory northwest of the Ohio
River.
"tn an after-dinner speech it is not expected that we
shall enter into details of a story to which historians have
devoted hundreds of pages. We can do little more than refer
to salient points in the character and achievments of a
soldier declared to have been the most picturesque figure of
the Revolution.
" The Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment was not long to
remain inactive. In the early Summer of 1776 it, with
other regiments, was ordered to Canada to reinforce the
army that had suffered defeat before Quebec. The battle
of Three Rivers was fought on June 7. The attack was
made by some fifteen hundred American troops, who
thought to surprise a British force estimated at four
hundred. It was, however, a surprise to the assailants
as they encountered three thousand men under Burgoyne.
The fighting was desperate, resulting in an American chie&t.
Wayne received the first of many wounds, but he, with other
officers, rallied their men, checked the advance of the enemy
and saved the army in Canada. His superior officers having
been captured and incapacitated by wounds, the command
devolved upon Wayne, who warded off the attacks of the
pursuing British and led his troops in safety to Ticonderoga.
" The nerve and poise that remained unbroken by
defeat, and that enabled the young officer successfully to
conduct a dignified retreat in the most trying circumstances
attracted the favorable notice of General Schuyler, who, in
November of 1776, placed Wayne in command of the fort
at Ticonderoga. Here he remained until April of 1777,
when having been commissioned a brigadier-general, he
joined Washington at Morristown and took command of the
Pennsylvania line.
" It was a critical time in our history. The English
ministry had adopted a policy the successful execution of
which might have meant the collapse of the Revolution.
35
This was the proposed junction at Albany of the armies
of Howe and Burgoyne. The plan involved the control of
New York and the Hudson River, thus bisecting the colonies
with a line of fleets and military posts extending from the
St. Lawrence to the Chesapeake. Howe's army was in New
Jersey near New York. Washington was at Morristown.
Howe's manifest course was northward. But his eyes
looked longingly at the capital. His idea was to dash across
New Jersey, seize Philadelphia, then return to New York,
meet Burgoyne and crush the Revolution.
"Washington's aim was to prevent the union of the
British forces and if possible, protect the capital city. He
was on high ground, whence he could watch the movements
of the enemy. To harass that enemy, in which ever
direction he might proceed, it was necessary to have at
hand a body of well disciplined troops, in command of an of-
ficer alert, resourceful, intelligent and able to move his men
at a moment's notice and with celerity. The Commander-in-
Chief did not hesitate in his choice. This difficult, delicate
and perilous task he assigned to General Wayne and the
Pennyslvania line. It was a campaign of successful stra-
tegy. The menacing attitude of Washington, at each sign
of activity on the part of Howe at last convinced that
general that rushing across New Jersey would prove a
hazardous enterprise. Hence he embarked at Sandy Hook
and put out to sea. Washington divined his purpose, the
reaching of Philadelphia through the Chesapeake, and sent
Wayne to Chester county to organize the militia.
" Howe reached Elkton early in September and on the
eleventh of that month the battle of the Brandywine was
fought. Through misinformation as to the movements of
the enemy, the American cause was betrayed and our army
defeated. But Wayne rendered signal service to his
country by repelling the advance of Knyphausen, and by
checking the pursuit of the main army, covered the retreat
of the Americans, who retired to Crum Lynne, near Chester.
" At Chadd's Ford the British were twenty-five miles
from Philadelphia, yet were unable to enter that city until
after fourteen days of almost constant skirmishing.
" In great measure, influenced by the advice of General
Wayne, three weeks after the American reverse at Brandy-
36
wine, Tieneral Washington electrified the world by that
brilliant and audacious attack on the British at German-
town, an attack which but for an unforeseen accident of
war, would have annihilated the English army and brought
the Revolution to a speedy and successful close.
" Brandy wine and Germantown are chronicled in his-
tory as American defeats, yet they were factors in the
masterly strategy that held Howe in Pennsylvania; that
thwarted the scheme of the English ministry and brought
disaster and defeat to Burgoyne at Saratoga.
" The two most brilliant achievements in the military
career of General Wayne were the victories at Monmouth
and Stony Point. In point of time these engagements were
a year apart. But they so well illustrate the differing
qualities that go to make up the consummate soldier, that
they may properly be considered in conjunction.
" At Monmouth the cowardice and treachery of Charles
Lee had thrown the American army into confusion. What
should have been easy victory was turned into disgraceful
retreat. Washington arrived at the psychological moment ;
halted the fleeing men and ordered Wayne to check the
pursuit until new lines of defense and attack could be
formed.
" Two assaults were successfully repulsed. Then came
that awful test of nerve and courage — the bayonet charge
at double quick. The flower of English soldiery, the Guards
and Grenadiers, par excellence the fiercest warriors of the
world, thundered across the plain with the ardor and fury
of relentless fate. It seemed a resistless force; yet that
force quailed and wavered and flew into fragments before
the moveless mass. A murderous fire mowed down those
serried columns as the scythe cuts the ripened grain. When
the conflict was over fifteen hundred British lay dead or
wounded on the field. Redcoat and Continental had met
in mortal combat and victory smiled on the patriot. Wayne
wrote joyfully to his wife : ' Pennsylvania showed the
road to victory.' We may pardon his exultant letter to
Mr. Richard Peters : ' Tell the Philadelphia ladies that the
heavenly sweet, pretty Redcoats, the accomplished gen-
tlemen of the Guards and Grenadiers have humbled them-
selves on the plains of Monmouth. '
37
" Stony Point presented an entirely different military
problem. It is one thing, in the fervor and excitement of
battle, to withstand and repulse and defeat an oncoming
foe. It is quite another thing, in the dead and darkness
of midnight, to advance noiselessly across a morass, realiz-
ing that the faintest sound will arouse the pickets and
precipitate a galling and fatal fire from vessels of war;
that escaping this, the assailants must pass two lines of
abattis, bristling with cannon, and after this must enter
a presumably impenetrable stronghold, garrisoned by vali-
ant soldiers under a capable officer. Not all of the course
was to be pursued in silence, for, simultaneously with the
bayonet charge, a warm fire of musketry was to be opened
on the center, so as to secure the attention of the enemy.
This, while a wise stratagem of war, greatly increased the
peril of the attacking party.
"Wayne, who had full charge of the movement, was
keenly conscious of the situation. He had little hope of
surviving the onset. In a pathetic, hastily written letter to
his friend Delany he said : ' This will not meet your eye
until the writer is no more. I know that friendship will
induce you to attend to the education of my little son and
daughter. I fear that their mother will not survive this
shock/ This is not the language of the reckless daredevil,
seeking danger for danger's sake. It is the sublime utter-
ance of a patriot, calmly counting the cost and placing
country above wife and children.
" The time for action came. He met his problem and
gloriously solved it. The world applauded, and history has
crystallized the achievement.
" Wayne had good cause to look kindly upon the bay-
onet as an implement of warfare. In the hands of the
British at Monmouth it was ineffective. In the hands of
the Americans at Stony Point it scaled the heights and
seized the fortress.
" Over five hundred prisoners were taken, but not one
unresisting man was put to death. When we recall the
Massacre of Paoli and the outrages in Connecticut and
Virginia, such clemency in an age when a captured garrison
expected and received no quarter, will ever redound to the
38
honor of him who never more must be called * Mad ' An-
thony.^
" The surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown occurred
October 19, 1781. Grandly significant as was this event, it
did not mark the actual cessation of hostilities. To Wayne
was assigned the task of dislodging the British in Georgia
and South Carolina. So effectually did he accomplish his
mission that by December, 1782, the enemy had evacuated
Savannah and Charleston, and with their departure came
rest and peace to the Southern colonies.
" After ten years of private life, in the course of which
he was a member of the Council of Censors and also a mem-
ber of the Pennsylvania Convention assembled to ratify
the Constitution, he was once more summoned to military
service.
" The Indians in the territory west of the Ohio River,
instigated by the British in the garrisons on the lakes,
were inflicting fiendish cruelties upon our frontier settlers.
Fifteen hundred of these had been massacred in seven years.
The aim of the British and Indians was to make the Ohio
the permanent boundary of the United States. To prevent
a recurrence of these atrocities ; to defeat this aim, was the
two-fold purpose and policy of our government. President
Washington placed this burden on the shoulders of his old
friend and companion in arms. He commissioned Wayne
Major-General in command of the army of the United
States. The veteran patriot accepted the trust and under-
took the arduous task. Details are needless. The result
is known to history. The murdered settlers were avenged.
Savagery was crushed. The British posts at Detroit, Os-
wego and Niagara were abandoned. More significant than
all was the consecration of that ' magnificent national do-
main of the West ' to the purposes and employments of
civilized life. We offer heartfelt response to the noble
sentiment of Dr. Stille : ' The millions of freemen who
now occupy the energetic and vigorous Commonwealths
lying between the Ohio and the Mississippi should cherish
the memory of Wayne as that of the man who by his sword
made it possible for white men to live in peace and security
in that garden spot of the world/
" This achievement, brilliant in execution and far-
39
reaching in effect, was the last and crowning service of
this apostle of freedom.
" General Wayne died at Presquisle, Erie, December
15, 1796. His remains were removed to St. David's Church,
Radnor, where they rest under a monument, on whose
south front is this inscription :
" ' In honor of the distinguished military services of
Major-General Anthony Wayne, and as a tribute of respect
to his memory, this stone was erected by his companions
in arms, The Pennsylvania State Society of The Cincinnati,
July 4, A. D. 1809, Thirty-fourth anniversary of the Inde-
pendence of the United States, an event which constitutes
the most appropriate eulogium of an American soldier and
patriot." (Applause.)
Mr. Edward Stalker Sayers : " Mr. President, I move
that the thanks of the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania
and that of the Swedish Colonial Society be tendered to
the gentlemen of those Societies, residents of Chester, for
all that we have enjoyed this afternoon, both physically
and mentally."
There was a general seconding of the motion.
President Page: " It has been moved and seconded
that the thanks of the two Societies represented here to-day
be extended to the members of these Societies, residents
of Chester, for this delightful occasion. Those in favor
of the motion will signify by saying aye. The motion is
carried unanimously."
On motion adjourned.
4 o
(Eolmnal ^atkty of Pams||iframa
OFFICERS
President,
Hon. Samuel Davis Page
First Vice-President,
Abraham Lewis Smith
Second Vice-President,
Col. Josiah Granville Leach
Registrar,
Gregory Bernard Keen
Secretary,
Henry Heston Belknap
Assistant Secretary,
Aubrey Herbert Weightman
Jreasurer,
Harrold Edgar Gillingham
Councillors :
Gen- Louis Henry Carpenter, Ogden Dungan Wilkinson,
William Brooke Rawle, William Penn-Gaskell Hall,
Effingham Buckley Morris, John Woolf Jordan,
Earl Bill Putnam, Hon. Norris Stanley Barratt,
Charles Smith Turnbull, M. D., William Supplee Lloyd,
Henry Pemberton, Jr., Clarence Sweet Bement,
Hon. Charles Barnsley McMichael, Charles Davis Clark,
Stevenson Hockley Walsh, James Emlen,
Hon. Harman Yerkes, Henry Graham Ashmead.
4*
MEMBERS
Charles Yarnall Abbott,
Richard Jacobs Allen, Jr.,
William Charles Allen,
Duffield Ashmead, Jr.,
Henry Graham Ashmead,
Charles Weaver Bailey,
Joseph Trowbridge Bailey,
Westcott Bailey,
Dr. George Fales Baker,
George W. Banks,
Paul Henry Barnes,
Norris Stanley Barratt (Life Mem-
ber),
Clarence Howard Batten,
George Batten,
Frank Battles (Life Member),
Henry Heston Belknap,
Maurice Guy Belknap,
Clarence Sweet Bement,
Amos Bonsall,
Edward Home Bonsall,
George Martin Booth,
Newell Charles Bradley,
Edward Tonkin Bradway (Life Mem
ber),
William Bradway (Life Member),
Clarence Cresson Brinton,
Howard Futhey Brinton,
Francis Mark Brooke (Life Member),
Abraham Bruner,
John Edgar Burnett Buckenham
(Life Member),
Reuben Nelson Buckley,
Miers Busch (Life Member),
Edward Tatnall Canby,
Gen. Louis Henry Carpenter,
Samuel Castner, Jr.,
Charles Davis Clark,
John Browning Clement,
Samuel Mitchell Clement, Jr.,
Dr. James Harwood Closson,
Louis Ashmead Clyde,
Col. Thomas Edward Clyde,
Major Joseph Ridgway Taylor Coates,
Samuel Poyntz Cochran,
Charles Howard Colket (Life Mem
ber),
Porter Farquharson Cope,
Dr. John Welsh Croskey,
George Linden Cutler,
Dr. John C. Da Costa, Jr.,
Walter Howard Dilks,
Murrell Dobbins,
Francis Donaldson (Life Member),
Edwin Greble Dreer,
William Ashmead Dyer,
George Howard Earle (Life Member),
Henry Howard Ellison,
James Emlen (Life Member),
John Eyerman,
Frederic N. Fell,
Percy J. Fell,
Thomas Castor Foster,
Stephen Blakely Fotterall,
Howard Barclay French,
Henry Jonathan Abbott Fry,
Lawrence Barnard Fuller,
Charles Cyrus Gelder,
William Warren Gibbs,
Harrold Edgar Gillingham,
Theodore Glenthworth,
Foster Conarroe Griffith,
Lorenzo Henry Cardwell Guerrero,
William Penn-Gaskell Hall,
Hiram Hathaway, Jr.,
Paul Augustine Hendry,
George Anthony Heyl,
■Edward Stratton Holloway,
Wilford Lawrence Hoopes,
Logan Howard -Smith,
Robert Spurrier Howard- Smith,
Edward Isaiah Hacker Howell,
Henry Douglas Hughes,
Henry La Barre Jayne,
Charles Francis Jenkins (Life Mem-
ber),
John Story Jenks,
Richmond Legh Jones,
Augustus Wolle Jordan,
Dr. Ewing Jordan,
John Woolf Jordan (Life Member),
Rev. Walter Jordan,
Gregory Bernard Keen,
George de Benneville Keim,
Joseph Allison Kneass,
Thomas Hon! Knight,
Albert Ludlow Kramer,
George Henry Lea,
Col. Josiah Granville Leach,
-Horace Hoffman Lee,
Dr. Joseph Leidy,
Howard Thorndike Leland,
Lewis Jones Levick,
Davis Levis Lewis,
Ellis Smyser Lewis,
George Davis Lewis,
George Harrison Lewis,
Henry Norton Lewis,
42
Oborn Garrett Levis Lewis,
Samuel Bunting Lewis,
Jay Bucknell Rppincott,
Walter Lippincott,
William Supplee Lloyd,
Charles Ramsay Long,
William Henry Lloyd,
William MacLean, Jr.,
Charles Marshall,
Samuel Marshall,
William McKinley Mervine,
Hon. Charles Barnsley McMichael,
Ulysses Mercur,
Charles Warren Merrill,
Elihu Spencer Miller,
John Rulon- Miller,
Caleb Jones Milne, Jr. (Life Member),
Caleb Jones Milne, 3d (Life Member),
David Milne (Life Member),
Effingham Buckley Morris (Life Mem
ber),
Henry Croskey Mustin,
John Burton Mustin,
Samuel Davis Page,
Charles Palmer,
Alvin Mercer Parker,
Joseph Brooks Bloodgood Parker,
Harold Pierce,
Henry Pemberton, Jr. (Life Member),
Garnett Pendleton,
Enos Eldridge Pennock,
Joseph Eldridge Pennock,
Hon. Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker,
Charles Penrose Perkins,
Anthony Joseph Drexel Peterson,
Arthur Peterson, U. S. N.,
Frank Rodney Pleasanton,
Alfred Potter,
Thomas Harris Powers,
Earl Bill Putnam,
William Brooke Rawle,
Paul Rittenhouse,
Harry Alden Richardson,
Harry Rogers,
Wilbur Fisk Rose,
Julius Friedrich Sachse (Honorary
Member),
Edward Stalker Sayres,
Frank Earle Schermerhorn,
John Loeser Schwartz,
John Morris Scott (Life Member),
Frank Rodman Shattuck,
Herbert Davis Shivers,
Charles John Shoemaker,
John Henry Sinex,
John Sinnott,
Abraham Lewis Smith,
Alfred Percival Smith (Life Member),
Benjamin Hayes Smith,
William Elwood Speakman,
Warner Justice Steel,
Joseph Allison Steinmetz,
Curwen Stoddart,
Joseph Thompson,
■Samuel Swayne Thompson,
Hon. Charlemagne Tower,
David Cooper Townsend,
Dr. Charles Smith Turnbull,
Ernest Leigh Tustin,
Arthur Clements Twitchell,
Elwood Tyson,
Dr. James Tyson,
Theodore Anthony Van Dyke, Jr.
(Life Member),
Joseph Bushnell Vandergrift,
Dr. Charles Harrod Vinton (Life Mem-
ber),
Stevenson Hockey Walsh,
Charles Spittall Walton,
Clement Weaver,
Aubrey Herbert Weightman,
Eben Boyd Weitzel,
Ashbel Welch,
William Caner Wiedersheim,
Ogden Dungan Wilkinson,
Charles Williams,
Ellis D. Williams,
William Currie Wilson,
Hon. William White Wiltbank,
Hon. Harman Yerkes (Life Member),
ra*r BBSEPr 0F CALIP0ENIA
BERKELEY
LIBEAEY
APH 10 | t22
i'EC le,o,
USRAty Uf€
FEB 2 7 1960
i
FE3 27iaaa
EC'D ld!
JUN 1 9 1961
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