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ScHEYlCHBI AND THE StRAND,
OR
EARLY DAYS ALONG THE DELAWARE.
WITH
AN ACCOUNT OF RECENT EVENTS AT SEA GROVE.
CX)NTAINING
SKETCHES OF THE ROMANTIC ADVENTURES OF THE PIONEER COLONISTS; THE WON
DERFUL ORIGIN OF AMERICAN SOCIETY AND CIVILIZATION; THE REMARKABLE
COURSE OF POLITICAL PROGRESS AND MATERIAL IMPROVEMENT IN THE
UNITED STATES, AS SHOWN IN THE HISTORY OF NEW JERSEY, WITH
PROOF OF THE SAFETY AND BENEFIT OF DEMOCRATIC INSTITU-
TIONS, AND THE NECESSITY OF RELIGIOUS FREEDOM.
TO WHICH IS APPENDED A GEOLOGICAL DESCRIPtlON OF THE
SHORE OF NEW JERSEY.
BY
EDWARD S. WHEELER.
ILLUSTRATED WITH TWELVE FULL-PAGE ENGRAVINGS, FROM ORIGINAL
DRAWINGS BY D. B. GULICK, CHARLES W. KNAPP, AND OTHERS.
PRESS OF J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO.
PHILADELPHIA:
1876.
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Copyright, 1876, by EDWARD S. WHEELER.
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DEDICATION.
TO MY CHRISTIAN FRIENDS.
who, firm in the faith themselves, can nevertheless respect the convictions of
others ; to earnest Christians whose spiritual trust and faith is so perfect,
they have no fear any fact can disprove truth, or human error annul
the divine law ; to Christians whose character honors their creed,
whose fairness and honesty command regard, while their
kindness and courtesy inspire fraternal love; to all
who love truth better than their own conceit ; to all
who reverence God more than any theory ; to all
who seek the good, the true, and beautiful
themselves, and devoutly labor for the
welfare and eternal happiness of hu-
manity, I dedicate this volume.
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ERRATA AND CORRIGENDA.
On page 5, 26th line, for '^its citizens discovered" read: their citizens
discovered.
On page 8, ^26. line, for '*the discoveries" read : the discoverers.
On page 16, 28th line, for ''Peterzen" read : Pieterzen.
On page 19, 4th line, for *' catalogue" read : catalogues.
On page 55, 30th line, for *'home and asylum of those who had deprived
him of liberty and life" read : asylum of those who had deprived his people
of liberty and life.
On page 63, 42d line, for '* 1852" read : 1822.
On page T07, nth line, for ** seventeen" read: seven.
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PREFACE.
Every work should be justified by its usefulness and recommended
by the manner of its performance.
Criticism of literary style is averted from this little book, since nice
elaboration of details, and smooth, consistent unity of parts, with a
high degree of literary finish, are impossible in a volume made diverse
by the requirements of its purpose and desultory by needful brevity.
I have been disinterested in that of which I have written, and left
entirely free to follow my own taste and judgment in regard to matter
and manner, being bound in agreement with those concerned only that
I should serve their purpose by *' truthful representations" alone.
Thus directed and encouraged in pursuing the course congenial to
my feelings and conscience, I have tried to present only the facts of
science and the truth of history, knowing them to be stranger than
fiction, and in simple statement more wonderful and interesting than
the most remarkable works of imagination.
Although an observer of the things I have described so far as they
exist in the present, it would be absurd to put forward any claim to
original discovery. I have gathered from many sources, but think a
display of authorities would be out of place ; yet, it is true, I have been
more inquisitive than the result may indicate. Errors are possible,
even when care is taken to be accurate, and mistakes are not at all
inconsistent with an honest purpose ; still, if misrepresentations exist
in this work they are unknown, and as the motive has been consci-
entious, and the effort earnest, I believe the consideration due reliability
is deserved by all herein published.
But whatever discrepancies may mar the printed pages, there is no
occasion to criticise the illustrations for misrepresentation. They are
mostly drawn from photographic views, taken on the spot, with micro-
scopic fidelity, by artistic operators, and have been faithfully repro-
duced by the draughtsman and engraver. They may, therefore, be
looked upon as giving a correct idea of the physical features of the
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vi PREFACE.
beautiful locality in which they were taken, and the varied structures
which utilize and decorate the neighborhood.
Whoever has loitered along the shore of the summer sea, seeking
rest and recreation therefrom, has, when feeling his soul stirred by the
grandeur and loveliness of the scene, longed for some magic art which
could fix forever the transient glories of evanescent beauty in his mind,
making his memory thus the picture-gallery of nature.
This may not be, but somewhat has been done to recall the features
of the seascape where, in the bygone summer, so many earnest. Chris-
tian souls " took sweet counsel together," amid the healing breezes and
peaceful surroundings of the consecrated Sea Grove.
Neither the artist's pencil nor the photographer's skill can reproduce
all that presented itself before the delighted vision. No art can imitate
the tenderness of the dawn across the sea, or do justice to the resplen-
dence with which the sun sank among the western waves on quiet
Sabbath evenings ; but all this may be suggested to the sense, and with
many memory will fill the picture with colors true to nature, and even
recall the friends who shared their summer vacation.
Again, as they look upon the pictures of our unpretending book,
they will hear in memory the voice of exhortation and the music of
praise, mingling with the undertone of the unceasing surges. Again
they will enter the broad pavilion, and, pausing but to offer a word of
prayer for all who share not in their religious blessings, bow the soul
in devotion to partake of the union communion service with their
numerous friends of many churches.
To awaken such reminiscences in those who know Sea Grove and
its associations by residence there, and to increase their interest and
pleasure in the place by bringing before them many facts pertaining to
their favorite resort, is the purpose of this book ; besides, it is requisite
that all who need the sea-side privileges of rest and cheerful recreation
should be informed where they can secure them at their convenience,
reasonably, without annoying contact with demoralizing dissipations,
as distasteful to the thoughtful as they are wearisome and hurtful to
the invalid, and physically and spiritually unprofitable to all.
Trusting that these ends may be fully served to the common benefit,
and that something of instruction and refined gratification may be
incidental thereto, the author with pleasure presents his work to an en-
lightened public.
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SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
History evinces the exceeding potency of religious ideas, as a cause
of material progress; as the phenomena of Nature manifest the power
of the Infinite Spirit.
Curiosity, avarice, and ambition induce exploration and discovery;
stimulate enterprise; found and foster states; but fanaticism, faith, and
spiritual convictions are the world's pioneers ; these move more pro-
foundly the passions of mankind, quicken higher and intenser energies,
and develop more sublime results.
Fanaticism, the fungi of religious growth, provokes the bigot to
draw the sword of exterminating conquest, changing the character and
boundaries of nations ; the mad zealot lights the fires of persecution,
expatriating the flower of a country's population, who carry religion
and the arts into their place of banishment. Devotion inspires the
propaganda, and missionaries penetrate the antipodean wilderness,
domicile among barbarians, and plant civilization to flourish above
their martyr graves. Faith feeds the courage of the believer, and
impels to self-consecration ; fired by religious enthusiasm, bound by
stern conviction, and led by the *' inward light," the dissenting Hugue-
not, the Covenanter, the Puritan, and the Quaker dare the ocean, the
desert, and the savage, in search of a home of righteousness, for free-
dom and for peace. Hope stimulates them, a religious purpose sus-
tains them ; they confront every peril, endure every trial, survive all
suffering, outlive every hinderance, and triumph at last over every
difficulty in the adorable name of God!
§ Prophesied in the rhapsodies and inspirations of the seers of all
ages; mysteriously reported in the literature of Asia in the early dawn
of the Christian era; celebrated obscurely in the historic runes of the
heroic Scandinavian sea-kings a thousand years ago, and claimed by
Icelandic and Danish historians as the familiar haunt of their fore-
fathers for many centuries, — the Western Hemisphere long nourished
on its soil nations who imitated the architecture of Egypt, perpetuated
the religious rites of Tyre, and may have shared in the commerce of
the Orient. On the shores of the Western World, it has been claimed,
was mined the gold of Ophir for the temple of Solomon ; while the
3
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4 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
broad plains of its continents received, it is said, the lost and wandering
ten tribes of Israel.
Reflecting dubiously the life of unknown ages, from the sculptured
sides and hieroglyphic ornaments of its antique and symbolic monu-
ments, America inspires the imagination, but compels the mind to drift
unsatisfied over its vast and significant ruins, back into the twilight of
tradition and the night of pre-historic oblivion. The plains of America
are marked by the work of a race without a record ; its great valleys
covered with traces of a numerous and active population, and yet they
have no chronicle. The American forests tower above the ruins of
large cities whose civilization is evident from their architecture, — still
the hosts of citizens have passed away: their origin, their history, and
their fate conjecture alone can intimate.
But, if the past of America is perplexing to the antiquarian, dubious
in historic twilight, or hid in the darkness of time and barbarism, its
modern life is clearly defined and of thrilling interest. Here are no
monuments of an enduring civilization, linking the present, generation
by generation, to the remote past; no vast collections of splendid
volumes, the record of a people's ancient glory; no empire, one in
faith and one in government for a thousand years, — all is new, primi-
tive, incomplete; but there are young states in America proud as Rome,
more free than Athens; there are a hundred great, luxurious, and
growing cities ; there are public works that open up the long sought
passage to India, and millions of happy homes, of the best provided,
most intelligent, free, and independent people.
It is less than four centuries since the voyages of Columbus; the
history is brief, but the advance has been rapid, the development
immense. Each American generation has done the work of a hundred
years, and each century has become an era in civilization, an epoch in
history. To compile and elaborate the record of such an advance, and
educe the principles of progress from the facts of social and political
evolution, is the congenial and proper work of philosophic scholars,
and acute and comprehensive minds have employed themselves therein
with usefulness and honor.
It is not the purpose of the writer to ape the great historiographers,
vbut he may modestly hope to add a reliable note to the materials of
ihistory, suggest some practical inference, or inspire an appropriate
^reflection, just as the wandering but observant Indian, though unskilled
to build the monument of a nation, still faithfully places a votive pebble
upon the growing mound which tells of the greatness of his tribe.
However little the present publication may add to the vast sum of
.historic knowledge, it at least indicates the causes which have fostered
American liberty, and manifests the nature and temper of a free
people as the energetic cause of moral improvements and unexampled
material progress; this appears in the history herein given of the
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THE REDISCOVERY OF AMERICA,
5
settlement of the valley of the Delaware, especially in New Jersey, and
conclusively in the interesting and detailed account of the develop-
ments of Sea Grove, — that beautiful and prosperous town having been
instituted entirely in keeping with the spirit of the representative men
composing the Association which bears its name.
§ The discovery of America was prehistoric; its unrecorded monu-
ments, ruins, and sculptured rocks were antiquated when, in 1492,
Columbus voyaged to the West Indies, and various nations and races
had already left the traces of their visits and occupancy at a number
of widely separated localities upon the two Western Continents. The
modern history of America begins with the voyages of the inspired
navigator of Genoa. The rediscovery of the Western Hemisphere
commanded the attention of the civilized world; aroused the emula-
tion of nations, and the ambition of kings ; it inflamed the spirit of
the adventurous and enterprising; kindled the imagination of the
enthusiastic ; awakened the hopes of the people ; encouraged the
aspirations of liberal statesmen, and actualized the dreams of the
philanthropist.
India was the prize Europe coveted four hundred years ago. Colum-
bus sailed for Cathay, and supposed he landed on its eastern shore, —
"the beginning and the end of India." His voyages for a short route
to India discovered America; the search for a northwest passage
explored the shores of the ** New World."
In the time of Columbus it was the uncertain international law of
Christendom, that Christian nations became entitled to any land or
country^iHl citizens discovered, took possession of and occupied, unless
It was already the territory of other Christians. This presumptuous
claim of the exclusive right of a sect, as such, to the secular owner-
ship of the whole world, was a political device, and, though endorsed
by popes and approved by bishops, was at once absurd, impudent, and
irreligious; but the heresy had a natural origin, and, becoming a dogma
and an apology, developed an awful historic sequence.
Numerous as the voyages of discovery to America were, and impor-
tant as trade became, for more than a hundred and fifty years after
Columbus, gross ignorance of the Western Hemisphere characterized
the action of even the courts and kings of Europe. Under the name
of the " West Indies," two vast and rich continents were long regarded
as but troublesome islands in the way of voyages to India, and frequent
and conflicting royal grants afterwards assumed to convey, in an impos-
sible manner, possession of the territories of America from ocean to
ocean, the grantors having the untroubled conceit that the average
width of the continent was no more than about three hundred miles.
Under the pretext supplied by the voyages of Columbus, Alexander
VI., '* the worst of the popes," assuming to be the temporal as well as
spiritual head of Christendom, pretended to invest Spain with regal
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6 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
possession in perpetuity of all heathen lands found, or to be discovered,
to the west of a meridian three hundred and seventy leagues westward
of the Azores. In insolent and fanatical assertion of her declared
rights, which, thus derived, became a matter of religious faith, Spain
undertook to monopolize the trade of the West Indies and control
the navigation of the high seas. Hence, Portugal colonized and
traded only in part of Brazil, her minute allotment of all the vast
"Indies;" and so, in defense of the faith enshrined in her Papal mon-
opoly, the fleets of Spain pirated all vessels they overhauled sailing the
Atlantic to her pretended exclusive possessions. At the same time
Spanish kings made war upon Protestant maritime nations in a way
that left enterprising Holland no chance for existence but in her defeat,
and compelled England to sail to commercial and naval supremacy
over the sunken hulks of the " Invincible Armada."
§ Although Balthazar Moucheron, of Holland, and his associates,
patrons of discovery, moved by the terrible sufferings and failures of
their explorers, about the year 1600 abandoned as hopeless the quest
for a northern route to India, the immense importance of such a pas-
sage was obvious, and the Danes and English continued the resolute
search. The directors of the prosperous and powerful Dutch East
India Company, then in full operation, shared the notions of their
cotemporaries, and, overruling the experienced Moucheron and his
Zeeland partisans, the Amsterdam members of the Directory, jealous
of Denmark and England, decided the Company to seek for itself a
safer and more convenient way to their remote places of traffic. The
stockholders of the East India Company had received in one year a
dividend of seventy-five per cent, on their investment; they could well
afford a venture which promised even greater facilities to their business.
By orders from the Directory at Amsterdam, a very fast sailing vessel
named " De Halve Maan," or Half Moon, of forty lasts or eighty tons,
a " vlie-boat," having two masts, such as were constructed especially
for difficult navigation in sounds and rivers, was fitted for an arctic
voyage. For a schipper, or commander, Henry Hudson, an English-
man, who had already made two such adventures, was engaged. The
under schipper, or mate, was a Dutchman, and the vlie-boat was
manned by twenty men, English and Dutch. Robert Juet sailed with
Hudson as his clerk, and became the historian of the voyage. The
De Halve Maan was ordered to look for a passage by the northeast or
northwest to China, the Directors trusting Hudson to find some way
past Nova Zembla, or some strait or channel between the islands of the
West Indies, by which their fleets of Dutch East Indiamen, fearless of
Spanish interference, could bear directly to India and all the Orient the
products of Europe in profitable exchange for the pearls of the Asiatic
Archipelago, the diamonds of Golconda, the lawns of the Deccan, and
the spices of Cathay.
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VOYAGE OF THE VLIE-BOAT. 7
Accompanied by his only son, Hudson, hailing from Amsterdam, set
sail the 4th of April, 1609, for the northeast of Norway. He left the
Texel on the 6th of April, and doubled the cape of Norway on the 5th
of May. Finding his way toward Nova Zembla obstructed by vast ice-
bergs, and his ship crowded out of her course by great fields of moving
ice, Hudson ran the Half Moon to the west and south. Passing
through a great fleet of French fishermen off Newfoundland, and
touching at several points on the coast of New England, he arrived off
the Chesapeake in the middle of August. Hudson's old friend. Captain
John Smith, had given him a map of Virginia, on which, somewhere to
the north of the Chesapeake, a strait was laid down, by which Smith
was confident the Pacific Ocean could be reached. Knowing himself
to be in the neighborhood of the settlement of his countrymen and
friends at Jamestown, Hudson put his ship about, August i8th, and
kept along the coast to the north again. The Half Moon entered
Delaware Bay August 28th, which Hudson slightly explored and
sounded, making observations of its shores, but without landing.
Finding he could not sail his vlie-boat from Sea Grove to San Fran-
cisco, and hence that the Delaware was not the passage to Cathay,
Hudson coasted to the north along the Jersey shore, and on the 3d of
September anchored inside of Sandheuken, or Sandy Hook, where he
remained a week, and was frequently visited by the Indians. From
this anchorage the Half Moon sailed into the bay of New York, still
being visited by the Indians, whom Hudson and his crew taught, as
their first lesson in civilization, — how to get drunk.
Hudson examined the Hudson River for twenty-two days, his boats
going up twenty-five or thirty miles above Albany, and then, having
made sure that neither Hell Gate nor the Hudson were a water-way to
Hindustan, he, on the 4th of October, put out to sea, and, in conse-
quence of the dissensions of his crew, finally decided to set sail for
Holland.
The Half Moon with her motley and mutinous company, of whom
Hudson became afraid, put into Dartmouth, in England, where, the
Dutch assert, she was detained and Hudson kept through the jealousy
of James I. Hudson, however, sent a brilliant report of his voyage to
his employers in Holland, in which he speaks of the country he
visited as " most beautiful," '* het scoonste land dat men met voeten
betreden kon," etc. Whoever has voyaged up the *' Great River of the
Mountains,", above New York, by the Catskills, or yachted in August
off Sea Grove and up Delaware Bay, where the vlie-boat De Halve
Maan cruised in that month long ago, will certainly agree with him.
During his fourth voyage of discovery, made from England in 1610,
Hudson with his only son and eight men, four of them being sick, was
driven by mutineers from his ship, the Discovery, into an unprovisioned
boat and cast loose among the ice, mid-seas in Hudson's Bay. There
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8 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
the brave and persistent navigator must have cruelly and miserably
perished.
Could he but voyage once more out of the cold and ice-bound Arctic
seas, how overwhelming would be his astonishment! At the extreme
point of Cape May he saw, with admiration, long ago, the green woods
crowd down to the sandy strand, and from the primeval forest the
wondering Kechemeches stare out, thinking his ship the canoe of their
Manitou. There he would now look in amazement upon the broad
avenues and handsome cottages of Sea Grove ; he would see hotels and
pavilions in the place of savage wigwams, and hear the Sabbath bell,
the organ, and the Christian hymn, instead of "the gaunt wolf's long-
drawn howl" along the shore, or the war-whoop of the exultant savage.
" The bay of the south river was the first place of which the men of
the Half Moon took possession, before any Christian had been there,'*
says Vander Donk, the historian ; and the claim of the Dutch to the
adjoining territories by right of discovery was based upon the assumed
accuracy of the statement. Hudson may have been the first to form-
ally take possession of the Zuydt Baai, as the Hollanders called the
bay of Delaware, but Cabot, Cortereal, Verazzani, Captain John Smith,
and others, had at various times carefully observed the shores and
harbors of "Virginia," and cruised along the coast to the north;
besides, it is historical that very early, scores of years before the voy-
ages of Hudson, "there was hardly a convenient harbor on the whole
Atlantic frontier of the United States which was not entered by
slavers." It seems that Hudson, following, perhaps unconsciously, in
the wake of others, merely took possession of the unrecorded dis-
coveries of some unknown navigator.
§ In answer to the petitions of a number of merchants, a general
edict was issued by the States General of Holland, March 27th, 1614,
for the encouragement of discovery and the protection of aboriginal
trade. It was enacted by the High and Mighty States General that
the discoverw^of " any new courses, havens, countries, or places"
should have " the exclusive privilege of resorting to and frequenting
the same for four voyages," and all intruders were to be punished by
confiscation and fines. A number of merchants, chiefly of Amster-
dam, thereupon formed a partnership to make discoveries and carry
on trade to new countries, and five vessels were fitted out to follow in
the track of Hudson to Manhattan. One of these, named the Fortune,
was from Hoorn, a port in North Holland, and commandod by Corne-
lis Jacobsen Mey ; another ship, also called the Fortune, was in
charge of Commander Hendrick Christiaensen ; a third, named the
Tiger, was sailed by Captain Adriaen Block. Arriving at the mouth
of the Hudson, Block's vessel was accidentally destroyed by fire. To
retrieve this misfortune, he erected a few huts at Castle Garden, and
began to construct a yacht of about sixteen tons burthen, of the fine
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THE FIRST VESSEL BUILT AT NEW YORK, g
timber he found there, the Indians kindly feeding him and his men, all
the winter of 1613. May, in the mean time, cruised to the eastward,
coasted along the southern shore of Long Island, and continued his
trip to Martha's Vineyard, then called " Capacke" by the natives.
Upon the completion of his new craft, the Onrust, or Restless, Block
sailed through the East River and Hell Gate, where he led the way as
a pilot, and through Long Island Sound, observing the coasts, harbors,
islands, rivers, and waters, as far as Cape Cod, the promontory to
which Hudson, in the summer of 1609, had given the name of " New
Holland." Block ascertained that Long Island was sea-girt, and visited
many other remarkable places along the New England coast. The
records of the voyages of the consort ships, the Fortune, the Little
Fox, and Nightingale, in 161 3 and 1614, are imperfect and unreliable.
The name of Block Island perpetuates the memory of its persistent
and intrepid discoverer, the first man to run a keel through Hell Gate,
and the first " Long Island Sound Pilot." The shores which Block
surveyed, and which Holland first colonized, have been for two cen-
turies or more, as now, ** the land of steady habits," the home of in-
dustry, prosperity, intelligence, and freedom, — a ** New Holland,"
indeed, a " New England" as well. They are glorious by day with
many a fair town and city, and sparkle at night with scores of shining
beacons, while over the seas the Dutchman slowly navigated speeds
in ceaseless succession a numerous fleet of** floating palaces," the best,
the safest, and most magnificent steamboats in the world.
The ** Riestless," built at Manhattan, in 1614, was thirty-eight feet in
the keel, forty-four and one-half feet from stem to stern, and eleven
and one-half feet wide. She was remarkable as the first vessel built in
the harbor of New York, but was not, as has been written, ** the first
decked vessel built in the old United States," the ** Virginia," of " Saga-
dahoc," of thirty tons, a "pretty pinnace," having been built by '* one
Digby, of London," at St. George's, — Sir George Popham's settlement,
— at the mouth of the Penobscot River, in the winter of 1607. Still, the
Restless was a notable craft, for she sailed in the van of a countless
fleet, which for two hundred and fifty years has stood out from the
northern coast of the United States to astonish the navigators of Eu-
rope by the excellence of American ships, and furnish models for the
improvement of the naval architecture of the world. Of all the many
fine ships which have done honor to American shipwrights, a credita-
ble share have been launched in the waters of the Delaware. Since
the " iron age" of shipbuilding, the craftsmen of its shores have made
their names honorably known from London to the " city of Pekin,"
and now compete with England and Scotland for supremacy in trade,
confident of surpassing the industries of the Clyde on the banks of
the Delaware.
The Restless explored her way to ** Pye Bay," now Nahant Bay,
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lO SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
Massachusetts; there she fell in with Christiaensen's ship, the Fortune,
also on a cruise. Leaving the Restless in command of Cornelis Hen-
dricksen, to be used in exploring on the coast and in the rivers, Block
returned to North Holland and made his report to his employers.
From his sketches and descriptions an elaborate " Figurative Map" was
made, and laid before the States General, with a request for a charter
for those who had procured the discovery of the lands delineated upon
it, without delay. A special grant, dated October nth, 1614, was
made to the Amsterdam partnership ; they were conceded the monop-
oly of trade from forty to forty-five degrees north latitude on the coasts
of America. The partnership took the title of "The United New
Netherland Company." The territory assigned them was called New
Netherland. At the same time, at Manhaddoes, or Manhattan, their
principal fort was named " New Amsterdam.'*
The first vessel built at Manhattan was the first to cruise the Dela-
ware. Hudson, in 1609, was too fearful of getting aground to attempt
explorations in Zuydt Baai, though less timid in the Noordt Riviere.
Argall, on his return from his mysterious cruise in 1610, remained but
a day at anchor in the Delaware, leaving the same evening for the
Chesapeake, but, in 16 16, circumstances led to an exploration of the
Poutaxit. It happened that three fur traders, agents, of the New
Netherland Company, having left Fort Nassau (near Albany), and
made their way along Indian trails to the mouth of the Schuylkill,
were there kept prisoners; news of this reaching I^anhattan, the
Restless was sent from the Mauritius River, under commaiid of Cor-
nelis Hendricksen, to ransom the adventurous captives. Block had
constructed the Onrust for shallow waters and inland navigation;
so Hendricksen, on his arrival at Zuydt Baai, coasted fearlessly along
the western shore, making careful observations, bartering with the
natives for seal-skins and sables, and being delighted with the scenery,
climate, and vegetable productions of the valley, until he arrived at
Coaquannock, " the place of tall pines," now central Philadelphia; there
he found and ransomed his countrymen for "kettles, beads, and other
merchandise."
The people at Manhattan now called the Delaware River New, South,
or "Zuydt" River, and the southern Cape of Zuydt Baai, now called
Henlopen, was soon known as Cape Cornelis, after Cornelis Hendrick-
sen. A point some miles south of Cape Cornelis was named Hinlopen,
in honor of Thymen Jacobsen Hinlopen, of Amsterdam, one of the
" Northern Company," engaged in the whale fisheries and explorations,
by which Block was employed on his return from America. Cape
Hinlopen was also called Inloopen by the Dutch schippers, because
it seemed to recede from sight when approached from the sea. The
names of these capes have been transferred, and the name of Henlopen
is now borne by the point at first named Cornelis.
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ORIGIN OF THE NAME OF CAPE MAY. n
§ In 1620, Cornelius Jacobsen May, who in 1614 commanded the
Fortune of Hoorn in the explorations along the coast east of Man-
hattan, came again to New Netherland in a new vessel called the
'*Blyde Boodschap," or Glad Tidings. This voyage was intended for
the exploration of territories to the west of and below Manhattan, and
those south of the fortieth degree to "Virginia," and was made to
include Zuydt Baai and the Chesapeake, which the Blyde Boodschap
ascended, and went up the James River to Jamestown. May carefully
examined the bay and river of the Delaware, where Hendricksen had
preceded him four years before, and then returning to Holland early
in the summer of 1620, announced the discovery of ''certain new
populous and fruitful lands" along the Zuydt Riviere. The Poutaxit,
Zuydt, or Delaware Bay, as the Indians, Dutch, and English had
named it, was after this called "Njeuw Port Mey," and the name of
'* Cape Mey" was given to the southern point of New Jersey, then as
now ''the best bathing place in the world."
May, as Hendricksen had done, indeed as every one does who visits
Cape May in summer, found the climate charming. It was the highest
compliment they could imagine, when the Dutch explorers, a home-
loving though voyaging people, declared the climate of the Delaware
was "like to that of Holland;" as good as home. As it happened,
both the nomen and cognomen of Cornelius Jacobsen May were
applied to capes at the mouth of the Delaware, but the name of
Cornelius, given in honor of Hendricksen, has been thrust aside and
made insignificant, while the fame of Cape May has become world-
wide, and summer by summer its increasing attractions add to its
popularity, as time multiplies its appreciative visitors.
§ The principles of the Lutheran Reformation gave permanence and
character to the colonization of the United States ; the hand of perse-
cution pointed the way to New Netherland, and the valleys of the Hud-
son and the Delaware became an asylum from ecclesiastical despotism
even while the Puritans of New England, jealous of their own freedom,
denied liberty to others. When, in 1623, the great Dutch West India
Company, complete in organization, sought to people its territories, the
victims of persecution offered themselves as its first and most desirable
emigrants.
When the Hollanders, after their revolt against Spain and the Inqui-
sition, in 1565, formed the Union of Utrecht, the Belgic provinces of
Hainault, Namur, Luxemburg, Limburg, and Liege, having mostly
Roman Catholic citizens, did not join the Dutch Confederation; still,
many of the Belgic people were Protestants, and as such were victims
of persecution under Philip II. of Spain. Speaking the old French lan-
guage, these people were termed Gallois ; they fled by thousands to
Holland, where their skill as well as their faith secured them protection
and a welcome. In low Dutch the name of the refugees became
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12 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
"Waalsche," which the English rendered Walloons. The farmers
among the Walloons found poor encouragement in Holland, and in
1622 a number of them offered to emigrate to Virginia if assured
municipal freedom. Some delay followed their application to the
British Minister at the Hague, and meantime those willing to form a
settlement were, at the suggestion of the Provincial States of Holland,
engaged as colonists by the Dutch West India Company, and em-
ployed in Holland until such time as the perfect organization of that
corporation would enable its Directors to send the Walloons to New
Netherland.
Having by virtue of their charter taken possession of their domain
in 1622, the Dutch West India Company secured the assent of the
States General to their articles of internal government the 21st of
June, 1623. The same month tbree trading ships were dispatched
to Manhattan " to maintain the course of traffic," and a special effort
was made to colonize '' Nova Belgia,'' The " New Netherland," a ship
of two hundred and sixty tons, was fitted up, and on board her were
embarked a company of thirty families, mostly the Walloons who had
offered to settle in Virginia. The superintendence of the ship and
colony was entrusted to Cornelius Jacobsen May, who. was appointed to
remain in New Netherland as First Director ; his second in command
on the ship being Schipper Adriaen Joris, of Theinpont. The expe-
dition left the Texel early in March, and, following the southern route
by the Canary Islands and Guiana, came in safety to Manhattan, the
beginning of May. At the mouth of the North River the emigrants
repulsed a party of Frenchmen, who were about to erect the arms of
France; the French ship, however, renewed her attempt at Zuydt Baai,
but was driven off from there by the Dutch settlers or traders. At an
early date the Dutch established a lookout at Cape May, and from the
time Cornelius Hendricksen in the Onrust explored the Delaware,
they were generally well informed of whatever took place thereabouts,
and frequently warned off whoever entered.
At Manhattan, Director May left several families, and a number of
sailors and men from the New Netherland, for the settlement of South
River and the shore of the sound eastward. The ship then proceeded
with difficulty up the North River, and landed her company just above
Castle Island, on the western bank of the Hudson, at Albany. There
" a fort with four angles, named Orange,'* which had been plotted the
year before, was soon completed ; the industrious Walloons ** put the
spade in the earth," and when the next yacht sailed for Holland, their
corn '* was nearly as high as a man, so that they were getting along
bravely." Brave hearts, heroic souls, the verdant corn you tilled struck
no root so deep in the soil of the New World as the faith for which you
were exiles, no harvest spread so rich a growth as the principles of
freedom and toleration you planted here! Down the Hudson every
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LOVE AND PEACE IN THE WILDERNESS, 13
year floats the wealth of granaries, richer than Egypt, but the spirit of
Rdigious Liberty and Civil Independence, entrenched in the hearts of
millions, bids defiance to intriguing priests and threatening tyrants as it
breathes the benediction of " Peace on earth and good will to men"
over the vast expanse of a mighty continent.
To prevent attempts to occupy Zuydt Baal, the fort projected in
1622 was, by order of Director May, speedily completed. It was built
five miles below Philadelphia, on the Jersey side of the river, of great
logs, and named Fort Nassau, the first post of that name, on the island,
near Albany, having been destroyed by flood and ice. There were
four weddings on board the New Netherland during her two-months'
voyage from Holland over the sunny Southern seas. Director May,
who was a kindly man, had been directed to govern his people '* as a
father, not as an executioner;" and it was with a touch of romance, as
well as paternal care, that he selected these eight newly-married Wal-
loons, and sent them, about the first of June, in a yacht, with as many
sailors, to abide at Fort Nassau. They were far from home, from
friends, even from civilization, a mere handful in the wilderness among
savages, but they were enough ; each for the other of every pair, and
all for each of the quadruple family. It was a fitting and poetic thing
that the valley which was to welcome the men of peace, and grow in
peace to be the home of freedom, should owe its first historic settle-
ment to young and joyous brides, with their free and hopeful partners.
It was in harmony also that they should come in the freshness of
summer, when the very air was balm, when every leaf told of life and
vigor, when every forest aisle was sweet with woodland fragrance and
echoing with bird songs, every note swelling the all-pervading melody,
one perfect chorus, whose glad refrain was evermore of love, and still
of universal, all-embracing love.
Eighteen of the Walloon families settled at Albany, others went for
a time to the House of Good Hope, at Hartford, Connecticut; others
made themselves homes, in comfort and happiness, on Long Island.
There, in June, 1625, Sarah Rapelje, the first white child of New Neth-
erland, was born ; and thereabouts, in usefulness and honor, the de-
scendants of the Calvanist Gallois still reside.
§ Of Cornelius Jacobsen May, who was formally installed during
the summer of 1623 as the first Director-General of New Netherland,
there is but little more to be said, but that little is entirely to his
credit. "Tis better to govern by love and friendship than by force,"
wrote his superiors in Holland ; and May acted in the spirit of his
instructions, to "the great contentment of the people." Among the
Indians at Fort Nassau May's little colony of brides and grooms were
unharmed, while at both Manhattan and Fort Orange the Indians
" were all as quiet as lambs, and came and traded with all the free-
dom imaginable." It required other men than May, and other means
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14
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
than " love and friendship," to arouse the savage in the red man of
America.
Mentioned as a man of experience at the time of his appointment,
Director May had many unrecorded adventures. During one of his
earliest voyages to America he found the colonists at Manhattan suf-
fering for stores and clothing. From his own ship he supplied their
necessities, and the grateful Manhattanese celebrated the timely relief
by giving the name of Port May to their harbor.
The voyage of Director May to the Delaware, in 1620, was com-
memorated by the name of New Port May, applied to the bay of the
Delaware, and by that of Cape May, ever since retained by the southern
point of New Jersey.
Thus circumstances supposed to indicate the vanity of May in affix-
ing his name to various localities are explained either as a just tribute
to the deeds of another exploring " Cornelius," or the grateful and
graceful act of his people.
Cape May is one of the very few points about the Delaware which
retain the names first given them by white men ; but of the thousands
who visit it annually, very many are not aware of the source from which
that name was derived. Some, careless of history, infer from their
pleasant experience of its balmy atmosphere that Cape May derived its
appellation from the May-like breezes which make its summers ^* balmy
as the breath of spring." But " the Cape," especially since the improve-
ment of Sea Grove, has too many charming attractions to need mis-
representation to make it popular. By nature and improvement Cape
May is superior as a seaside resort, but its name is significant only as
a memento of the old-time voyages of the Hollanders, and of their
regard for the character and exploits of their popular Superintendent
Though the name of Cornelius Jacobsen May disappears from this
history, the admirers of Cape May have reason to be proud of the name
it bears, since it recalls only deeds of courage and goodness, such as
confer an honest fame in the history of time, and crown with happiness
the pure in heart amid the glories of eternity.
§ But while perfect peace and fair prosperity marked the history of
their colonies, the Directors of the Dutch West India Company were
disturbed by the enterprise of a person destined to play an important
part in the events of New Netherland. A mariner of Hoorn, North
Holland, by the name of David Pietersen De Vries, who had several
times voyaged to Newfoundland, procured a commission from the King
of France, and, dividing his ve-nture with some Rochelle merchants, he
bought a small vessel for a voyage to Canada, for fish and peltries.
Determined to prevent all ships but their own sailing to North Amer-
ica from Holland, the Directors seized the vessel of De Vries as it lay
in the harbor of Hoorn ready to sail, and detained it until an admoni-
tory mandate of the States General ordered its release. De Vries re-
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FIRST PURCHASE OF MANHATTAN.
15
ceived his vessel after much delay ; although his voyage was broken
up, his claim for damages was evaded, and, suffering from corporate
injustice, the enterprising navigator was compelled to bide his time
and await another chance of fortune.
Director William Verhulst presided over New Netherland in 1625.
He visited the Delaware and extended his voyage far up to the falls
at Trenton; there on an island in the bend of the river another trading
post was established, and for a time occupied by several families of
Walloons. Verhulst returned to Holland in 1626, and Peter Minuit
became Director-General of New Netherland. **To superadd a higher
title" than that supposed to be derived from discovery and occupation,
Minuit purchased Manhattan from the Indians. The island contained
about twenty-two thousand acres, and was bought of the natives *'for
the value of sixty guilders," — about twenty-four dollars.
Having bought Manhattan, the Dutch began a fort, "to be faced
with cut stone," for its defense; for the misbehavior of some of the
colonists had given reason to fear just hostility. About the same time
the posts on South River were much reduced, and in 1628 left un-
tenanted, in order to strengthen Manhattan. Still there were in all
probability settlers left on the Delaware, not perhaps the servants of
the Company, but **vrye persoonen," who had reason to trust their
Indian neighbors, and led a roving, adventurous life among them; but
of these adventurers history, made up of corporation documents, has
nothing to relate. Before the completion of the fort at Manhattan, it
was called Fort Amsterdam, and made the seat of government. There
has been a great amount and variety of government on the island of
New York since that date, and not a little misgovernment; but with it
all an undeniable increase of trade, and a most notable advance in the
price of real estate.
§ The United Provinces of the Batavian Republic elaborated the idea
of federal union, but their institutions failed to develop personal liberty;
the peasantry of Holland had therefore too little self-reliance to emigrate,
and a plan was evolved to encourage colonization, called the Charter
of Privileges and Exemptions. By the provisions of this new charter
of 1629, whoever of the stockholders of the Dutch West India
Company established a colony of fifty persons within four years in
New Netherland, became a " Patroon" or " Lord of the Manor." The
Patroon had jurisdiction over the settlement he founded, and, by
peaceful purchase from the natives, might hold and own the lands on
the sea-shore or river-bank for sixteen miles, and as far inland as '^the
situation of the occupiers would admit;" or the land each side of a
river could be held half as far, with a pro rata increase for more
colonists in each case.
While the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions was under consid-
eration, several directors of the Dutch West India Company, tempted
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1 6 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
by the concessions it made, undertook to forestall its provisions, and
embezzle for themselves in advance the richest territories of the cor-
poration. These crafty schemers sent three ships to America with
agents to locate manors, and buy the land of the Indians. One of these
ships entered the Delaware in May, and on the ist of June, 1629, a
few days before the adoption of the charter in Holland, "two persons,"
who came on the ship, bought for directors Samuel Godyn and Samuel
Blommaert, from the natives, a tract of land two miles wide, which
extended from Cape Henlopen thirty-two miles up the bay to the
mouth of the river.
At the first meeting of the Amsterdam Chamber after the adoption
of the Charter of Freedoms and Exemptions, Director Samuel Godyn
gave notice that he as Patroon occupied the bay of the South River,
having notified Minuit to register his possession of the same at New
Amsterdam. To remove the dissatisfaction which was manifest in the
chamber at the course taken by them, and to secure capital, the Pa-
troons admitted Killiaen Van Rensselaer, Johannes de Laet, the his-
torian, Mathias Van Ceulen, Hendrick Hamel, Johan Van Haringhoeck,
and Nicholas Van Sittorigh, as partners in their enterprise. In order to
secure his services as superintendent, Pieterzen De Vries was made an
equal partner in the concern. The ship ''Walvis," or Whale, carrying
eighteen guns, and a yacht, were fitted out at once for an expedition
to the Zuydt Baai. The two vessels were loaded with colonists, stock,
animals, seeds, tools, and the requisites of an agricultural colony. At
the suggestion of Godyn, implements were also taken for the capture
of the whales, seals, and sturgeons, then abundant in the Delaware.
Amply supplied, the expedition left the Texel December 12% 1630,
under command of Pieter Heyes, of Edam, North Holland, merzen
De Vries remaining in Amsterdam. Through carelessness on board
the Walvis, the yacht was captured by Dunkirk privateers, but the
ship kept on, and, passing by Tortugas, where a part of her colonists
were bound on French account, but which was found in Spanish hands,
she completed her trip. In April, the Whale arrived safely at Zuydt
Baai. Finding a safe landing and convenient harbor, with islands,
good oysters, and very fertile land, the colony was landed up the
stream on the banks of a " kill" (creek, or small river), near the present
Lewes, Del. This stream, which was called after the city of Hoorn,
Hoornkill, Hoorkill, etc., afterwards corrupted to Whoorkill, or Whore-
kill, was also called the river of Swans, and was reported to be two
leagues from *' Cape Kornelis," now Cape Henlopen, the site of the
splendid light that, with its equal and neighbor at Sea Grove, illumin-
ates the wide entrance to the Delaware. In the vale where the Dutch
colonists landed there were many swans, and hence they gave their
settlement the name of Swaanendael (Swandale).
Gillis Hossett, a former agent of Van Rensselaer's in the purchase
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ORIGINAL DEED OF CAPE MAY. 17
of lands from the North River Indians, was placed in command of the
station ; a large brick house was built of Holland brick, and enclosed
with palisades ; this building served at once as a residence for all the
colony, a storehouse, and a fort. As soon as the settlement was well
begun. Commissary Hossett and Schipper Heyes visited the Jersey
shore, and, as agents of Godyn and Blommaert, bought of ten Indian
chiefs, on May 5th, 1630, a tract of land twelve miles along the shore
of the bay, from Cape May Point to the north, and twelve miles inland
above, and including Cape May. The lands on the northern and
eastern shores of Delaware Bay were in possession of the great and
influential but peaceable tribe, called Lenni Lenape (the original
people). From them must have been obtained the original title to
Cape May ; and the Nanticokes, who occupied what is now Delaware,
must have been the grantors who, on July 15th, 1630, ratified by treaty
the sale of the western shore of the bay, made to Godyn and Blom-
maert's agents the year before.
§ Such is the record of the first transaction in real estate at Cape
May ; the advance in value on the smallest building lot in Sea Grove,
for the current year, is represented by a sum of money greater than
was needed to buy the lands of all the lower Delaware; yet both
parties were well pleased with the speculation. The Indians, who
knew but little more of the full purport and effect of a deed of land
than the deer of the primeval woods, were delighted with the ''pres-
ents" they received, and charmed by the civil and novel manners of
their liberal customers. The patroons needed but to examine their pur-
chase to become satisfied they had come into possession of a land of
promise. Zuydt Baai was now called Godyn's Baai, by which name it
was afterwards well known to the Dutch. After spending a few weeks
at Swaanendael, Heyes, with Hossett in company, visited New Amster-
dam, and there, on the 3d of June, 163 1, had the purchase they had
effected formally recorded and attested by Director-General Minuit
and his council. The deeds of the lands purchased on the Delaware
for Godyn and Blommaert were deposited at Fort Amsterdam, and
conveyed to Holland, but are now in the archives of the State of New
York, at Albany.
Whaling was undertaken by Heyes in Godyn's Baai, but the experi-
ment was a failure, and, in September, 163 1, the Walvis sailed for Hol-
land. Gillis Hossett remained at Swaanendael to superintend that
colony, and, by more thorough explorations of the new manors and
their resources, prepare the way for future settlements.
Pioneer explorations must have been magnificent in those days. As
Hossett sailed over the waters of the Delaware he saw a roadstead and
harbor, where all the commerce of Europe could ride secure; the low
shores on either side reminded him and his companions of Holland,
as they offered every facility for the construction of canals, in broad
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1 8 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
marshes, which could easily be redeemed from the sea, and turned into
fertile fields. But, unlike Holland, Cape May had dense forests of
varied timber near the shores, for the countless hulls of navies, such as
the world had never seen, and beyond, yet near, interminable swamps
where the giant cedars towered, — an arsenal of imperishable planks
and spars to equip every craft, though each of them were more huge
than ever sailed the Texel, or startled the dreams of shipwrights beside
the Zuyder Zee. The waters swarmed with fish : the whale, the por-
poise, the sturgeon, and the cod abounded; besides, there were black
fish, blue fish, "green" fish, *' silver" fish, and "variegated" fish ; there
were mackerel, gar-fish, drum, bass, perch, herrings, flounders, turbots,
soles, eels, anchovies, mullets, porgies, smelts, and shiners, all affording
*^an ocean full" of excellent food; then there was also the flying-fish,
and scores of other varieties more curious than eatable.
There is no historic evidence that Gillis Hossett or the mariner Peter
Heyes tarried to catch all these kinds of fish; if not, it was their own
fault; the fish were there, and one summer, just two and a quarter cen-
turies later. Secretary Spencer F. Baird, of the Smithsonian Institute,
caught them all except the whale, the sturgeon, the porpoise, and the
cod-fish, in the waters near Cape May; moreover, any visitor of Sea
Grove may have the same pleasure. The whale rarely visits the Dela-
ware now ; the porpoise still rolls lazily against the tide, but the stur-
geon are comparatively few; yet if any transient dweller by the sea
despises the capture of the smaller fry, and aspires to wage war upon
veritable monsters of the deep, he can, by taking passage for deep
water on the yacht of the Sea Grove Association, not only enjoy a trip
over genuine ocean billows, but may, if favored by St. Peter, return
with " a string" of sharks, and an appetite like that of the marine out-
law he captures.
At the time of Godyn's purchases, the marshes of Cape May were
much more extensive, and the sounds and thoroughfares larger. The
explorer found the inland waters of Cape May abounding with fine
oysters, clams, crabs, and other shell-fish, as at present. The marshes
around the sounds, and the savannas or slashes between the sandy
beaches, were the haunts of countless water-fowl, some remarkable for
their large size and notable appearance, while many of various kinds
were estimable as game birds and known to the natives then as deli-
cious delicacies, as well as to the sportsman and bon vivant of the
present. In their proper season the Canada %^^^^ were immensely
numerous, and their habitual resorts were also frequented by more than
two dozen varieties of duck and plover, in flocks or pairs, by tens of
thousands; among them was the world-renowned "canvas-back" [Anas
valisneria). The meadows, marshes, and shores were overrun by snipe
and loons, woodcock, rail, curlew, bitterns, herons, sand-pipers, and tern.
Eagles, cormorants, hawks, gulls, and other fish-loving varieties of birds
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UPLAND BIRDS OF CAPE MA V. 19
hovered over the waves and the quiet waters for prey, or, pirate-like,
plundered others of the scaly prize. On the uplands the variety of
birds was vastly greater — quite too numerous to mention outside of
scientific catalogue^f The bald eagle, and ten or a dozen kind of hawks,
half as many owls, and eight or ten kinds of fly-catchers exercised their
capacity upon their varied and proper game ; while the turkey-buzzard,
with the help of several kinds of crows, was the common scavenger of
the land.
Master Evelyn, William Penn, and others mention wild turkeys of
the Delaware country which weighed from forty-five to fifty pounds.
Grouse, partridges, pigeons, doves, and robins were abundant. Of birds
of song there was no lack. There were fourteen kinds of warblers ;
there were thrushes, larks, vieros, finches, sparrows, orioles, bobolinks,
blackbirds, blue jays, cuckoos, and mocking birds, with hosts of others
more or less musical. Of birds remarkable for plumage there were
many fine species. The great blue, white, and snowy herons, and some
of the ducks, were very handsome. The snowy owl, well named, was
a choice specimen, while red birds, yellow birds, blue birds, scarlet
birds, indigo birds, golden birds, and numerous party-colored birds, lent
animation to the woods.
Besides all these, the humming bird, bright flashing gem of the air,
bred at Cape May. Since the advent of white men upon the coast
some varieties of birds have almost or quite disappeared, yet no locality
in the United States surpasses Sea Grove and its vicinity in advantages
for the naturalist. The distinguished American ornithologist, Wilson,
resided during different seasons in the neighborhood of Cape May.
At such times he was the guest of the elder Thomas Beesley, of Bees-
ley's Point, and his visits are yet remembered by some of the oldest
people. Thomas Beesley declares, in a too brief note to one of his
scientific contributions, that the interest awakened there by Wilson in
the study of ornithology has never ceased. To that interest and a
lively intelligence are to be credited the catalogue of birds and beasts
which Thomas Beesley has added to the natural science of his native
county, and the fact that " Beesley's Point" has become one of the
important centres of scientific interest in South Jersey. It is a legend
that birds choose for their habitat the most favorable and pleasant
lands — the fairest scenes. Upon this point Thomas Beesley, in a note
to his catalogue of Cape May birds, quotes a citizen of Cape May as
saying, "If birds in their choice of a residence are gifted in deter-
mining what is the fairest and what is best, there can be no question
but that the County of Cape May is among the most attractive portions
of the earth; for here they congregate in as great a variety and abund-
ance as upon any other portion of at least the civilized globe."
The intermediate latitude of Cape May and its consequent equable
climate, with an uncommon distribution of ocean, sound, lake, river,
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20 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
swamp, thicket, wood, marsh, and meadow, afford varied attractions
to the denizens of the air. Birds of the north and of the south, with
many a feathered beauty ''to the manor born," there congregate and
dwell, or visit the scene on flashing wing with tumultuous song one
after another, as the passing year rolls its changing glories through
the sky. To the plodding pot-hunter the birds of Cape May supply
— his dinner; to the sportsman, choice and abundant game; to the
naturalist, an unequaled field of study; to the artist, forms and hues
of beauty; to the invalid, cheer and diversion; to all, a song; to the
thoughtful and pious soul, most — bright examples of nature's handi-
work, a joyous testimony to the universal providence of God!
The pioneers of Cape May were very practical persons, men who
would turn away from the finest display of plumage and the sweetest
song to capture a good fat goose or pursue the woodland creatures for
their skins ; hunting for fur-bearing animals in South Jersey over two
centuries ago, they could hardly go amiss. The bison or buffalo, the
black bear, the panther, the wolf, the catamount, and the deer, were
the largest of the wild beasts of Cape May; of the smaller species there
were opossums, raccoons, foxes, minks, otters, and, most valuable of
all, the beaver. Some half-dozen kinds of squirrels filled the trees,
muskrats infested the streams, rabbits were plenty, and the skunks, in
bad odor, were numerous, waiting a change of fashion to give value to
their handsome pelt. Twenty years ago a half-dozen black bears in
an autumn would perchance be killed in the Cape May County swamps,
a few deer would also be taken; the beaver is probably extinct; the
opossum, the raccoon, the rabbit, the pclecat, the squirrel, the otter,
and an occasional fox are the remaining animals of Cape May.
The agents of the Dutch patroons gave little attention to the
flowers which adorned the lands they bought, yet a botanist would
have gathered them with delight. The same causes which make Cape
May the resort of the ornithologist and ichthyologist have rendered all
South Jersey a vast botanical garden famous on both sides of the
Atlantic, some of its plants being peculiar and local. In 1748 and
1749 Peter Kalm, botanist to the King of Sweden, made a collection
in South Jersey, the sight of which made Linnaeus forget an attack of
gout; the Kalmia, a species of laurel, was so called by Linnaeus in
honor of Kalm. As recent authorities in the botany of South Jersey,
Maurice Beesley, M.D., Samuel Ashmead, and Mary Treat, of Vine-
land, have been extensively quoted.
§ The aboriginal Indian was a savage and a pagan; the mistake of
most Christian colonists was to consider themselves saints, and the
red man a natural devil. The valleys of the Delaware and Schuylkill
were inhabited at the time of the Dutch settlements by the tribe of
Lenni Lenape, a name which signified ''the ori ginal peo ple.'' The
Lenni Lenape were divided into Mantalinaks or Delawares, and
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LENNI LENAPE SEWAN. 2 1
Muncees, Munseys, or Mincees ; the last lived above the Sankitan,
Stankekan, or Sanhickan falls, near Trenton, and toward the Hudson.
The Lenni Lenape were a superior* tribe; they came from beyond the
Mississippi, and conquered their way to the Atlantic. Subsequently,
by the terms of a treaty made with the Hodensaunee Konoshion, or
Iroquois Confederation, they abandoned war, becoming ** women," that
is to say, non-combatants, and, as the Indian matrons were, referees and
peacemakers. Hendrick Aupaumut, chief of the Muheconuck, Mohican,
or Mohegan tribe, of Stockbridge, Massachusetts, in his report of his
mission as the embassador of the United States to the Western tribes
(Mem. Hist. Soc. Pa., vol. 11.), calls the Delawares ''Grandfathers,"
and adds that the British and Five Nations depended upon them to
make peace, ^s " this nation had the greatest influence with the South-
ern, Western, and Northern nations;" also that the Lenni Lenape, since
about 1600, had been grandfathers or ''wise ones," to whom the tribes
looked as judges in arbitration.
The general traits of American Indians, aside from the usages of
war, characterized the Lenni Lenape; one notable habit of theirs was
peculiar to such tribes as inhabited the shores of New Jersey and
New York, or lived elsewhere near localities like Cape May. The
Indians used no salt, but preserved their fish and meats by drying and
smoking; at the shore they boiled, strung, and dried clams, which were
used to season their insipid fare. The manufacture of this Indian
delicacy left behind an immense quantity of shells, those of the common
clam, the Venus mercenaria, which the Indians called Pequonuck or
Quahaug. These shells, in a broken state, are to be found in great
heaps on the shores of the sounds and water-courses in the vicinity
of Sea Grove. The fragmentary condition of the shells distinguishes
the shell heaps of Indian creation from the beds and mounds of shells
which owe their origin to natural causes, or to the bivalve-consuming
propensities of white men. The Indian resorted to the shore of the
Atlantic, not alone for health and comfort, but to make money. Near
Sea Grove, as on the shores of Sewan-hacky (Sewan-land), Long
Island, New York, an aboriginal "mint" was kept in operation, and
the circulating medium of exchange there issued was current at a fixed
value all over the continent. This Indian money was called variously
sewan, suckauhock, wampum, wampompeague, peague, etc., and was
coined in the form of beads, from shells, and strung on strings some-
what after the manner of Chinese "cash."
There were two kinds of sewan. The black — " the gold of the In-
dians" — was made from the black portion of the clam-shells, and called
suckauhock. It was rated at double the value of the white, called
wampum, which was made from the stem of the periwinkle [Littorin(B)\
hence the shell heaps the Indians have left along the shore of Cape
May contain mostly the white part of clam-shells, broken in small
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22 SCHEYICHDI AND THE STRAND,
pieces to secure the black and valuable portions. Aside from the color
of the wampum, it was criticised by the natives as to its form and
finish, and the usages of aboriginal commerce required that the beads
should be uniform in size and shape, and bored in the centre. To test
sewan, the Indians drew the strings of beads deftly across their noses;
if they found them smooth, uniform, and well strung, they passed at
par; the worn or imperfect were discounted or rejected. The sewan
was used not only as currency, but as jewelry and material for orna-
mentation. " The Dutch, at Albany," says Kalm, " made and sold a
great deal of sewan in their extensive trade with the Five Nations,
There were at one time sixty or seventy shops in Albany where sewan
was made, and the Iroquois called the town Laaphanachking, — i.e., *'the
place of stringing wampum." Sewan was also made in other places,
•' by poor people," and the Indians suffered the inconvenience of " an
inflated currency" after a time. The New Netherlands accepted sewan
in trade themselves, good wampum being in some colonies as current
as silver; it was voted "to goe six a penny in New Haven in 1640."
Sewan, or wampum, was the currency of New Netherlands in 1641 ;
afterwards the contributions to the churches were paid in it. At New
Amsterdam ** four beads of good black, well-strung wampum, or eight
of the white," were reckoned as one stuyver, — a Dutch coin about a
cent in value. In 1650, *' there being at present no other specie," sewan
was made lawfully current, at the rate of three black or six white beads
of "commercial sewan," or four black and six white of the "base
strung," for one stuyver, the rate ordered "to goe" in Nieu Haven. By
this the drain of " specie" into New England was checked.
The Indian had no banks, and was innocent of " corners," " bonuses,"
"divvies," brokerages, commissions, margins, "puts and calls," and
" irregularities," yet he was a financier in his way, and managed " ex-
change" for his own benefit. In heavy transactions, sewan, either
suckauhock or wampum, was counted by the fathom, measured by the
spread arms of an Indian. Commissary Hudde, of Fort Nassau, in
1648, complained that the Cape May tribe made barter "rather too
much against them," as " the Indians always take the largest and tallest
among them to trade with us," by which means the long-armed "tel-
lers" compassed a long price for their clansmen's beaver-skins.
" In 1756," says Dr. Beesley, " Jacob Spicer, of Cape May, advertised
to barter goods for all kinds of produce and commodities, and, among
the rest, particularly designated wampum (suckauhock). He offered a
reward of five pounds to the person that should manufacture the most
wampum. He succeeded in procuring a quantity of the wampum, and,
before sending it off to Albany and a market, weighed a shot-bag full
of silver coin, and the same shot-bag full of wampum, and found the
latter (by weight) most valuable by ten per cent." After the fall of
Oswego he chronicles the decline of the wampum traffic. The Narra-
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DE VRIES'S FIRST VOYAGE TO THE DELAWARE, 23
gansetts and Pequods, who were able to produce sewan on their shores,
kept themselves rich and powerful by the possession and use of it.
The Cape May Indians held similar advantages, and the accumulated
refuse of their work shows that they were not neglectful of their op-
portunities.
Such, two and a half centuries ago, were the people, such the sur-
roundings, among which lay the assumed territories of the High and
Mighty Dutch West India Company, and the intended manors of the
would-be patroons, Godyn and Blommaert.
§ The unfair advantage Godyn, Blommaert, and a few others had
conspired to take of the Charter of Privileges and Exemptions gave
great offense, and partisan feeling became bitter against the patroons
and those who defended their claims. Director-General Minuit, who
was cognizant of the operations of the patroons, was recalled from his
office, but Minuit had simply carried out the laws and orders of the
company. Sensible of the injustice done him, Minuit transferred his
authority to the Manhattan Council, and sailed for Holland to vindi-
cate himself, in March, 1632, bearing with him not only his own trou-
bles, but sad news for the patroons and the friends of the colonists at
Swaanendael.
The first accounts from Swaanendael received by the patroons, some
time after the Walvis left that colony, reported that all had been well,
and that the colony was pleasantly prosperous. The ill luck of the
Walvis had discouraged the proprietors somewhat, but Godyn was still
sanguine about the whale fishery, and, in February, 1632, it was agreed
that a ship and yacht should be fitted out, with De Vries himself as
patroon and commander, to fish in the South Bay during the winter of
1633. This ship and the yacht Squirrel were accordingly fitted out for
a whaling voyage, and were ready to sail the last of May. On the 24th
of May, just before De Vries got off, news was received at Amsterdam,
having, been brought by Director-General Minuit, by the way of Ports-
mouth, that Swaanendael had been destroyed by the Indians.
De Vries, though distressed by the news, put to sea, but an unskill-
ful pilot ran his ship on the sands off Dunkirk; she with difficulty got
into Portsmouth the 25th of May. The ship was made seaworthy,
and sailed the ist of August, in company with the great ship *' New
Netherland, of six or eight hundred tunnes," which had been built at
Manhattan, in 1631, and was then returning from her first voyage to
Holland.
De Vries arrived on December 5th, in the offing of Godyn's Baai.
As he neared the coast he saw no beacon kindled to give warning of
his approach; he heard no resounding and reassuring gun; no signal
waved to denote his looked-for arrival, and give the sign for joyous
welcome. An ominous silence brooded everywhere, — only the waves
dashed mournfully, and the tall cedars soughed in the blast of Decem-
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24 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
ber, as if they chanted a requiem. No Indians appearing, a well-armed
boat was sent into the Horekill the next day, to open communication.
Finding none of the savages about, the boat pushed on, and landed at
Swaanendael, where discoveries were soon made which justified the
worst apprehensions of De Vries. The colony had disappeared, —
buildings, gardens, plantations, fishing-stations, whale-boats, all were
gone. Only ashes and fire-blasted ruins remained, surrounded by the
wolf-gnawed and bleaching bones of his comrades and servants.
In despondency De Vries returned to his yacht, and a gun was fired
to call in the Indians. The next morning a smoke was seen arising
from near the ruins of Swaanendael. The boat went into the creek,
and a few of the savages were seen prowling about. They were shy,
and the crew of the boat distrustful. The yacht gave more protection
from treacherous arrows than the open boat, and so De Vries ran her
into the creek. The Indians soon came to the shore, but for some
time none could be persuaded to come on board. Finally one venture-
some fellow made bold to dare the vengeance of the Szvamiekins, and
came alone among the Dutch. De Vries gave him a *' cloth dress,"
and sent word by him to his chief that he wished to make a peace.
The Indians at once became more familiar, and that night one of them
stayed on board, and was induced to give the particulars of the tragic
fate of the colony.
According to the story of the Indian on the yacht, Gillis Hossett had
considered it requisite to post the arms of Holland, painted on a sheet
of tin, by attaching them to a pillar he set up, the site of which the
Indian pointed out. An Indian, attracted by the sheen of the metal,
** not thinking he was doing amiss," carefully removed the shield for
his own purpose. Hossett took much to heart the insult to the Bata-
vian Republic, and angrily denounced the tribe for the offense of a
person, as if it were some mighty matter. It was a great fuss to make
about a bit of tin, but the Indians took it for earnest, and soon pre-
sented Hossett the scalp of the culprit, to his avowed astonishment,
chagrin, and disgust.
Rebuked, humbled, thrown off, hurt in feeling, the jealous, vindictive
sons of the forest returned to their wigwams, but not to live in peace.
The Indians had a custom like that of the Jews, in "the avenger of
blood." If a relative were slain, it was an obligation to avenge his fall
unless " atonement" were made by the offender. This could be done
by his paying, after the manner of the ancient Greeks, ** blood-money,"
to " cover the graves of the dead."
" If a brother bleed,
On just atonement we remit the deed ;
A sire the slaughter of his son forgives,
The price of blood discharged, the murderer lives."
(Pope: Iliad, ix.)
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THE FATE OF SWAANENDAEL,
25
The Indian who had been killed at Swaanendael was a sachem, —
vengeance could not be allowed to sleep. The aggrieved Indians heW
Hossett accountable as the cause of the murder, still he could at any
time have purchased exemption for a few guilders' worth of goods ;
this he unwisely neglected to do, and was accordingly condemned to
die, and the colony that harbored him was to share his fate.
One day Hossett was sick and remained in the house, but one of his
men, a housekeeper, being with him, when a lurking war party of
Indians came near the place. In the yard a large bull-dog, or Dutch
mastiff, was chained ; had he been loose, they would not have dared
approach the house. Suddenly three Indians presented themselves,
and offered a small lot of beaver-skins for sale. Learning that no
others were near, they set upon Hossett and his servant and killed
them at once. With the dog, ** which they feared most,'' they had more
trouble, and the Indian related with wonder and admiration that the
brave guardian of the threshold never ceased to fight, and died only
when pierced by twenty-five arrows. But for his chain, as they knew,
the Dutch mastiff would have taught the bloody savages the difference
between a dog of his breed and keep and one of their own skulking,
mangy little curs. The men of the colony were at work in the
adjacent gardens and cornfields; they were approached in a friendly
manner, and a treacherous attack made upon them. Whatever of
courage they manifested, whatever of desperate heroism (for the
Dutch were brave), is unknown, as it was unavailing ; one by one rap-
idly they fell, far from their beloved ** Faderlandt," among barbarous
foes, perishing victims to the folly of their Governor and the revenge-
ful passions of cruel savages.
Shocked, saddened, disappointed, and involved in financial loss, De
Vries was not discouraged, and made no useless attempt at revenge.
The Indians were glad to make a formal treaty of peace with De Vries,
which was brought about by his tact and coolness the following day.
Receiving various presents, the bewildered Nanticokes departed in
great joy to hunt for beaver-skins to trade with the prudent and reti-
cent Hollander. Such is the awful story of the first bloodshed in the
settlement of Delaware, and thus were the possessions of the Dutch
** sealed with blood, and dearly enough bought." To De Vries the
honor is due, that from that time war between the races was unknown,
and bloodshed extremely rare in all the country round about Swaan-
endael.
Mindful of the plans and interests of his partners, De Vries tried the
whale fishery ; he had anticipated " royal work," but, from the imper-
fection of their gear, the Dutchmen were not very successful. To eke
out his supplies, De Vries, in his yacht, the Squirrel, with seven men
made a trip up the Poutaxit, as the Indians called Zuydt, South,
Godyn's, or Delaware Bay ; and above into the Lenape-ittuck, Mack-
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26 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
erish-kitton, or Arasapba, as the red men had named the T^^y^t, South,
Godyn's, Prince Hendrick's, or Delaware River. It was New Year
time, and the Dutch hoped to ** buy some beans of the Indians." The
bay and river were full of floating ice ; working his yacht through this,
De Vries came, on the 5th of January, to Fort Nassau, finding none
but Indians.
The natives advised De Vries to go up the Timmer Kill, or Timber
Kill, for his supplies ; but a Sankitan, or Stankekan squaw warned the
Dutch to keep out of the creeks, or the river Indians would murder
them, as they had recently killed the crew of an English shallop, in
'* Count Ernest's River." Avoiding the creeks, therefore, De Vries
went on up to Red Hook, or Mantes. There some forty Indians came
on board, oflering to barter beaver skins, and ''playing on reeds to
allay suspicion." Unaware that the Dutch were informed of their
murder of the English crew, some of them wore the jackets of the
men they had butchered. De Vries told them their " Maneto" had
revealed their treacherous plans to him, and, driving them all on shore,
returned to Fort Nassau. There several chiefs came on board the
yacht, some of whom had worn the jackets at Red Hook, but now
they were dressed in robes of fur. The Indians sat down in a solemn
circle on the deck, and stated they had come to make a long peace ;
a long ceremony, during which ten beaver-skins were presented, one
after another, by the Indians, ratified the formal compact. For the skins
presented in their ceremonies the Indians refused any compensation
whatever. De Vries, however, bought other beaver-skins, and, procur-
ing a small supply of corn and beans, sailed for his ship, and was on
board the 13th of the month.
Five days after, De Vries again started to coast along the shore and
visit Fort Nassau. On the way he was a fortnight frozen into " Vine-
yard Creek," where the Dutch shot a multitude of turkeys, ''weighing
from thirty to thirty-six pounds" each. It was the 3d of February
before the yacht could be got up to its destination. By that time a war
had broken out between the Minquas and the Sankitans, and no corn
could be had. After much troubleTronTffie Tce'fthe yacht was got back
to the ship, where a joyous welcome was given the long absent and
adventurous voyagers by their anxious shipmates.
Still short of provisions, and ambitious to be the first Hollander to
visit the Chesapeake, De Vries sailed on the 5th of March for Virginia.
He visited Sir John Harvey, Governor of Virginia, and was courteously
entertained by that noble knight. De Vries made Governor Harvey
acquainted with the Dutch operations on the Delaware, and was able
to identify the English crew whose murder he had heard of at Fort
Nassau as one of eight men which Governor Harvey had sent the
previous September into the Delaware, in a sloop, "to see if there was
a river there." The Governor imagined his men "to have been swal-
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THE FIRST HOUSE IN PHILADELPHIA. 27
lowed up in the sea," having heard nothing from them until the sad
news by De Vries made him acquainted with their fate. The patroon
of Swaanendael and Cape May remained a week at Jamestown, and
then, with an abundant supply of provisions, and a present of goats for
Manhattan, where Governor Harvey had heard there were none, he
returned to his fishermen in Zuydt Baai.
Once more warmly welcomed by his company, the patroon learned
that several whales had been captured, but more lost after being struck,
the harpoons being defective. De Vries had, however, become satisfied
that the whale fishery was less profitable than the fur trade, and pro-
posed to carry out his original intention of a voyage to Newfoundland
and the Saint Lawrence for fish and peltries. Wishing to examine the
coast, De Vries sailed on board his yacht for Manhattan the 14th of
April, and, coasting northward for two days, arrived safely at Fort Am-
sterdam, leaving Swaanendael, Godyn's Baai, and the Arasapha once
more to the whales, the savages, and the aboriginal wildness of nature.
§When De Vries arrived in New Amsterdam, on the i6th of
April, 1633, he found the new Director-General, Wouter Van Twiller,
on board the ship Soutberg, which had just arrived in the harbor.
The information which De Vries gave Van Twiller aroused him to take
measures to hold possession of Zuydt Baai, and the fur trade in the
country adjoining; accordingly Arendt Corssen was appointed com-
missary, and instructed to purchase a tract of land on the Schuylkill
for a plantation and trading post, for both of which purposes the loca-
tion there was highly esteemed. Corssen bought *' for certain cargoes,"
from *' the right owners and Indian chiefs," a tract called ** Armen-
veruis," lying about and on the Schuylkill. The Indian title being
thus secuned, the Dutch took formal possessfon of Pennsylvania, and
established a trading house there, which, though soon abandoned for a
time, was afterwards enlarged to a post or station and called Bevers-
rede, being situated within the present bounds of Philadelphia.
Among the improvements ordered by Van Twiller for the year 1633
was " one large house," to be built at Fort Nassau on the Delaware.
The work must have been neglected, for in 1635 a small party of Eng-
lish from Point Comfort, Va., under the leadership of Captain George
Holmes, and, as some have said, in the interest of Sir Edmund Plowden
and his associates, took possession of Fort Nassau, which they found
vacant. Thomas Hall, one of Holmes's men, deserted at Fort Nassau,
and, reaching Manhattan, gave information to Van Twiller. A Dutch
force soon captured Holmes and his party, and took them to Fort
Amsterdam, from whence they were sent, *' pack and baggage," back to
Virginia. The Dutch, after the affair with Holmes, repaired and gar-
risoned Fort Nassau, and gave more attention to the valley of the Dela-
ware. The administration of Wouter Van Twiller ended early in the
spring of 1638, he being superseded by William Kieft.
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28 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
§ Although the Dutch were the first to "occupy" the Delaware,
Governor Sir John Harvey, of Virginia, had sent an unfortunate expe-
dition there in 1632; and before the patent for Maryland was sealed
that year, Sir John Lawrence, Sir Edmund Plowden, and others applied
to King Charles I., of England, for a grant of Long Island and thirty
miles square on the mainland, which they proposed to call '' Syon."
After the death of the first Lord Baltimore, before the full execution
of the formalities of the grant of Maryland made to him, Plowden and
his associates made a second application ; this time asking for Long
Island, and the small isles between the thirtieth and fortieth degrees of
north latitude, within six leagues from the mainland near Delaware Bay,
and forty leagues square of the adjoining coast; to be held as a County
Palatine, and called New Albion, '' with the privileges as heretofore
granted to Sir George Calvert, late Lord Baltimore, in Newfoundland."
The king confirmed the grant made Lord Baltimore to his son and
heir, but one month after the sealing of the Maryland patent the king
(says Neill), on July 24th, 1632, ordered Sir John Coke to issue a patent
for Long Island and the adjacent country to Plowden and his asso-
ciates.
On the 23d of September, 1633, Captain Thomas Young, gentleman,
received a special commission from the King of England to organ-
ize an expedition and explore in America. This expedition sailed in
the spring of 1634, and with it came Master Robert Evelyn, Captain
Young's nephew, as lieutenant. The voyage of Captain Young was
in connection with the enterprise of Plowden for the settlement of New
Albion, but from stress of weather, or lack of a pilot, his course led
him into the Chesapeake ; there desertion weakened the company, but
Young fitted out a shdlop or pinnace at Jamestown, in July, and
sailing to the Delaware with about fifteen men, established as the head-
quarters of New Albion a post he called Eriwomeck, near the mouth
of the Schuylkill, at Fort Beversrede, whicli the Dutch had just aban-
doned. In September, as has been noted, George Holmes seized for
the New Albion Company the vacant Fort Nassau, from which he was
soon ousted by the Dutch. Lieutenant or " Master" Robert Evelyn
went to England, early in 1635, upon some errand from which he soon
returned; in 1637, he was appointed a surveyor by the Governor and
Council of Virginia, but missed confirmation; he was afterwards proxy
for St. George's Hundred, in the Maryland Assembly, but was again
in England in 1641. At that time Evelyn and others published *' a
card," describing the valley of the Delaware as a fine place, where the
English had traded since 1527, and where Evelyn himself had been
stationed for four years with fifteen men, trading and exploring in
safety. On Evelyn's return from England he was commissioned, June
23d, 1642, to command and drill the militia, at Piscataway, four
miles below Washington. The identity and character of Evelyn are
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PLOWDEN AND NEW ALBION. 29
important in this history, as he was the first recorded explorer and
geographical describer of Sea Grove and Cape May, as is elsewhere
related.
Captain Young continued his explorations about the Delaware for
about eighteen months, hoping to find there the entrance of a passage
to India; he became satisfied of the importance of the inland or back
country, and, in 1636 or the year after, returned to England and asked
for himself and his company a grant of whatever inland regions he
might discover and explore. Sir Edmund Plowden remained in
America until 1648, trying to settle the territories of New Albion, of
which he was Earl Palatine ; he did not succeed in this, owing to the
opposition of the Dutch and others along the Delaware. Having ex-
hausted his fortune during his stay of ** about seven years" in this
country, Plowden returned to England, by the way of New Amsterdam
and Boston, ** for supply." In London, in 1648, under the name of
Beauchamp Plantagenet, Plowden published his '' Description of New
Albion," an inaccurate pamphlet, a copy of which remains in the Phila-
delphia Library.
Beyond elaborating and publishing a remarkably liberal, just, and
worthy plan of government, the enterprise of the New Albion asso-
ciates achieved nothing of note. Sir Edmund Plowden himself was
the descendant of an eminent jurist; he was as unhappy in domestic life
as unfortunate in business; his wife Mabel, daughter of Peter Mariner,
of Wanstead, Hampshire, England, left him after a married life of
twenty-five years, alleging abuse as her cause. Sir Edmund came to
Virginia, and was at Eriwomeck, as Earl Palatine of Albion, in 1642,—-
"the fort given over by Captain Young and Master Evelyn." He was
visited in London by some Marylanders in 1652, but he never left
England again. Made poor by his outlay in behalf of his scheme of
colonization, Plowden's fortunes became desperate; he was arrested for
debt, and died in the debtors' prison in 1655. There is a pathos about
the fate of the earnest Palatine of New Albion, which is made more
effective by a statement of the social ideas by which he and his asso-
ciates proposed to be governed.
The pioneers of New Albion raised less tobacco and sold less rum
for beaver-skins than their neighbors, but they were the first to com-
prehend the vast width of the continent ; and in evidence of their culture
and character, they presented the world with an illustrious example of
political sagacity in a model form of free and liberal government.
While kings and ecclesiastics conspired in Europe to enslave the
bodies and the souls of men, while Boston and New Haven fostered
despotism, and called it theocracy, Roger Williams, dividing his land
with all who needed, founded a state purely on the will of the majority,
with God alone as the Ruler of Conscience; and Sir Edmund Plowden,
beside the Delaware, sought to establish a more liberal, wise, and perfect
3
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30 SCHEYICHDI AND THE STRAND.
organization of society than the world had ever known. Rhode Island
became a more complete '"Democracie," and fortunate Connecticut
grew to love freedom by experience, but New Albion formulated the
principles of political order, and put forward her ideal proposition, at
once and entire. Of little consequence now are the '' Manors, dignified
by well chosen names, giving titles to each of the Earl's family"; of
less account, the ''Albion Knights of the Conversion of the Twenty-
three Kings"; less still the mere ghost of an established church,
barely provided for in a document which might have been quoted
as the death warrant of state religions!
Guarding against demagogue usurpation, the institution of New
Albion enfranchised the people, and deferred to popular intelligence;
obedient to British usages, it still insisted upon independence and
freedom, and thereto obtained the sanction of the throne. Mildness,
humanity, and justice were characteristics of the whole constitution of
the intended state, and, most glorious of all, entire religious freedom
was guaranteed; dissent was not amenable for punishment, and heresy
to be proceeded against only by education ; with the proviso, that
''this argument or persuasion in religion^ ceremonies, or c J lurch discipline,
should be acted in jnildness, love, charity, and gentle language T
§ As early as 1626, Gustavus Adolphus, the illustrious King of
Sweden, the champion of Protestantism in his time, undertook to
found a Swedish colony on the shores of the Delaware ; this was first
suggested to him by the same William Usselinx, of Holland, who in
1590 proposed the Dutch West India Company to his countrymen.
Usselinx waited upon Gustavus, and being a learned man, unusually
well informed upon matters in America, he convinced the king and
his nobles of the desirability of a Swedish-American colony, and of
the feasibility of a great Swedish trading corporation to establish such
a province.
The company was organized duly, "to trade to Asia, Africa, and
the Straits of Magellan," and on July 2d, 1626, the king issued an
edict at Stockholm, '* in which he offered to people of all conditions
liberty of shares by subscription, according to their ability or inclina-
tions. The proposal was received with general satisfaction," say the
"Annals of the Swedes." Gustavus took for himself stock to the
amount of four hundred thousand dollars, at equal risk. The king's
mother, and Prince John Cassimir, his brother-in-law; the members
of his majesty's council; many civil and military officers of high rank;
the bishops and other clergymen; many merchants and citizens;
country gentlemen and farmers, became subscribers ; ships were fitted
out, and all requisites for trade and a colony provided ; an admiral,
vice-admiral, commissioners, merchants, and other proper persons were
appointed, and a few vessels started for America.
The Swedish cannon were the speakers and champions whose elo-
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GUSTAVUS, HIS CANNON AND COLONIES, 31
quence clinched the arguments of the Lutheran Reformation, and
recast the destinies of a thousand years; but for Gustavus and his
guns, the Protestant movement would have ended in the beginning.
This hero king and philanthropist, whose mind was as practical as it
was comprehensive and brilliant, who in defense of religious freedom
invented and victoriously used modern artillery, was not inclined to
hesitate in an enterprise which he declared to be *' for the benefit of
the persecuted," for the security of " the honor of the wives and
daughters" of those made fugitives by war and bigotry, for '' the
good of the common man," for the blessing of " the whole Protestant
world," and '' the advantage of all oppressed Christendom," through
undue deference to the dubious and conflicting claims of ambitious
potentates, or the greed and avarice of monopolizing corporations.
Neither was the King of Sweden careful, like the States General of
Holland, to avoid direct responsibility for colonies. " Every inch a
king," after the best manner of his times, his charter declared that
" politics lie beyond the profession of merchants," and reserved the
government of all future Swedish colonies to a Royal Council. Thus
the formidable cannon of Sweden and the invincible sword of Gustavus
were pledged to the protection of the emigrant. The privileges of the
Swedish Compan)/ were open to all, and colonists were invited from
every nation of Europe ; slaves were discarded, as a laborious and
intelligent Swedish population, with wives and children, it was wisely
thought, would be quite as profitable and more to the honor of the
state. In Sweden all was in readiness for the colony, when, through
the influence of the papal power, war was provoked, and broke forth
suddenly. Gustavus found himself compelled to invade Germany
** to vindicate the rights of conscience," establish toleration, and se-
cure German liberty by defending the principles of the Reformation.
The fight was for the safety of Protestant Christendom. In the emer-
gency the funds of the new trading company were, as a military
necessity, diverted for a time to the purposes of war; yet the king
abated not at all his zeal for the American enterprise even on the field
and in camp, and from Nuremberg, October i6th, 1632, he communi-
cated to Oxenstiern, his great minister, enlarged and most liberal plans
for the proper setting of that "jewel of his kingdom," even in case of
his death.
At the battle of Lutzen, November 3d, 1632, Gustavus fell. His
death changed the course of European politics ; the project of Swedish
colonies was temporarily postponed. The little squadron which left
Sweden for America, perhaps on private account, about the time of the
formation of the Swedish Commercial Company, as Swedish ships may
have done before, was attacked at sea by Spaniards, some of the ships
being captured ; but there is reason to believe that others escaped and
reached the Delaware, where their factors engaged in trade with the
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32 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
Indians, and that from that time there were always a few Swedes and
Finns in the valley, who finally located among the aborigines, well up
the river.
Peter Minuit, finding partisan influence too strong for justice in the
Dutch West India Company, visited Oxenstiern and the court of
Sweden, and offered to conduct a Swedish colony to the unoccupied
west shore of the Delaware. In the spring of 1638, a man-of-war,
named the Key of Calmar, and a tender, the Griffin, from Gottenburg,
Sweden, with about fifty emigrants, under command of Peter Minuit,
as Governor by commission of Queen Christina, put in at Jamestown,
Virginia, to '* refresh with wood and water," being bound for Delaware
Bay, which is the confines of Virginia and " New England," ''to make a
plantation." The Treasurer of Virginia desired to have a copy of
Minuit's commission, but the Swedish Governor declined to show his
charter, unless he could arrange for the purchase of tobacco for ship-
ment to Sweden ; but the colonial laws of England did not permit such
a traffic, and so Minuit, after spending ten days in the Chesapeake,
pursued his voyage, and entered " Zuydt Baai" early in April. The
Swedes soon after disembarked at Missipillion Point, twenty miles up
the bay, on the western shore.
Emigrating from an almost arctic climate, the Swedes were delighted
by the Eden-like airs which, in April, are the atmosphere of the capes
of Delaware, and which linger over them through the balmy summers.
Enchanted with the climate, and charmed by the scene, they gave their
landing-place the name of " Point Paradise." It may have been an ex-
travagant appellation ; but as the lover of natural beauty sits quietly at
Sea Grove, and sees the glorious summer sun sink amid his clouds, in
the waters of the bay, above Henlopen and far-away Missipillion, he
need not be a poet to imagine that the scene is somewhat too fair to
be all of earth.
§ When, in 1623, the French attempted to take possession of the Del-
aware, they were prevented " by the Dutch settlers there ;" so, in 1635,
the Dutch from Manhattan ousted the party of English under Holmes.
In 1638 they were in the river, and equally ready to repel the Swedes.
Soon after the Swedes arrived in the Delaware they were visited by
some officials of the Dutch West India Company, who notified them
of the claims of Holland thereabouts, and warned them out of the bay.
The Swedes, in answer to this challenge, stated that they were on their
way to one of the West India islands, and had put into Zuydt Baai
but for refreshment after a prolonged and stormy voyage, which they
should continue as soon as they supplied themselves with fresh meat,
water, wood, and a few necessaries. Not inhospitable, the Dutch con-
sented to this delay, trusting to the representations which had been
made to them.
But Minuit, who well understood the Dutch policy and the extent
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THE FIRST GARDEN IN DELAWARE, 33
of their jurisdiction, merely moved his expedition up stream, beyond
the limits of that which had been Godyn and Blommaert's purchase in
1629, and at Paghacking, or Minquas, Creek, near Wilmington, Dela-
ware, made a second landing. There, from a local sachem, named
Matteehoorn, a plantation was bought, *' between six trees," '* a kettle
and a few trifles" being paid in consideration. The Swedes won Mat-
teehoorn by the promise of the half of a crop of tobacco, to be raised
on the ground he conveyed to them. Between Matteehoorn and the
Swedes some document, memorandum, or deed was drawn up; "as no
Swede could yet interpret Indian," and no Indian understand Swedish,
the paper " was written in low Dutch." The Indians could r^^^^^f neither
language, and were, it seems, induced to sign a deed of the land from
Cape Henlopen to Trenton, or *' Sankekan" Falls, and as far inland as
the Swedes might gradually require, under the impression they were
conveying a mere patch of ground to raise tobacco on ''at halves."
The Swedes, says Indian tradition, never divided the tobacco, but held
the Indians to the letter of the fraudulent deed.
The mouth of the Paghacking was but twenty-five miles from the
Dutch Fort Nassau, and messengers were soon sent to learn Minuit's
intentions; these he cajoled with courtesy and fine words, and they
went back to their fort. In a few days the people of Fort Nassau came
down again, and found the Swedes 'Miad done more," — buildings were
begun, goods disembarked, and a small garden made. The Dutch
asking what it meant, Minuit made various excuses and pretenses, still
declaring his intention to soon depart. As soon as the Swedish colony
was safely established, Minuit revealed his purpose by sending his
small vessel, the Griffin, up the river for Indian trade. She was not
allowed to pass Fort Nassau, and Peter May, the sub-commissary,
boarded her and demanded her commission. The Swedish master re-
fused to show his papers, and defended the establishment of a Swedish
colony on the Delaware, saying his queen had as good a right to
build a fort there as the Dutch West India Company. Of all this the
people at Fort Nassau took note, and at once forwarded the particulars
to Manhattan. Director-General Kieft protested against the Swedish
colony, and warned them to depart at once, as all that part of the
world, especially the Delaware, belonged to the Hollanders, it having
been for a long time *' beset with forts and sealed with the blood of the
Dutch." But the epistle had little influence with Minuit, and Kieft,
who was as " economical" as he was " testy," was too prudent to attack
the colony of a nation as gallant and victorious as the Swedes.
There were but ^{ty souls in the first expedition under Minuit, and
of these many were '* bandits," condemned to penal servitude. Yet,
notwithstanding the opposition from the Hollanders, the little colony
''between six trees" was prosperous. On the north bank of the
Paghacking, two miles from the Delaware, a fort was erected, and the
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34 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
name of Christina given to it and the creek, — the arms of Sweden
being carved with the royal monogram on the boundary posts of the
station. Besides, a plantation was made, where corn, beans, squashes,
and the profitable tobacco, grew as they long had grown in the same
region, except that they showed, by their unexampled productiveness,
the difference between the bone paddle of the overtaxed squaw and the
heavy steel mattock of the athletic Scandinavian. Not only were all
the Indian products improved by Swedish culture, but the seeds of
Europe were introduced, and soon made evident, by prolific increase,
the proverbial fertility of the soil of Delaware and the influence of
a genial climate. Meantime, commerce was not neglected ; the goods
brought for barter were soon disposed of, for the Swedes undersold the
Dutch, and it is recorded that the beaver-skins taken to Sweden the
first year of Minuit's administration damaged the Dutch trade on the
Delaware more than thirty thousand guilders.
About midsummer the vessels which brought the colony returned to
Sweden, but Minuit and twenty-four men, with a good supply of mer-
chandise and provisions, remained at Fort Christina. There was great
delay in the coming of further supplies from Sweden, and in the win-
ter of 1640 the Swedes were so much in want they decided to abandon
their plantation, and merge themselves in the settlement at Manhattan.
But early in the spring, the day before the Swedes had decided to give
up Fort Christina, a ship named the Fredenburg, Captain Jacob Powel-
son, of Utrecht, Holland, arrived with a company of Hollanders, who,
under the Dutchman Joost De Bogaredt as a commander for Sweden,
had been sent out by Henry Hockhammer, according to grant and
agreement with the Swedish Government, to settle as Swedish colonists
on the Delaware. The distress of the resident Swedes was relieved by
De Bogaredt, and they continued at Fort Christina. Another colony
was begun a few miles below, and soon the trade of the Dutch West
India Company on the South River was " entirely ruined."
In the fall of 1640 Peter Hollendare came from Gottenburg to Fort
Christina as Deputy Governor of the Swedes in America ; two vessels
soon followed, and "a new treaty was made with the Indians for
more land." The Swedes called their territory Nya Swerige, or New
Sweden, and to Zuydt Riviere they gave the title of New Swedeland
Stream. Nye Swerige was more fortunate than Swaanendael; it had
become a successful colony, — the first permanent settlement on the
Delaware. Minuit had proved a good guide and a sagacious, even if
crafty, commandant; but his work was done. In 1641, according to
Acrelius, the Swedish historian, he died at Fort Christina, while
Peter Hollendare continued the government.
The colonists of Virginia, as early as 1629, extended by Nathaniel
Basse an invitation to such of the people of New England as preferred
a fertile soil and mild climate, to come and settle in the Valley of the
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NEW HAVEN COLONY ON THE DELAWARE. 35
Delaware. The matter was discussed among the Puritans, but the first
adventurers sent to the Delaware by them were from New Haven, in
1638, the year that colony was founded. The traders of New Haven,
George Lamberton and others, led the way. The project of emigra-
tion was originated by a few enterprising persons, who soon formed a
company that finally sold out its interest to the community at large,
which, as a Church, desired to establish a mission among the Dela-
wares, and found a prosperous colony where all should live in godly
order, and their children after them '' should continue to abide under
the wings of Christ."
Captain Nathaniel Turner bought of the Indians, for ;^30, the land
along shore from Cape May to Raccoon Creek, Varcken's Kill, Hog
Creek, or Salem River; the deed was dated November 24th, 1638.
At different times during the next two years additional lands were
purchased by and for the New Haven adventurers. They were helped
in their negotiations by a refugee sachem of the Pequods, and repre-
sented that their lands cost fhem ^^600 in all. {N, H. Col. Rec)
In April, 1641, an expedition of some twenty families, or sixty or
more persons, sailed for the Delaware in Lamberton's bark, or ketch,
under command of Robert Cogswell. Voyaging by the way of Man-
hattan, they were detained by Kieft; but promising allegiance to the
Dutch if they settled in Dutch territories, they were allowed to go on.
The New Haven people landed on Varcken's Kill, near Salem, New
Jersey, and " on the Schuylkill." Trading houses and habitations were
erected on Varcken's Kill. The Schuylkill settlement was at or near
FjiXtEkiw£ime£k, the headquarters of New Albion ; the Dutch '' Bevers-
rede," the Indian Armenveruis, or Passyunk, at Philadelphia. These
plantations were to be governed "in combination" with New Haven,
and Captain Turner was furloughed from New Haven and authorized
to go to the Delaware, *'for his own advantage, and the public good in
settling the affairs thereof"
Though the New Haven people were intruding upon territories
claimed by both the Dutch and Swedes, yet such was the confusion of
titles that their claim may have been supposed by them as good as
any; besides, they found Sir Edmund Plowden in the bay, with an
English grant of New Albion, and gave allegiance to him as Earl
Palatine. Kieft, however, considered that Cogswell had purposely
deceived him, and the Swedes were ready, as they had agreed, to co-
operate to ''keep out the English." In May, 1642, two sloops, the
Real and Saint Martin, with thirty men, under Jan Jansen Van Ilpen-
dam, of Fort Nassau, were sent by Kieft's orders to break up the
English settlements on the Delaware. Fort Eriwomeck was first
visited; there were some Marylanders at that place of the rougher
sort, and accounts differ as to the result of Kieft's proclamation, which
was read to them. One author asserts that the English were so
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36 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
violently blasphemous and threatening, that Jansen drew off his sloops
and made the best of his way out of the Schuylkill ; but others declare
the colony there was broken up.
From the Schuylkill Jansen sailed to Varcken's Kill. There, meet-
ing no resistance, he burned the English buildings, took possession
of all the goods, and bore away most of the people as prisoners
to Fort Amsterdam, at Manhattan. Their goods were restored to the
New Haven people, and they proceeded home to Connecticut. The
colony on Varcken's Kill had been very unfortunate ; the members had
come on foot from Boston to New Haven, where they remained but a
short time before moving to the Delaware; the winter they spent on
Varcken's Kill was excessively cold, and the summer had been very
sickly ; their time, their trouble, the cost of their lands, all were lost,
as well as damage done their goods. Still the undaunted Lamberton
continued to trade in the Delaware from New Haven, though annoyed
and interrupted at times ; the New Haven people also attempted,
though in vain, to renew their colony, being turned back at Manhattan.
The records of New Haven for a few years show the public and private
loss from the Delaware enterprise. The sufferers applied to the Com-
missioners of New England, to Oliver Cromwell, to Richard, his son,
and finally, to Nichols, — when he first came out, — for restitution at
the expense of the Dutch. Their losses were more than a thousand
pounds sterling, but, from one cause and another, nothing was ever
realized by them in return.
There was no original and permanent colony from New England on
the Delaware until the whalemen, who first appear on record in 1685,
settled at Cape May. Although Plowden, who never had many men
with him, had been unable to defend his earldom, or protect the people
who recognized him as their lord, and although the colony was driven
out to return no more, still members of the Calvinistic community
were left behind, and the fame of the Delaware was spread abroad
by the quarrels which followed. In the settlements of the following
generation around the bay, the Yanokies (silent men), as the Mais
Tchusaeg, or Massachusetts Indians, called the New Englanders, had
their full share of action, influence, and honor, as is usual everywhere.
Comparing a record of the early settlers of New Haven and Cape May,
about one-fifth of the family names from the Cape May list are inscribed
on the older New Haven document.
§ Peter HoUendare remained as the successor of Governer Minuit
but eighteen months. On the 15th of February, 1643, after Hollen-
dare's return to Sweden, Colonel John Printz arrived at Christina, and
at once assumed office by virtue of his commission as Governor for
the Queen of Sweden. Governor Printz came out in the ship Fame,
attended by the Svan or Stork, and by the Charitas — all armed vessels.
'The instructions of the new Governor were full and explicit. About a
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PRE-HISTORIC RUINS IN NEW JERSEY, 37
hundred soldiers came with him, as well as many colonists, the royal
council having appropriated over two million dollars annually for the
support of his administration. Printz was directed to keep on good
terms with the Dutch and cultivate trade with the English of Virginia,
and especially to see that the Indians were treated with consideration
and justice, as the original owners of the soil. Still, the Swedes were
to assume control of the Delaware, " that the river may be shut," and
in case of aggression on the west side they were commanded to " repel
force by force;" Printz was thus ''to take care" of his jurisdiction.
On Tenacong, now Tinicum Island, Printz built the fort, New Got-
tenburg, of '* vast logs," and erected Printz Hall for his residence. To
shut up the river, a fort was built on Varcken's Kill, called Helsing-
borg or Elsingburg; it had three angles, and mounted eight twelve-
pound guns.
The Rev. John Campanius, of Stockholm, came with Printz as
chaplain; Reorus Torkillus had served in that capacity at Christina
from the first. He died the 7th of September following the arrival
of his colleague, being but thirty-five years old, still memorable as
the first Lutheran missionary in the Delaware Valley, if not in all
America.
There is a well-authenticated tradition related by the Swedish
botanist, Peter Kalm, in 1748, upon the authority of Moons Keen,
one of the ancient Swedes, regarding Fort Helsingborg. When work
was begun upon the fort, the builders found traces of ancient occu-
pants in certain wells, which were bricked up to a depth of twenty
feet or more under ground ; there were vessels and fragments of
pottery, with broken and displaced brick also found near by, giving
unmistakable evidence of the civilization of former residents. The
situation of the wells and the position of the other relics was in a
meadow near the river, where all the surroundings indicated the
absolute antiquity of the pre-historic settlement. The Indians, who
had occupied the ground for generations, had no knowledge or tradi-
tion of people who dug wells and used bricks and pottery in a civilized
manner, but assured the Swedes the relics had certainly been where
they found them for more than a hundred and fifty years, — ever since
the voyages of Columbus. Were these wells the work of Lief Erik-
son, and the Norwegian Christians, a.d. 996 to a.d. iooo? Were
they dug by the men who built the round tower at Newport?
§ In October of 1643, the year Helsingborg was established, De
Vries again visited South River, putting in as he was on his way to
Virginia. As the craft came abreast of Fort Helsingborg, a gun was
fired for her to strike her flag and "come to." Blanck, the schipper,
asked advice of De Vries. " If it were my ship I should not strike,"
said De Vries, " for I am a patroon of New Netherland, and the
Swedes are mere intruders \\\ our river." The schipper, however,
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38 SCHEYICHDI AND THE STRAND,
''had a desire to trade," and lowered his colors. A boat came on
board the vessel at once, and she sailed up to Tinicum that after-
noon. The Dutch were welcomed to Fort Gottenburg by the Governor,
who "was named Captain Printz, a man of brave size, who weighed
over four hundred pounds." Being informed of the position of De
Vries and his doings on the Delaware, Printz drank his health in *'a
great romer of Rhine wine." The Dutch traded confectionery and
Madeira wine for beaver-skins at the fort for five days, and then
visited Fort Nassau, where a garrison of Dutchmen was found. Re-
turning to Tinicum, De Vries went with Printz to Fort Christina,
''where there were now several houses," and spent the night with
the Governor, who " treated him well." On parting from the Swedes
the Rotterdam vessel fired a salute in honor of their hospitaHty, and
sailed away for Virginia. Thus De Vries, who forebore his vengeance
upon the feeble Nanticokes, and ever counseled justice and peace in
dealing with the bow-bearing Indians of Manhattan, was brave enough
of himself to defy a battery of cannon in an unarmed vessel, and court-
eous enough to win the favor of a supposed enemy and competitor.
Patroon De Vries spent the winter of 1643 in Virginia, and sailed
from there for Holland, where he arrived in June, 1644. De Vries had
given his best efforts for a dozen years to New Netherland, but the
petulance of Hossett, the mismanagement of Van Twiller, and the stub-
born folly of Kieft, had thwarted his sagacious endeavors, and to him
the memory of his sojourn in the New World was a sad retrospect of
losses and tragical disappointments ; he seems never to have revisited
America.
David Pietersen De Vries was one of the finest characters of New
Netherland history. A man of the people, he was ever a foe to des-
potism, injustice, and cruelty. In Manhattan, where he resided so long
and honorably, he was, as Chairman of the Citizens' Committee, the
acknowledged head of the Dutch democracy. The Indians trusted De
Vries as a Swannekin "who never lied like the others," and his influ-
ence with the aborigines, with his characteristic tact and discrimination,
more than once saved the province from destruction.
To the folly and mismanagement of Van Twiller De Vries opposed the
coolness of practical sense and the courage of a hero. When the fool-
hardy and barbarous Director Kieft ordered the massacre of his Indian
refugee guests, De Vries gave earnest warning, and the revengeful ruin
which followed came upon Manhattan despite the protest of the demo-
cratic leader. Firm and perhaps overbearing in maintaining his own
rights as a citizen and privileged proprietor among his equals, even at
the cannon's mouth, he forebore revenge upon the ignorant savage
trespasser, and ever counseled and practiced honesty and humanity in
all dealings with his Indian neighbors. Wise in council, prudent in
action, De Vries stood firm for right, palliated the evils he could not
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TRANSLATION OF THE LUTHERAN CATECHISM. 39
avert, and constantly manifested that self-control and magnanimity
which won the affection of the Indians from Fort Orange to Sandy
Hook, and conciliated the barbarians of Swaanendael and Scheyichbi,
making smooth and peaceful the ways of his successors on the Dela-
ware.
Though filling a merely subordinate position, De Vries was by nature
and experience equally commendable as a man, a citizen, a commander,
a diplomat, or a statesman. It would be untrue to history and unjust
both to him and his creed not to record, in addition, the fact that the
first resident patroon and owner of Cape May was a man of religious
sentiments, in principle, after the best ideal, a devout and consistent
Christian.
§0n the i6th of May, 1648, the Rev. John Campanius returned to
Sweden. He had been chaplain of New Sweden since the year 1642,
and was a man of much earnestness and application. In addition to
his duties as chaplain, Campanius kept a copious journal of his voyage
to America and his observations in New Sweden. The Indians fre-
quented the house of Campanius, who never wearied in discussing with
them the tenets of his Church, and recorded that he found them able
to comprehend the doctrines of his creed. Struck with the patience,
aptness, and docility of his pupils, Campanius studied their language,
and translated the Lutheran Catechism into the Lenni Lenape dialect
of the Algonquin tongue. This book was printed by royal command
at Stockholm, in Indian and Swedish, in 1696, in one volume, 160
pages, i2mo; to the text a vocabulary is added, with examples, dia-
logues, etc.
There is a copy of this Swedish-Indian Lutheran Catechism in the
possession of the American Philosophical Society of Philadelphia, and
one was owned by Peter S. DuPonceau, LL.D., of the Pennsylvania
Historical Society. Clay, in his Swedish Annals, suggests '* that the
Swedes may claim the honor of having been the first missionaries
among the Indians, at least in Pennsylvania; and that, perhaps, the very
first work translated into the Indian language in America was the
translation of Luther's Catechism, by Campanius."
Presumably, the author of the ''Annals" refers to Protestant mission-
aries ; for, not to mention the Spanish priests who came over even with
Columbus, and soon made converts, the French Catholics at '' Port
Royal" (Annapolis, N. S.) began teaching the Micmacs and Abenekis as
early as 1605 ; and the Jesuits were there at public expense as mission-
aries to the Indians in 161 1. De Saussaye founded the mission of
St. Sauveur, on the Penobscot, in 1613, which, in August of the same
year, Argall, of Virginia, piratically destroyed. There was a mission
to the Hurons by Brebeuf, Daniel, and Lallemand, the Jesuit '' Fathers,"
in 1634, and an amply endowed Indians' hospital at Quebec, in 1635.
A.n Indian seminary was founded at Quebec, with money and teachers,
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40 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
the same year, and about the time the Swedes came to ''Zuydt River"
an Ursuline convent school for Indians was established there."
Five years before Eliot preached to a tribe six miles from Boston,
Charles Raymbault and Isaac Jogues, under Jesuit direction, penetrated
in 1641 to the outlet of Lake Superior, and preached ''Christ and him
crucified" to a congregation of two thousand wild aborigines. *' Not a
cape was turned, nor a river entered," says Bancroft, "but a Jesuit led
the way." Dissent is free, thank God ! Even dissent from dissent, at
last; but history must crown with a just award those to whom, what-
ever the dogma, the cross meant obedience, patience, and self-denial, —
who bore the symbol of a divine humanity to savage men, and, in the
speechless death-agony of Indian tortures, offered their cruel execu-
tioners the sign of universal love, mercy, and forgiveness !
Campanius and Eliot began labor in the same field at about the same
time, and though the work of Eliot was the greatest and most success-
ful, the purpose was identical, and the honor due each is of the same
nature. The Swedish chaplain acquired the ** Renni Rennappi" lan-
guage during the six years of his stay on the Delaware, but his trans-
lation of the Lutheran Catechism was not put to press until 1696.
Eliot began to preach in Indian October 28th, 1646, the Mohegan New
Testament was printed in Boston in 1661, and the whole Bible two
years later — fifteen years after Eliot began the translation.
The printer's work on this Mohegan Bible— the first Bible published
in America — was slowly done by an Englishman, and John Printer, an
Indian youth. The work included a catechism, and the Psalms of David
in Indian verse. Fifteen hundred copies were printed, at a cost of two
thousand dollars ; several of them, richly bound, being presented to
King Charles of England. " Eliot's Bible" may be seen in the Phila-
delphia Library, in the library of Harvard College, and a few other like
places : few as these copies are, those who can read them are fewer still.
To give an example of the difficulties encountered by Campanius in
his translation, it is said that, as the Indians used no bread, he was
compelled to translate the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day a plentiful
supply of venison and corn." Eliot, in translating the Biblical account
in which the mother of Sisera is described as looking through the
" lattice," described a lattice to his Indian assistants, upon whom he
was compelled to depend for a word: what must have been his chagrin
to find, afterwards, that he had made "the mother of Sisera look out
of the window through a wicker-basket trap for eels !" A thorough
scholar like Eliot was needed to deal with the synthetical difficulties
of a language in which, as no unconverted Indian knelt, the phraes
" kneeling down unto him" is of necessity translated and printed
Wutappessttukgussunnoohwehtunkguok ; yet Eliot translated several
works into Mohegan, notably a Mohegan grammar, and an " Indian
Logick Primer."
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THE PRAYING INDIANS. 41
It required the labor of years, says Loskiel, the Moravian mission-
ary, to make the Delaware dialect capable of expressing abstract truth.
A new language had to be forged out of existing terms, by circumlo-
cutions and combinations. *' Eliot caught the analogies of nature to
convey moral truth in his Indian Bible." Each Indian tongue and
dialect was a perfectly organized language, expressive of all material
things, but there were few words to express aught else; no terms for
conttnence, justice, gratitude, or holiness. It was impossible to trans-
late the doxology into the purely synthetic, absolutely definite Indian
tongue, and hence the Onondagas were taught to sing: ''Glory be
to our Father, and to His Son, and to Their Holy Ghost." Cotton
Mather, who based his orthodoxy on witchcraft, gravely stated that he
tested the demons around him, who made a pretense of being linguists,
with the Indian tongue. These imps, Mather says, frequented his
premises, and could well manage Latin, Hebrew, and Greek with ease,
but at the Mohegan dialect they shrank back in dismay. The pleas-
ing inference is that the Indians were a people unknown in hell ; but
the cruel old witch-hunter did not tell the story as a compliment to
the Mohegans, but honestly as a fact, — one worthy the most fortunate
spiritualist.
Both the Mohegans and Delawares were appreciative of the work
done for them by their apostles and catechists. Eliot had three thou-
sand six hundred praying Indians, whom he led like a flock, until
King Philip's Indian war, when the men of Massachusetts, mad with
terror and despair, turned upon even the inoffensive, praying Indians,
broke up their unarmed civilized towns, and drove their innocent red
fellow-Christians through suffering to foreign slavery. So perished the
hope of John Eliot. The Swedish missionaries sent out by the King
and Church of Sweden to the Delaware in 1696 wrote back: ''The
Indians and we are as one people. They are also very fond of learning
the catechism, which has been printed in their language. They like to
have it read to them, and they have engaged Mr. Charles Springer to
teach their children to read it." And these same people protested
alike to Swedes, Dutch, and English everywhere against the sale of
rum to their young men.
Few, if any, of the Indians of the Delaware became Christians in the
time of Campanius, but afterwards, when broken as a tribe by contact
with the whites, the Moravians became the kindly guardians of a part
of their people, and many of them joined that church, and settled
peacefully and prosperously at " Conestoga," only to be driven from
their last home in Pennsylvania by the murderous " Paxton boys," who,
coveting their land, killed many of them in 1762. Under the able
leadership of their chief, the educated, pious Isaac Still, the remnant
of the Delawares emigrated to the valley of the Wabash, " far away"
then, as they desired to be, " from war and rum." The last party of
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42 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
about forty started in the fall of 1775. The great tribe had left the
banks of the Poutaxit forever. In 1803 Hanna Hannah, last of the
Lenapees in the east, died in Chester County. So passed away the
peaceful, wise, and influential ** original people." ''In their deaHngs
with the white man," says Colonel Wm. B. Sipes, in his sketch of the
Pennsylvania Railroad, *' they were scrupulously honest, and many of
them became strongly attached to the early settlers. The treaties they
made, which cost them so much and profited them so little, were never
broken, and when they had dwindled away, before the advancing tide
of civilization, to a mere remnant of a mighty race, they \dX the burial
places of their fathers in search of new homes without a stain upon
their honor."
Regretting that the limits of his work prohibit more extended recog-
nition of the faithful Lenni Lenape, the author has chosen a word from
their language to grace his title-page, ** Scheyichbi" having been the
ancient Indian name of New Jersey.
§ The Swedes' Governor, John Printz, writes Governor Winthrop, of
New England, in his history, " was a man very furious and passionate,
cursing and swearing, and also reviling the P2nglish of New Haven
as runnigates." The Sw^edish policy brought Printz into a series of
quarrels with the Dutch of Fort Nassau, and they found no exemp-
tion from his bad manners. For all that, the Governor of the Swedes
was an able man, and not only managed well in the fur trade, but so
overslaughed and undermined the power of the Dutch, that in 1649,
about ten years after the settlement by Minuit at Paghacking, the
Swedes were supreme on the Delaware.
On the nth of May, 1647, Peter Stuyvesant succeeded Wilhelmus
Kieft as Director-General of New Netherland. For several years
affairs at Manhattan restrained and preoccupied him, but in 165 1
decided measures were taken to reassert the claims of the Dutch
oil South River, where Stuyvesant proceeded in person. After un-
satisfactory negotiations with Printz, the Dutch bought of certain
Indians lands five miles below Fort Christina, and at Newcastle,
Delaware, they built a fort which they called Kasimir, Fort Nassau
being demolished.
trailing to receive the reinforcements he demanded, Printz returned
to Sweden, November 7th, 1653, leaving John Papegoia in charge of
the colony. But Sweden had not forgotten her colony, but entrusted
it to a "General College of Commerce," and in 1653 John Rising,
Governor of New Sweden, in command of a strong military force,
entered the Delaware, where there had been for some time less than
a score of Swedish soldiers. Rising managed to gain possession of
Fort Casimir without fighting, and at once fully restablished the power
of Sweden, and soon concluded a just peace with the Indians.
When Peter Stuyvesant learned of the " dishonorable surrender of
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CONQUEST OF NEW SWEDEN 43
the fort" made by Gerrit Bikker, and of his officers' desertion to the
Swedes, with a third of his men, his rage was mighty, and he at once
reported the affair to Amsterdam, where his anger was equaled by that
of the directors. A Swedish ship, the Golden Shark, entering Man-
hattan Bay soon after by mistake, was detained '' until a reciprocal
restitution shall have been made." Meantime, however, Rising wrote
home an account of his success, saying that whereas he found but
seventy persons in New Sweden, there were then three hundred and
sixty-eight who acknowledged his authority, " including Hollanders
and others."
On Sunday, September 5th, 1655, ''after the sermon," Peter Stuy-
vesant, with seven powerful vessels and about seven hundred men,
sailed from Manhattan, under orders from Amsterdam, for the sub-
jugation of New Sweden. The next (Monday) afternoon the fleet
was off Helsingborg, then in ruins; on the lOth of the month the
Dutch forces landed near Casimir, which, being much overpowered,
surrendered without defense. Rising shut himself up in Fort Christina,
and, though closely invested from the 15th, held out until the 25th of
September. The Swedish town having been sacked. New Sweden
ravaged, and Christina invested by an overwhelming force. Rising, to
avoid an exterminating bombardment, surrendered, and the flag of
Sweden, which in defense of freedom had waved victoriously in Europe,
sank to rise no more in America.
The Dutch forces were recalled to Manhattan in haste to repel an
Indian invasion. The conquerers had been in New Sweden three
weeks — a body of men twice the number of the entire Swedish popu-
lation living on the country. Consequently, on the i8th of December,
1655, when John Paul Jacquet arrived at Zuydt Riviere as Vice-
Director for Stuyvesant, out of an original population of nearly four
hundred but a dozen families remained, and, besides. Fort Casimir was
no better than a ruin. On July 12th, 1656, the Dutch West India
Company conceded the land from Boomtjes Heuken to Cape Hen-
lopen to Amsterdam, for seven hundred thousand guilders (;^266,ooo);
this territory became a colony of that municipality of Holland, under
the name of Nieuwer Amstel, the capital being at the present New-
castle. New Amstel was ruled with much rigor; to desert the colony
was punishable with death, yet the numerous emigrants sent out by
the city could not be retained. A trading post and small garrison
were kept up at the Horekill, where in 1662 an Anabaptist " Men-
nonist" community of twenty-five families settled under the leadership
of Peter Cornelis Plockhoy. The Mennonists were a liberal, catholic,
tolerant people, and their co-operative institutions were very free and
democratic. For several years, owing to disagreements between the
authorities of Manhattan and New Amstel, and between both of them
and the Governors of Maryland, confusion and distress continued west
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44 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
of the Delaware, and the dissatisfied people were scattered abroad by
repeated alarms and panics.
§ The glorious rise and progress of the Batavian Republic astonished
the world; the commercial and manufacturing greatness of Holland
aroused the bitter and ignoble jealousy of the English. In 1664, in a
time of peace and progress, England made a treacherous attack upon
the Dutch. On the 8th of September, Manhattan and New Netherland
were peaceably but unavoidably surrendered to a piratical expedition
which Charles II. of England sent out to place his brother James,
Duke of York, in possession of the province of the Hollanders. Sir
Robert Carr was sent to take possession of the Delaware. Some de-
fense was made at New Amstel by Hinoyssa the Governor; the place
was captured, however, the Dutch soldiers sold into Virginian slavery,
and the people plundered, even of their farms in some cases. A boat
was sent to the Horekill and the colony there was robbed ; among the
goods carried off was ''what belonged to the Quaking Society of Plock-
hoy, to a very naile." The court of England tried in vain to justify
these acts before the world ; they merited the scorn of mankind. Nine
years after, even Charles 11. repented of his buccaneering; then Hol-
land opened her dikes, and aided by the flood defeated two hundred
thousand French troops with twenty thousand man; infinitely bold
against desperate odds, the Dutch, at the same time, day after day .
outfought the fighting ships of Britain, until the shattered fleet, sailing
as from an infernal scourge, hid behind the strongest forts, while the
revengeful guns of De Ruyter and Tromp bellowed in insolent triumph
along the shores of England.
By the overthrow of the power of the Dutch West India Company
and the States of Holland in North America, James, Duke of York,
became Governor of Ne.w Netherland. Before the sailing of the expe-
dition for the conquest of Manhattan, James appointed Nicolls, its
commander, his deputy, to act as such after the subjugation of the
Dutch colony. Nicolls had been gone from England but a month
when, on the twenty-third of June, the Duke of York, well knowing
the success of the enterprise was assured by the treachery which con-
ceived it, sold to Lord John Berkeley, Privy Councillor and Baron of
Stratton, and Sir George Carteret, of Sattrum, Devon County, Knight,
a native of the Isle of Jersey, all the territory now included in the
State of New Jersey, which then received the name of " New Jersey,"
or Nova Caesaria. James was one of the worst bigots of the English
line of kings ; all his good qualities, as a man, a prince, a king, were
foiled with glaring defects, yet in his honor the name of Manhattan was
changed by Nicolls to '' New York," the west of the Hudson was called
"Albania," and Long Island received the appellation of "Yorkshire ;"
thus all the various titles of the Duke were foisted upon the country
at once — the force of flattery could n.o farther go.
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THE ADMINISTRATION OF NIC OILS.
45
The flag of Britain now covered the coast of the Colonies which
became the thirteen original United States ; freedom and progress were
served by injustice in the end, but the people of New York, who
imagined the privileges of Englishmen were to be added to the secure
possession of their property, soon had reason to sigh for the honest
despotism of Stuyvesant, to save them from the extortions of their new
and rapacious governors; while the Duke of York and his agents
were presently forced to realize in disappointment that the profitable
despotism they had planned was impossible among such a people as
those they fancied they had made their victims and servants.
By his sale to Berkeley and Carteret, the Duke of York prefigured
the outlines of the State of New Jersey, and unwittingly forecast the
destiny of a free Commonwealth. The change of government which
had made Colonel Nicolls Governor of New York and '' Albania" and,
as President of the Royal Commission, presumptive potentate of New
England, was of vital importance to the people of the Colonies, especi-
ally those near New York ; and the new administration, appreciative
of its opportunities, was not slow to energetically assert its powers.
The citizens of New Haven, who had paid six hundred pounds for
lands on the Delaware, and perhaps lost as much more in fruitless
expeditions, thither, who had remonstrated with Kieft, quarreled with
Stuyvesant, and sought the aid of Cromwell, through their General
Court, by letter, detailed their grievances to the Royal Commissioners;
but the new Governor was too busy to pause to nicely adjust the scales
of justice. Ignoring the investitures of the past and the equities of
the present, heedless of its own engagements, the government of New
York devoted itself to the illegal profit of its officials and the assidu-
ous and flattering service of its ducal patron.
Governor Nicolls, in ignorance of the sale to Berkeley and Carteret,
made more than two months before the capture of New Netherland,
named New Jersey and the western bank of the Hudson Albania,
in compliment to the Scottish title of the Duke of York. This ter-
ritory he was exceedingly anxious to populate. Tracts of land on
Hackensack Neck and elsewhere were granted to parties from New
England, who, as required by Nicolls, satisfied the claims of the Indian
residents. The Dutch, in 1663, had given a party of Puritans liberty
to settle in '' Nova Belgia" (New Jersey), with an almost independent
charter for a local government, and the settlements under Nicolls
were largely the outworking of similar plans by other " Yankee" asso-
ciations.
The pioneers from New Haven, and those who soon followed them
from the east, brought to their new homes the same dogmatic temper
and theocratic ideas which characterized the ecclesiastical tyrannies of
early New England ; but with them they brought also the inflexible
resolution and unceasing industry for which the people of that section
4
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46 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
have ever been distinguished. The New England emigrants soon ac-
quired the influence in New Jersey their pertinacious habits guaranteed
from the first, and if the constitution and laws of the new Common-
wealth were more favorable to liberty than the primitive enactments of
Massachusetts and Connecticut, it was not the fault of the conscien-
tiously stubborn Puritans !
While NicoUs by every means encouraged the settlement of Albania,
and noted with pride the multiplying farms and increasing villages from
Bergen to Sandy Hook, news came that the action of the dull James
of York had disparted his Colony, and conceded the fairest and most
promising portion to overreaching speculators. In August, 1665,
Philip Carteret entered New Jersey, and by virtue of the provision
which, in English law, vested the Proprietary of a colony with juris-
diction, assumed the office of Governor, under the warrant of his father
and Lord Berkeley.
Governor NicoUs was much vexed at the unexpected turn thus given
affairs, and tried, but in vain, to induce the Duke of York to compel
the reconveyance of the territories he had parted with in ignorance of
their value. Berkeley and Carteret remained in possession and control,
but it was a long time before the duke or his agents, who assumed to
hold by feudal tenure, ceased to claim rightful jurisdiction, customs,
rights, and paramount sovereignty under the King.
The few settlers Philip Carteret found in his colony were well dis-
posed to receive him as their Chief Magistrate, and when a subsequent
Governor of New York invaded New Jersey to intimidate them by a dis-
play of the Royal Patent, the sturdy Puritans, without question of the
validity of the document presented, referred to Magna Charta as '* the
only rule, privilege, and joint safety of every free-born Englishman,"
and stood like a wall for the independence of New Jersey. The begin-
ning of the Commonwealth was but small. On a tract of land once sold
by the Indians to the Dutch, and afterwards to the Puritans, four
houses stood in the same neighborhood ; in honor of Lady Carteret and
<her kindness, this locality was called Elizabethtown, and in May, 1668,
became the scene of a Colonial Legislature and the capital of the
.Province.
The property of Berkeley and Carteret was almost a wilderness ; to
.induce emigration its owners had sent successful messengers to New
Haven to invite the rigid Calvinists to a home on their shores, while,
at die same time, the most liberal concessions to liberty were promised
vwhoever should join them in their invasion of the primeval woodlands.
The Governor, the Council, and popular Representatives were to
create the laws, persons and property were to be secure, no taxes were
to be levied but by the Colonial Assembly, both Proprietaries and
people were to unite in maintenance of their mutual rights, even against
royal imposition; and last and greatest of all, ** freedom of judgment,
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AN ECONOMICAL HERESY. 47
conscience, and worship" were guaranteed every peaceable person. The
power of veto, judicial appointments, and the executive authority were
all which was reserved for the Proprietaries. The lands of the new
State were to be held under a quit-rent of a half-penny an acre, the
payment of which was deferred for five years, or until 1670; and to
please the Royal Duke, who was President of the African Company,
a bounty of seventy-five acres of land was ofifered for the importation
of every able-bodied negro slave.
As the Dutch patroons had done, .settlers were required to base the
title to their lands in equity, by a fair and satisfactory purchase of their
estates from the Indians.
The compact of New Jersey being ratified by the people, and peace
prevailing under the mild sway of Philip Carteret, the province pros-
pered and increased, encouraged by a temperate and salubrious climate,
united with a fruitful soil easy of tillage; but in 16/O the quit-rents
became due, and then the Puritans, who, in New Haven, had Arthur
Smith brought into Court in 1659, and fined fifty pounds, because he
expressed some of the '' divvilish oppinions" of the '* cursed hereticks**
the Quakers, developed a peculiar heresy of their own. Referring to
their well-thumbed Bibles, from which they were apt to wrench a text
to cover any purpose, they argued that Noah was the original proprietor
of New Jersey, having in himself and heirs become invested with the
same by his landing on Mount Ararat, directly after his protracted
voyage in the ark. The title having thus been in Noah, as they argued,
followed his descendants. The Indians were lineal offspring of Noah,
they bought their lands of the Indians, and hence, particularly as Gov-
ernor Nicolls had approved the deed and Carteret himself assented
thereto, they refused rent which was merely due by the laws of Eng-
land and their own voluntary contract and agreement.
To save a few shillings, the Puritan farmers precipitated anarchy,
drove Philip Carteret from his Governor's chair, and hunted William
Pardon, who withheld the records from them, out of the country as if
a malefactor. A new Governor was chosen by an irregular assembly
of delegates, in the person of James Carteret, a trifling young man, an
illegitimate son of Sir George; and while the legal Governor, leaving
John Berry as his deputy, voyaged to England for fresh instructions
and renewed authority, the revolutionists cultivated their farms in peace,
kept the quit-rents in their pockets, and doubtless regarded Noah as a
man who had left something very handsome to his family. Great prin-
ciples dawn slowly on the minds of men, and rightful independence and
freedom are evolved, age after age, through the crimes of those who
grope toward truth in selfishness and disorder.
While toleration was established in New Jersey and the exercise of
freedom urged to the license of revolution, Liberty was exiled from
New York, and justice banished that corruption might prostitute the
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48 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
offices of government. There was no popular representation, the Gov-
ernor and his Council made the laws, decided causes, and assumed
executive supremacy; moreover, the functions of government were
made means of extortion, and the people were plundered in the name
of law and security. Contrary to the stipulations of the surrender,
'* Even the Dutch patents for land were held to require renewal, and
Nicolls gathered a harvest of fees from exacting new title-deeds.'*
That which had been New Sweden was retained under the government
of New York, and shared the evils of an extortionate oppression.
Governor Lovelace, who succeeded Nicolls in 1667, added to the trials
of the people; even the Swedes and Finns became turbulent. ''The
method for keeping the people in order is severity," said Lovelace,
*• and laying such taxes as may give them liberty for no thought but
how to discharge them." Regardless of the liberties of New Jersey,
arbitrary customs were collected at the mouth of the Delaware by the
agents of the Duke of York. The people of Maryland invaded
Lewestown with an armed force in 1672, to establish the domain of
Lord Baltimore on the shores of the Delaware ; the country was at
once reclaimed by Sir Robert Carr, deputy of Governor Lovelace, as
belonging to the Duke of York by conquest.
While all these things took place, the claims of Berkeley and Carteret
were reaffirmed in England, and it seemed that trouble was impending
for the New Jersey anti-renters ; suddenly the political kaleidoscope
was shifted by an unexpected hand — Evertsen of Zeeland, command-
ing a Dutch fleet, appeared in New York harbor, the 30th of July,
1673; again without a blow Manhattan was surrendered, the flag of
Holland waved once more over New Netherland. The unjust war
upon Holland became unpopular in England, and Parliament refused
supplies for its prosecution ; peace was declared on the 9th of February,
1674, and the rights of neutral flags were established by the treaty which
followed, Holland under the teaching of Grotius having been the
first to claim the enfranchisement of the ocean, the freedom of the seas.
By treaty, too, England regained the port of New York, with the geo-
graphical unity of her Colonies, and the flag of Holland, radiant with vic-
tory and honor, was finally withdrawn from the shores of North America.
Under Edmund Andros, the power of James of York was rein-
stated at Manhattan, October 31, 1674. The narrow-minded duke had
learned nothing from experience, and though Andros was a better man
than Nicolls or Carr, yet the despotic system which oppressed the
people of New York and clutched at the Charter of Connecticut re-
mained.. Philip Carteret reappeared in New Jersey, and renewed after
a time his argumentative warfare for rights and dues according to feudal
law and kingly pleasure, with a people who claimed to hold their lands
from Noah, their privileges from Magna Charta, and their faith from
private judgment of the infallible word of God.
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PERSECUTION OF THE QUAKERS. 49
The Proprietaries of New Jersey sought above all things for profit
from their province. Their liberal concession of popular rights was dic-
tated by a policy which, however laudable in its means, looked to the
same end gained by the piracies of Carr and the maladministration
and extortion of Nicolls. Lord Berkeley was already an old man; as
no profit had been derived from his New Jersey property, and trouble
was still apprehended from contumacious subjects and disputatious
tenants, he became willing to withdraw from the barren adventure.
Where avarice falters in discouragement, and ambition halts in des-
pair, the love of liberty populates the wilderness, and religious enthu-
siasm builds the institutions of the State. From t'he time when Charles
I. laid his head upon the block in front of his own banquet hall in 1649,
the sufferings of " the peculiar people," the Quakers, had been indescrib-
able and universal : whoever was tolerated they were disallowed ; they
were contemned, insulted, fined, scourged, imprisoned, enslaved,
maimed, branded, and hung, even in the New World. In England all
classes united to persecute ; even the Presbyterians declared that ** hell
had broken loose" in the person of George Fox, and the mild apostle
was forced to denounce them as " exceeding rude and develish."
"They were as poor sheep appointed to the slaughter, and as a people
killed all day long." And yet, aside from the irregularities of a few
fanatics, such as are found in all sects, the offense of the Quaker was
only in his spirituality and his democracy. But m the days of Fox and
Penn, these were counted worthy of stripes, bonds, and death, by those
who worshiped Churches and Kings more than God ; and even those who
contended to the uttermost for purity of soul, and the right of private
judgment themselves, turned like wolves upon a people who gave to
the Puritans' version of the rights of man a still more radical translation.
Resolute to bear witness in testimony of the truth of the Inward
Light, ready at all times to be offered up a sacrifice, the Quaker pre-
served the serenity of his reason, whether he stood amid courts in the
presence of kings as a Counselor and Friend, or perished from hunger,
cold, and neglect amid the frozen filth of dungeons. He who "affirmed"
himself the peer of peers, wore his hat as only a peer by law might do ; the
" Friend" was ready with his " thee" and " thou,'' and other titles he
would have none; but "plain speech" was not impertinent language,
and formal dress meant other things than eccentricities of character.
Determined on freedom, the Friend was not bent on useless martyr-
dom, and while P*ox journeyed as a missionary, and Penn traveled as
a preacher, the iconoclasts cast about for an asylum for the persecuted,
a land where " Salem" might be founded, where " the Holy Experi-
ment" might be tried, and, God willing, " Philadelphia" arise to wel-
come to the " city of brotherly love" the universal tribe of man. Penn
traversed Europe, Fox the colonies of America; nowhere was there to
be found rest and peace, except perhaps m the narrow confines of
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SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
Rhode Island. New Netherland turned aside from the policy of Fader-
landt, and half tolerating Lutherans; Stuyvesant had only imprison-
ment, labor in chains, and the dungeons of Fort Amsterdam for *' the
new, unheard-of, abominable heresy, called Quakers."
At last light dawned from afar, and in New Jersey there was hope.
Edward Byllinge, by John Fenwick, as trustee for himself and his
assigns, bought of Lord John Berkeley, in 1675, for a thousand pounds,
one undivided half of New Jersey; under this indirect purchase mis-
understandings arose, but they were managed by the arbitration of
William Penn, to whom, with Gawen Laurie and Nicholas Lucas, Byllinge
finally assigned his pl'operty for the benefit of his creditors.
In June, 1675, Major John Fenwick, claiming his own right as an
associate in the purchase with Byllinge, arrived in the Delaware in the
ship Griffith, " with a large company and several families." The arbi-
trators had assigned one-tenth of Byllinge's purchase to Fenwick, with
a sum of money as his share ; he assumed the character and style of
Lord Chief Proprietor. Near where the people of New Haven had
settled on Varcken's Kill, not far from the site of the Swedish fort
Helsingborg, and where the relics of unknown pioneers were found, the
colony of "plain John Fenwick" also selected their location, and, feel-
ing secure at last, landed upon the peaceful shores and bestowed the
name of *' Salem" upon the place. Byllinge had failed, and, in the
interest of his creditors, the nine-tenths of one undivided half of New
Jersey, left to his estate, was offered for sale in decimal shares of tenths
and hundredths ; to carry out the purpose of an asylum for the perse-
cuted, these shares were largely taken up by Quakers.
To found his colony, John Fenwick had borrowed money of John
Eldridge and Edmund Warner, giving his tenth of the Byllinge pur-
chase as security, with the right to sell lands therefrom to their satis-
faction. Eldridge and Warner conveyed their claim to the trustees,
Laurie, Penn, and Lucas. Fenwick still asserted himself in all the
qualities of Lord Chief Proprietor, refusing to abide by the results of
arbitration. The rights and claims of Fenwick were a sore trial to
Penn, and he and his associates have been accused of duplicity in re-
gard to the matter, how justly or unjustly still seems a matter of dis-
pute ; however it may have been, Fenwick abode in his place, and as
long as he lived gave token of an uncompromising and dauntless, even
if, at times, impolitic and arbitrary spirit.
As soon as the matter of ownership was adjusted, the Quakers se-
cured from Carteret a division of the estate. Anxious to come into pos-
session of their territory, where they could institute a government, the
Friends haggled not for advantage, and Carteret, conscious of having
the best of the bargain, readily fell in with their proposals. The line
of division ran from Egg Harbor to a point on the Delaware River,
under the forty-first degree of north latitude, and near Burlington; the
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'^THE POWER IN THE PEOPLEr 51
lands to the north and east were to be left to Carteret, and those to the
southward and west, under the name of West New Jersey, became
the property of Quaker associates.
Long accustomed to endure suffering, competent as critics and
preachers, '' the peculiar people" were now to be more severely tested ;
they were required to build, to organize, to govern and enjoy. Con-
sulting among themselves in England, the Friends evolved their scheme
of government. *' The Concessions are such as Friends approve of,"
wrote the Quaker Proprietaries to those already in their land of rest.
**We lay a foundation for after-ages to understand their liberty as
Christians and as men, that they may not be brought into bondage,
but by their own consent, for we put The Power in the People."
The basis of the Quaker State was democratic equality ; methodically
and clearly the ** agreements" stated the sublime affirmations of the
Quaker, and in harmony therewith promulgated the *' fundamentals"
of the highest form of actual government the world has ever known.
Freedom of conscience, the ballot-box, equality before the law, the
right of assembly, freedom of election, freedom of speech, freedom of
the press, popular sovereignty, trial by jury, open courts, free legisla-
tures, all these were provided for in West Jersey, in March, 1677.
What more ? No poor man could be imprisoned for debt, none held
as slaves ; there was free access to the courts, where each man might
plead for himself; the judge, an appointee of the assembly for two years
only, merely announced the law, the jury gave both the verdict and
the sentence ; where Indians were concerned the natives were to make
half the jurymen. The statutes prescribed were admirable and con-
sonant with the Constitution, the whole wise, just, and discriminating,
full of justice, benevolence, and protection even to the humblest deni-
zen of the aboriginal woods. The helpless orphan became the ward
of the State, and the child of misfortune was educated at the cost of the
Commonwealth.
The honor and fame of William Penn are borne toward future ages
with the progress of the mighty State that bears his name; but, let it
be remembered, in West Jersey his inspired mind and benevolent heart
first wrought out his model of a state, and there, and there alone, his
will and his purpose became the law and rule of a happy people.
Every acre of New Jersey has been fairly bought of the Indian tribes.
West Jersey is unstained by Indian blood. *' You are our brothers,"
said the sachems ; '* we will live like brothers with you. The path
shall be plain; there shall not be in it a stump to hurt the feet."
''Their ways were ways of pleasantness, and all their paths were
peace."
The " holy experiment" had been established, and thus far was success-
ful ; troubles and trials came at length, but new precedents met novel
emergencies, and staid historians who describe the time break forth
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52
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
in poetic rhapsody to tell of the happiness of the people. '* The people
rejoiced under the reign of God." *' Everything went well in West
New Jersey."
Meantime, the trustees of Sir George Carteret grew tired of Colonial
burdens and trials without return, and proposed the sale of East New
Jersey. The estate was purchased by William Penn and eleven others,
the first and second days of February, 1682, for three thousand four
hundred pounds; possession was taken in November, 1682, by Deputy
Governor Thomas Rudyard, for the Association. New Jersey was now
entirely in the possession of Friends, but in East Jersey were found a
large number of " sober professing people" of the Calvinist persuasion,
and sound policy seemed to require a more varied board of propri-
etaries. Accordingly, each Friend selected a partner, and, to the
twenty-four, a new patent was issued by the Duke of York. The King
also confirmed all the transactions by declaration in November, 1683.
The partners were not all Quakers, but one of them, who was a Friend,
the able Robert Barclay, of Urie, Scotland, was made Governor, and
afterwards became Governor for life.
While important events thus followed each other in New Jersey,
William Penn secured his grant of Pennsylvania, and, late in the
autumn of 1682, he held a meeting at Shackamaxon to which the
Indians of Pennsylvania were invited, and where the spirit moved Penn
to preach a Quaker sermon, — the same gospel George Fox announced
to Cromwell, and which Mary P^isher delivered among the armies of
the Turks and bore to the Sultan, " Commander of the Faithful."
" We are all one flesh and blood," said Penn. '* We will live in love
with William Penn and his children as long as the moon and the sun
shall endure," answered the "savages;" and they kept their word, and
long treasured the tradition of that day's speech from Onias, the great
Father of the Quekels. Says Bancroft, *' Not a drop of Quaker blood
was ever shed by an Indian."
But the affairs of Pennsylvania became too vast for personal super-
intendence, and the agents of Penn in the purchase of lands, in making
of treaties, often forgot his gospel and disregarded the wishes of his
gentle soul. In time *' the world's people" rolled in on Pennsylvania
like a flood ; professing obedience to Biblical law, and denouncing
"vengeance on the heathen," they themselves selfishly trampled on all
law, human and divine, and, under the hypocrite's cloak of zeal for the
glory of God, defied the rights of Penn and his assigns, overrode the
laws of the Province, intruded without warrant upon the lands of the
tribes, and imbrued their hands in the blood of the Indian with every
circumstance of base atrocity, even to those who knelt at the name of
Jesus and shared with the Moravian saints the bread and wine of the
Christian Sacrament. In 1682, Penn promised the Indians, " No advan-
tage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love."
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THE CRUEL POLICY OF THE STUARTS, 53
In 1685, the agents of Penn shamefully defrauded the tribes of their
lands to the Susquehanna, and, in 1764, John and Richard Penn, the
sons of " Father Onias',' sanctioned Lieutenant-Governor Cadwallader's
offer of one hundred and fifty dollars for the scalp of an Indian, and
one hundred and thirty-four dollars for scalps which bore the hair of a
squaw ! The Pennsylvania Quakers, many of them, labored faithfully
and not in vain in the cause of justice and mercy, as they had li^ht,
but the student who seeks the logical issue of the principles of Fox
and Penn starts back in grief and horror from the blood-stained soil of
Pennsylvania, to follow the record of events east of the Delaware.
Theological predestination means political democracy. Quakerism
is the democracy intended, and yet predestination alone separates the
Friend and the Calvinist. " The nearer the relation, the worse the
quarrel," and in all the weary years, from George P'ox, in 1649, to the
death of Charles II., in 1685, Presbyterians in England were the perse-
cutors of Friends ; and in Massachusetts the Puritans ordered that the
ears of the Quakers be cut off, and their tongues bored with a red-hot
iron. They were Calvinists who, in Boston, in 1659, put Marmaduke
Stephenson, William Robinson, and William Leddra to death on the
gallows for preaching Quakerism in Massachusetts, and hung Mary
Dyar on Boston Common, the same year, for the same offense !
Cromwell died, the Stuarts were restored, Charles II. reigned for the
quarter of a century; the zealous fanaticism of the Calvinist Round-
heads was succeeded by the superstition of the divine right of kings, the
last deepened by the excesses of the first. Monarchy was absolute in
church and state in the last days of Charles II., '* Independents" were
marked for destruction, and '* Presbyterians," — they who since the time
of Edward VI. had originated each struggle for popular freedom, they
who always dreamed of republics, whose creed taught insubordination
as a dogma, — what had they to expect? It was in Scotland that the
policy of the Stuarts bore its ripest fruit; there the crime of Cromwell
in the execution of King Charles I. was ten thousand times revenged.
Of the Cameronians, of the Covenanters, of the Scottish Presbyterians,
what can be said? Nothing exceeded the cruelty, the brutality, the
mad, exterminating barbarity visited upon them, except, forever, the
fortitude with which they confronted those who slew them ! The
magistrates of Boston, in 1659, were tender nursing mothers — angels of
mercy — compared to Claverhouse and Lauderdale and Jeffreys, the
minions of episcopacy and the king.
Atrocity incited insurrection, but the adherents of Monmouth were
borne down, and the penalties of treason superadded to the inflictions
of persecution. All who had ever communed with rebels were con-
demned ; twenty thousand lives awaited the executioner, safe only in
the forbearance of the informers. In the name of law, the common
dragoons, the rank and file of the soldiery, were made magistrates and
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54 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
judges over families of rank and wealth and women of culture, as well as
the peasantry of the mountains. The discretion of the ruffians themselves
furnished the instructions of this banditti, but royal mercy moderated
their rigor. Summary murder was forbidden, and women were to be
allowed to die without dishonor ; no other restriction was imposed.
To whom, among the bloodhounds of vengance, should a maiden make
her complaint of outrage, and when have the dead returned to convict
their assassins ?
There was not room in jail for all the Covenanters; the prisoners
were sold into plantation slavery, and the price of blood shared by
royal favorites. Presbyterians were hunted like vermin, with dogs and
guns, by mounted men led on by swarming spies; it was death to
house them, death to throw them bread, death to listen to complaints
of theirs ; did a wife, a husband, a father, a child, a parent, comfort their
own kind, death was the doom of both the sufferer and the friend. It
was more than human nature could endure, and the bewildered, de-
spairing victims of an infernal crusade turned at bay and threatened
retaliation. Such is the courage of the hunted, bleating ewe, when
bloody wolves rage round the mangled flock. The threat of resistance
was answered by the order for massacre. As they labored, as they
prayed, as they journeyed, as they fled, the Covenanters were shot
down ; their estates were plundered, their houses burned, their families
hurried away to distant colonies;
James II. came to the throne; he only added the aggravation of a
delusive pretense of clemency to the miseries of the people. The
victims of cruelty sought in flight safety from death; every day com-
panies of fugitives were arrested by the troops; juries of soldiers trying
them beside the highways, they were condemned in a body and shot
in heaps together. Beside the sea women were tied to stakes at ebb
of tide, far out upon the strand ; the pitiless tide returned by slow
degrees, and, mocked by the ribaldry of the troops, who laughed at the
amusing spectacle, they were gradually and agonizingly drowned. The
dungeons were crowded with men ; for food, for water, for air, they
prayed in vain ; starved, choked with thirst, or suffocated, they died in
breathless torture. But the Government of England was not merciless.
When the dungeons would hold no more, living or dead; when the
assassin tired of murder; when only suspicion indicated a victim ; when
a whim suggested forbearance, then shipload after shipload, in crowds
the wretched, plundered, ill-provided exiles were sold and exported
to America. Still monarchy and episcopacy laid their hands upon
them as they left their native land; some of the men were allowed to
retain a single ear, but others were deprived of both, while upon the
cheeks of fair women and matrons the branding-iron was often deeply
set, while a royal mandate crossed the Atlantic to forbid mercy or
mitigation of their slavery.
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THE TEACHING OF THE INWARD LIGHT
55
Now how might the Quaker exult in his happy home between the
Delaware and the sea, and, secure in the immunities of his own freedom,
reflect that the Lord had revenged his wrongs upon those who had
joined with the muhitude to do him evil ! Had the Friend been other
than " friendly," now was the time to satiate his malice, for the groans
of his tormentors were in his ears, his eyes witnessed the full measure
of their suffering.
But what revenge may men take to whom the Inward Light dic-
tates a rule of action ? During the reign of Charles II., James, then
Duke of York, was the friend of Admiral Penn, and, just before the
admiral's death, pledged him the same regard for William Penn, his
son. When the duke came to the throne as James II., William Penn
had great influence. The king, a bigoted Roman Catholic himself,
stood in need of toleration in England, where the Established Church,
though persecuting the Covenanters to the death, hated Romanism
more. The Papist king persecuted Protestant dissenters to win the
political favor of the Church of England. The plea of Penn was for
toleration, not for himself alone, but for all; he averted persecution
from Roman Catholics on the one hand, and restrained as far as in him
lay the storm of rage which overwhelmed the Presbyterians. He was
accused of Jesuitism, popery, and treason in consequence, and, though
disproving every charge, became suspected by men of all parties be-
cause he was active in defense of the common rights of each.
When Penn moved in the purchase of New Jersey, it was not merely
as an asylum for Friends, but to provide a home for all who suffered
for conscience. No sooner was New Jersey under Quaker control
than a fair and reasonable description of it was published, and an
account of its free and tolerant institutions forwarded therewith to
Scotland. The Quaker founded a State in freedom, and made it the
home and asylum of those who had deprived him of liberty and life.
And this was the revenge of the men with broad-brimmed hats, who
" theed and thoud" alike the plowboy and the monarch. To be true
to principle regardless of persons, to resist not evil, but return good
for evil, — such has been the teaching of thS Inward Light. In Judea
or New Jersey the gospel was the same : *' Do good unto them who
despitefully use you." Well had the Quaker heeded the teacher, and
well had he comprehended the lesson !
Convinced of the purpose of the Government of England ''to sup-
press Presbyterian principles altogether," and perceiving that "the
whole force of the law of this kingdom is (was) leveled at the effectual
bearing them down," the ruined Scotch Presbyterians, in whose souls
a sense of duty to God forbade conformity to human assumptions, were
ready, as soon as the way opened, to abandon even ''bonnie Scotland,"
since apostasy alone could ransom their lives in their native land. A
number of Scottish Covenanters arrived in East Jersey in 1682.
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56 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
George Scot, of Pitlochie, was a leader among the emigrants. " A re-
treat, where by law a toleration is allowed," said he to his neighbors
and fellow-suffering countrymen, '* doth at present offer itself in Amer-
ica, and is no where else to be found in his Majesty's dominions."
To America, to East New Jersey, came George Scot and family, and
about two hundred others, in 1685. During the following year, after
the Duke of Argyle had been put to death under mere pretense of
law, Lord Neill Campbell, the brother of the murdered nobleman, be-
came, by purchase from Sir George Mackenzie, one of the Proprietors
of East New Jersey. Lord Campbell sent over a large number of set-
tlers, and, coming himself for a time, acted for some months as the
Chief Magistrate. Lord Campbell was succeeded in office by Alex-
ander Hamilton; the power of the Proprietaries was inconsiderable.
Monarchy had no call to the New World, there it existed only by
its feudal shadaw; feudalism was already outworn in Europe, and of
the outworn shadow Proprietary Government "was that shadow's
shade."
But what need of thrones, of nobles, of titles, of cumbrous institu-
tions to this people? They who held themselves as sons of God, co-
heirs with Christ; whose glory was foreordained in the eternal coun-
cils of the Almighty, and their names written in the " Lamb's Book of
Life," from the foundation of the world — the elect, the redeemed, the
sanctified, the persevering saints; the children of the Covenant!
Virtue, education, courage, experience, they had them all; religion in-
spired them, the love of liberty controlled them ; nature gave them
the harbors of Scotland, the fertility of England, and the climate of
France ; with the forests, the game, the fish, the fruits, and the freedom
of America, beside the " curious clear water" which flowed in abun-
dant brooks and rivulets along the healthful vales of New Jersey. The
ocean rolled between them and persecution, between them and every
hostile tribe abode peaceful Quakers, who practiced a blessed white
magic upon the wildmen, and transformed them to philanthropists.
There was a world of room, great flocks of sheep pastured beside the
roads of imperial width, and troops of horses fit to mount the squad-
rons of a king bred and multiplied uncared for in the woods. Not
thus grew the many children of the Scottish Calvinists, as in New
England free schools were soon provided for, and education and moral
training cared for the coming generation.
Indians, Puritans, Quakers, and Covenanters held in peace and uni-
versal prosperity the soil of New Jersey. Toleration is a narrow word :
they met on the broad platform of equal rights, of judgment, and
mutual union for the common weal and wealth. America welcomed
every sect, predominant bigotry became impossible. The pioneers of
New Jersey were strong souls with varied thoughts; there moderate
counsel has prevailed, and seeking to preserve the rights of each, the
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PRIMITIVE GOVERNMENT IN NEW JERSEY. 57
people have maintained the noblest freedom, and fostered the prosperity
and happiness of all.
James II., fickle and inconsistent in everything but personal selfish-
ness and the greed for arbitrary power, had no sooner reached the
throne than he undertook to make the colonies " more dependent."
In New York the honest advice of Penn, which was demanded in
1682 by the duke, won for that State her ** charter of Hberties," but
James, as king, trampled upon his engagements as duke; tyranny
returned in New York, and the Proprietaries of New Jersey were
compelled to surrender their rights of jurisdiction. Sovereignty over
New Jersey was merged in the crown in 1688. For three years
after 1689 East New Jersey had ''no government whatever." For
twelve years the whole of the province was without settled administra-
tion or recognized Governors. The Proprietors, anxious to preserve
the forms of law, tried in vain to exercise a power they had renounced,
but, divided among themselves, they but divided the people, the courts
and the records shared the confusion, politicians pushed their disagree-
ments, but the virtue of the people preserved society.
The crimes of James II. against the Dissenters failed to secure for
him, as a Papist monarch, the alliance of the Church of England; in
revenge, he proclaimed equal franchises to every sect ; toleration was
to weaken the episcopacy, and reconcile the English to Rome; it
brought William of Orange to the throne of Britain, in 1688, and drove
James II. into poverty and exile. The advent of William was a great
revolution in England: it secured toleration for all Protestants, and
established the rights of the subject on the basis of English law.
When, in 1702, Queen Anne came to reign, matters in New Jersey
were still unsettled, the law ofBcers of the crown questioned the selfish
arrangements of those who had for gain bought out original Proprie-
taries, and Parliament threatened interference in a province ** where no
regular government had ever been established." The Proprietaries, to
avoid litigation which might have endangered their ownership of land
as well as their pretended rights as Governors, surrendered their claims
to jurisdiction, unreservedly, before the Privy Council of England,
April 17, 1702. As simple owners of land, the Proprietaries managed
to retain their full rights, and became merged in the landholders of the
province, their titles descending unimpaired to their assigns and heirs.
After the surrender of the Proprietary, the whole of New Jersey was
governed by a royal Governor, it never again obtained a charter ; power
was monopolized by ofificers under royal instructions, and toleration
denied Papists; *'no printing-press might be kept," or any publication
made without license ; meantime, the traffic ** in merchantable negroes "
was stimulated by every means in the power of the provincial govern-
ment, under instructions from the throne. Thus the power of monarchy
found the refugees in the forest; but Quakers, Puritans, and Presby-
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58 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
terians united in a stubborn, able, and yet orderly struggle for former
freedom. Peacefully but sternly the debate had begun, to end in
making New Jersey a sovereign state, in an independent confederacy.
The disputes as to jurisdiction, titles, etc., between the Duke of York
and the proprietors of West Jersey — the trustees of Edward Byllinge —
were decided by Sir William Jones, in 1680, in favor of the proprietors ;
but the duke, in his new patent, unwarrantably made Byllinge heredi-
tary Governor. The nomination was unprovided for in the constitution
of West Jersey, but to avoid further trouble a precedent was made, and
Byllinge elected ; he, however, continued in London, having little in-
fluence in the province.
In 1687, Byllinge died, and Doctor Daniel Coxe, of London, him-
self a principal West Jersey proprietor, bought the claims of the heirs
of the Governor, and undertook to organize a government, by adopting
the constitution of England in place of the original Quaker Conces-
sions. Near Town Bank, Cape May, on Coxehall .Creek, Dr. Coxe
built " Coxe Hall" for a residence; on the draft of a primitive survey,
made in 1691, the edifice appears, adorned with a tower or spire, quite
in contrast with the original cluster of whalemen's cottages, not far
away. The above-mentioned survey was made by John Worlidge and
John Budd, who, coming down from Burlington, laid off ninety-five
thousand acres of land in Cape May County for Dr. Coxe. The
people were not inclined to co-operate with the new Governor in his
designs, and he labored in vain to establish the feudalism of England
on the shores of the Delaware; still he continued to speculate in Indian
lands, and a few of the original settlers of Cape May secured their
estates directly from his agents.
Dr. Coxe was a man of vast enterprise and unbounded yet not un-
reasonable ambition, and was concerned in the attempt to found an
English province in Louisiana, which was rendered futile by French
pre-occupation. In 1692, the " West Jersey Society," an organization
of forty-eight persons combined for the purpose, bought of Dr. Coxe,
on the 20th of January, the whole of his claims to lands and jurisdic-
tion, paying therefor the sum of nine thousand pounds sterling. The
Society put their newly acquired lands in market, in tracts to suit, at
moderate rates, much to the public benefit; as they sold mfee simple^
independent landlords and small farmers became numerous, and the
foundation of a democratic state was laid in a freeholding population.
§ Prominent in geographical position, remarkable in its natural feat-
ures, and especially fortunate in climate, Cape May attracted the notice of
the earliest navigators of the adjacent seas, and was soon celebrated by
the explorer and naturalist. In 1641, the site of Sea Grove or its vicinity
was referred to as a promontory, and Campanius wrote of dangerous
shoals off Cape May, no longer in existence. Whatever improvements
natural causes have made in the mouth of the Delaware, the sands have
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EARL V HISTOR V OF CAPE MA K 59
been piled over against Henlopen, and with the shoals have gone the
dunes, or beaches, which made the point a promontory.
The historian of Cape May finds no records of white men before
1685 ; then Caleb Carman was appointed Justice of the Peace, and
Jonathan Pyne made Constable by the Assembly of New Jersey, thus
indicating a pre-existing population. Cape May was cut off from the
north by vast, dense, impassable cedar-swamps, extending from the
sea-shore to the bay, and must, in prehistoric days, have been a wild
and almost inaccessible place. The earliest known inhabitants of Cape
May were, of course, Indians, and, according to Captain Samuel Argall,
in 1610 they were numerous. As a fishing station, the cape may have
been occupied at any time for the last three hundred years, and the
pirate and slave-hunter preceded even the fishermen.
The history of the Delaware valley indicates clearly that the first
residents of Cape May were refugees, — persons who, to escape servi-
tude, oppression, or debt, domiciled in the wilderness. The Swedes,
who sometimes visited the cape for eggs and to kill geese, solely for
their feathers, had in their colony men bound to penal slavery ; some
of them became fugitives among the Indians. When, in 1642, the New
Haven colony on Varcken's Kill was broken up, some of its members
remained on the Delaware, and subsequently New England vessels
harbored at Cape May, fishing and trading for furs, — an illicit business
for them in the judgment of the Dutch and Swedes. One such vessel
was robbed and her crew murdered by the Nanticokes, near Swaanen-
dael, in the spring of 1644. She had spent the winter at Cape May,
and went over for beaver-skins. From New Sweden, from New Am-
stel, from the colony at the Horekill, as may be recalled, varied causes
at different times scattered the people ; most of them fled to Maryland,
many crossed into New Jersey, and some, doubtless, reached Cape May.
In his ** Early History of Cape May County," Maurice Beesley,
M.D., referring to the probabilities of prehistoric settlement, writes :
*' It would seem probable, inasmuch as many of the old Swedish
names as recorded in Campanius, from Rudman, are still to be found
in Cumberland and Cape May, that some of the veritable Swedes of
Tinicum or Christiana might have strayed or have been driven to our
shores. When the Dutch Governor, Stuyvesant, ascended the Dela-
ware in 1654 (5), with his seven ships and seven hundred men, and sub-
jected the Swedes to his dominion, it would be easy to imagine in their
mortification and chagrin at a defeat so bloodless and unexpected, that
many of them should fly from the arbitrary sway of their rulers, and
seek an asylum where they could be free to act for themselves without
restraint or coercion from the stubbornness of Mynheer, whose victory,
though easily obtained, was permanent, as the provincial power of New
Sweden had perished forever."
Pieter Heyser began whaling in Delaware Bay in 1630. When it
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6o SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
became a regular business at Town Bank is uncertain ; there was a
fisherman's colony there from New Haven and Long Island of consid-
erable numbers, and living in houses, before 1691 : outstaying the
whales, they took up farms, resorted to other pursuits, made themselves
homes, and founded some of the best families in New Jersey. The
first account of a visit to Cape May was published in a " Description
of New Albion," written by Sir Edmund Plowden, under the name of
*'Beauchamp Plantagenet," which appeared in London in 1648. Plow-
den reproduced a letter from Lieutenant Robert Evelyn. " Master
Evelyn'" left Elngland with an expedition for the Delaware in 1634, and
probably made his exploration of the cape soon after. Others had
observed Cape May, — Hudson in 1609; Argall, 1610; Cornelius Hen-
dricksen, 1616; Dermer, 1619; Cornelius Jacobsen, May (1614?), 1620;
Hossett and Heyes, 1630, and De Vries in 1631 ; besides a party of
eight, sent to explore the bay, in 1632, by Governor Harvey, of Vir-
ginia, who were killed by Indians.
Cape May County was instituted the 12th of November, 1692.
There were ^v^ members of Assembly allowed it ; the next year a
quarterly court, for cases not exceeding twenty pounds, was decreed
by the Assembly of New Jersey. The first court was held at '* Ports-
mouth" (Cape May Town, or Town Bank), on the 20th of March, 1693.
The Grand Jury having been charged, found " it necessary that a road
be laid out, most convenient for the King and county; and," said they,
" so far as one county goeth, we are willing to clear a road for travelers
to pass," as if the guardians of the county saw, prophetically, how
much their district was to owe its future growth and prosperity to the
appreciative health- or pleasure-seeking traveler. The tax levied in
1693 was forty pounds sterling, with the considerate proviso that pro-
duce should be taken at " money price" in payment. One of the first
acts of the court was an order that " no one shall sell liquor without a
license," the traffic and use of rum having already, as usual, been the
cause of much trouble.
Of the settlers at Cape May in 1685, and of those who came for some
fifteen years after, the majority were attracted by the whale fishery in
the bay of Delaware. It is shown by reliable records, that whaling
was the business of Christopher " Leamyeng" and his son Thomas, of
Caesar Hoskins, Samuel Mathews, Jonathan Osborne, Nathaniel Short,
Cornelius Skellinks, Henry Stites, Thomas Hand and his sons John and
George, John and Caleb Carman, John Shaw, Thomas Miller, William
Stillwell, Humphrey Hewes, William Mason, John Richardson, Ebene-
zer Swain, Henry Young, and many others. In looking over the
colonial records of New Haven, in the first years of its existence, the
reader meets most of these family names, and the Long Island whale-
men were of the same stock. The same names are found to-day on
the books of New England ships; they are people of Newport, of
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LAND TITLES AND NATURAL PRIVILEGES. 6 1
Nantucket, of New Bedford, and New London ; the world had no such
dauntless mariners as the whalemen of New England and Cape May.
The purchase of the rights of Dr. Coxe being made in 1692, the
West Jersey Society, as proprietors, to prevent confusion, nominated
Andrew Hamilton, the former deputy of Governor Barclay, to be Gov-
ernor. The people at large acquiesced, and the General Assembly of
New Jersey passed an act to cure all defects in law and practice. The
law officers of the crown, however, refused their sanction to such legis-
lation, and the lords of trade claimed New Jersey as a royal province.
The basis of government continued unsettled, and, in 1702, the New
Jersey proprietors surrendering their claim of jurisdiction, as has been
noted, continued to hold their lands under the Royal Governor, Edward
Hyde, the weak, yet arrogant, '* Lord Cornbury."
Much of the difficulty in establishing government in New Jersey
arose from the factious opposition of parties who wished to avoid the
payment of quitrents, and prevent adverse decisions against their in-
sufficient invalid land titles. Not altogether wrong in equity, perhaps,
these persons still evaded the courts, and by their interested captious-
ness defeated the plans of moderate men, did wrong to their neighbors,
and kept the province in a chaotic state, until it lost its charter, and
passed under the shadow of arbitrary power. In Cape May County
there was little dispute about titles to land; Coxe held most of the soil,
though but five sales were made by his agent George Taylor. The
West Jersey Society continued the sale of lands for sixty-four years,
and by 1756 had disposed of most of their estate. Doctor Johnson,
of Perth Amboy, was the principal agent of the Society at the time,
and Jacob Spicer (2d), in a negotiation in which the wine-bottle is
said to have betrayed Johnson into forgetfulness of his employers'
interests, bought the remainder for the insufficient sum of ^300; at
his death, Johnson, seemingly conscious of his unfaithfulness, left the
Society a thousand pounds conscience-money.
By English feudal law the West Jersey Society became, through their
purchase from Coxe, invested with a monopoly of the natural privi-
leges of Cape May: none could legally fish or hunt without their con-
sent; the deeds given by the Society did not convey these natural
privileges, and much anxiety was felt about the matter in time, al-
though the Society prohibited none from oysters, fish, or game. An
organization was created in 1752 to secure the natural privileges for
public use, but delay occurring, Spicer forestalled their action by his
jolly bargain with Doctor Johnson, and by so doing provoked a
quarrel with his neighbors, which was discussed in a public meeting
at the Presbyterian meeting-house, March 26th, 1761. The following
June, Spicer, who never sought to prevent his neighbors from using
" the natural privileges," offered to sell his whole landed estate in the
county, excepting his farm at Cold Spring Neck, and the natural
5
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62 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
privileges, except a right for his family in the same, to the people of
the county for £7000, but his offer was declined. ** I was willing,"
wrote he, " to please the people, and at the same time do my posterity
justice, and steer clear of reflection."
It must have been an unpleasant affair for Spicer to be at variance
with the people whose representative he had been for seventeen years.
An active man of exemplary habits and comprehensive mind, Spicer
was twenty-one years in the assembly, being first elected in 1744: he
was appointed by the legislature one of the commission which met in
1758 at Crosswicks, and then at Easton, to extinguish by special treaty
the Indian title to lands in the State. By the work of this convention
New Jersey gained the title of '* the great doer of justice" from the
Delaware tribe of the Lenni Lenape.
Jacob Spicer (2d) dying in 1765, his son Jacob conveyed the natural
privileges to a corporation organized by the legislature; thus feudal
rights were recognized; besides, an East Jersey court gave a decision
in favor of the rights of the proprietors ; an appeal was taken, however,
to the Supreme Court of the United States, and the verdict below
reversed, and the State made the proprietor of the privileges of the
water for the use of the whole people. Thus the last trace of feu-
dalism disappeared, and the visitor enjoys the sports of Cape May,
thoughtless of the "natural privileges" about which so much un-
availing pother was made so long ago.
§ The e-arliest historical settlement in Cape Mdy County was that of
the whalemen at '* Town Bank," a bluff the visitor at Sea Grove can see,
as part of an unequaled view, from the observatory over the Pavilion.
From the tower Town Bank is the highest ground in sight, lying some
four miles away due north, and on the shore of the bay. Before 1700,
most of the land taken up was in that vicinity. The marine taste and
habits of the people coming afterwards are attested by the fact that
they settled altogether along the bay or sea, heedless of the quality of
the soil.
It is only within the last generation that the inland portions of West
Jersey have attracted the attention its resources justify; the unexampled
growth of such a town as Vineland, within less than a score of years,
is an indication of the results of enterprise in that region ; still, the
Jersey shore will have its share of residents, especially in summer, for
reasons which are palpable to all who observe them from one of the
beautiful sail-boats, which the tourist always finds near Sea Grove,
" well kept, ataunto, spruce, and gay," awaiting his pleasure.
The waters of Cape May are magnificent for varied sailing. The
sounds are as smooth and placid as a garden pool; there the most timid
may venture, cruising without a fear, yet the sea breeze sweeps across
them, damp with the spray of the adjoining breakers, and the voyage
may be extended all the day.
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OLD-TIME TRAVEL AND COMMERCE.
63
For the many *' not afraid in a boat," the bay and roadstead are a safe
and free expanse of pleasant waters; while those who love the breeze,
the blilow, and the spray, in all their ocean sublimity, have before them
the broad Altantic, clear of reef or island for three thousand miles to
'' the far-off Azores," and beyond for hundreds of leagues to Lisbon,
Portugal, and old Spain.
As late as 1706, the only routes from Cape May to Burlington were
by the river, and over bridle-paths which led hither and thither across
and through the forests, swamps, and marshes. Thomas Chalkley, an
English Friend, rode from Cohansey to Cape May, 2nd month, 1726,
'* through a miry, boggy way, in which we saw no house for about forty
miles, except at the ferry;" "that night," says his journal, *' we got to
Richard Townsend's, at Cape May, where we were kindly received."
At Townsend's, at Rebecca Garretson's, at John Page's, at Aaron Leam-
ing's, Chalkley held satisfactory meetings; he stopped two nights with
his wife's brother, Jacob Spicer, and journeyed to Egg Harbor. *' We
swam our horses," wrote he, " over Egg Harbor River, and went over
ourselves in canoes." The difficulties of travel may have been one
reason why the people of Cape May chose Peter Fretwell, a Quaker
resident of Burlington, to represent them in the assembly in 1702,
and for twelve years after; it seems a strange proceeding any way, but
all New Jersey was full of odd political devices in the early days.
As early as 1698, Richard Harvo, of Cape May, owned a sloop ; and
in 1705, Captain Jacob Spicer sailed the sloop Adventure of sixteen
tons, John and Richard Townsend, owners, as a packet between Cape
May, Philadelphia, and Burlington, under a license from Lord Corn-
bury. In 1706, another sloop, named the Necessity, was built and
owned at Cape May by Dennis Lynch, from which time the marine
increased until in fifty years there were numerous small vessels trading
from Cape May County to Oyster Bay, Long Island, to Rhode Island
and Connecticut, and to Philadelphia. The vessels going east generally
carried lumber, while oysters and produce of various kinds found a
market up the river. Jacob Spicer (2d) owned a vessel he sent to the
West Indies, and he shipped much corn taken by him in barter for gen-
eral merchandise. In 1750, the Delaware pilot-boats were pinked stern
boats, sharp at both ends; a usual size was twenty-seven feet keel and
eleven feet beam ; the ** pinkie" was the lineal progeny of the " whale
boat," and, when in familiar hands, one of the stanchest craft that ever
rode a wave.
It is easy to imagine the slow but yet actual improvement in the
means of transportation around and from Cape May; but it was not
until .SiS^ that change amounting to a revolution took place in the
means of travel. In that year Captain Wilmon Whilldin put the first
steamboat on the route between Cape May and Philadelphia. Though
regarded almost as a miracle, the boat was a modest craft compared to
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64
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
those which glide along the Delaware now ; " the longest day in June"
was almost too brief for her to make the trip from the Cape to the city,
running " between sun and sun." But other boats were soon put on
the route, which reduced the time of travel while enlarging the accom-
modation. There are few finer trips than that down the lovely Dela-
ware; the land disappears at last as the mid-waters of the bay are
crossed, and Sea Grove comes in view, often from a deck that reels
merrily beneath the feet of the voyager. For those to whom even the
bracing air of the bay has no charms, unless inhaled from the shore,
there has been provided another line of travel.
The West Jersey Railroad was completed to Cape May in 1866, and
since then each year has added to the excellence of the road itself, while
\.\\e \.\me coxv^wm^d \rv t\\e ^owt^v^y \\^?» be^tv reduced lo lV\e mmuTwxrcv
consistent with safety. Cars of the most complete construction and
luxurious finish are run, including Woodruff's Silver Palace Drawing-
room Coaches, and a degree of care and courtesy is evinced by all en-
gaged m train-service, which render tho, journey o{ only tv^o hours, and
a half or less from Philadelphia to the *' City by the Sea" as pleasant as
human skill can make it.
Unfavorable as the country above Cape May was for travel, there
was one circumstance of the early days which tended to make transit
by water an occasion for apprehension, and rendered the worst ** miry,
boggy way" preferable to a route whereon the voyager had reason to
look under every strange sail for the sinister visage of the sea-robber
and pirate! The sixteenth century was an age of piracy, and as late
as 1 72 1 the Delaware was the scene of captures by the highwaymen
of the ocean. Owing to its lack of naval and military strength, and to
the reluctance of the Quakers to hang rascals, Philadelphia was a
favorite place with Blackbeard and others of his kind, and the Dela-
ware was chosen as a resort for repairs by many an outlaw vessel. In
1 73 1, five men were hung as pirates, which was about the end of a
bad bloody business in this part of the world. The pirates are said
to have infested Sea Grove, and buried much money there, after which
much digging and conjumig has been done, even in recent years.
Although most of the early inhabitants of Cape May were sea-
faring men, the Swedes among them were an agricultural people, and
in time circumstances compelled the general cultivation of the soil.
The colonies, near the close of the sixteenth century, were governed
by the English lords of trade; every effort was made to prohibit
manufactures and commerce in America. Still, whatever the wrongs
of government, the natural resources of Cape May saved the settle-
ment there from want. Parliament could not legislate the fish out of
the Delaware, no lord of trade ever ate such oysters as fairly obstructed
the sounds, no English park had half the game which swarmed in the
woods and swamps, there was an abundance of wonderfully quick,
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AN OLD-FASHIONED FAMILY. 65
fertile soil, easy of cultivation, and the sun never shone, even on an
English king, as it beamed on the gardens and cornfields which, year
by year, grew ever wider and still wider.
The primitive manufactures of Cape May, aside from lumber, were
of a domestic nature, and were much encouraged by Jacob Spicer
(2d) ; there was hardly anything that he would not take in exchange
for goods. He advertised to receive, at the same time, a variety of
produce, from a drove of cattle or sheep, ''a thousand pounds of
woolen stockings" for the army, or ** a large quantity of mittens," to
" a clam-shell formed in wampum, a yarn-thrum, a goose-quill, a horse-
hair, a hog's-bristle, or a grain of mustard-seed, being," said he,
" greatly desirous to encourage industry, as it is one of the most prin-
cipal expedients, under the favor of Heaven, that can revive our droop-
ing circumstances at this time of uncommon, but great and general
burden." This was in 1756, during the French and Indian War, — the
conflict wherein the colonists learned to ** organize victory," and gained
the confidence which made possible the triumph of the Revolution.
Cape May was fortunate in her early sons. Jacob Spicer (2d) was a
statesman, a merchant, an economist; a man without conceit, he
required in his own family the same reasonable diligence and thrift he
recommended to others. There were twelve persons in his household,
and such was his minutely systematic way of business that from his
books and writings may be learned, even now, the details of their life.
In Jacob Spicer's own house, under the superintendence of a tailor,
tailoress, and shoemaker, the apparel of his family was made. The
sons of this legislator and jurist were taught to cobble shoes, the
girls to make clothing and knit. The Spicer boys, in i/S/, were pro-
vided with '* 24 lbs. gray skin, @ 25d. per lb." to make them breeches
and vests. This was deer-skin, and some of it was worn with the hair
on. For the girls there was a provision of " striped linnen" and " lin-
sey ;" there was " a cloth vest" for one of the boys, and a *' tammy
quilt for Judith." Spicer estimated the girls to knit yearly, besides the
other work they had to do, two hundred and twenty pairs of mittens,
taking forty-four pounds of wool, to be spun by a hired woman in his
house, in forty-four days. The mittens were worth " i6d." (thirty-two
cents) a pair at Cape May when finished, but sold at double the money
at *' York" and Albany. In one way and another, the premises of the
Hon. Jacob Spicer must have been a lively place. Teetotalism had
not been heard of at Cape May then, and under the head of *' wets,"
the master of the house charges his family with using "52 gal. rum,
10 do. wine, and 2 bbls. cyder." As a merchant and magistrate, Spicer
probably entertained many, and, in the unquestioned manner of his
time, took care to ** welcome the coming, speed the parting, guest."
The patient author, as he delves among these prosaic records of the
past in the magnificent Centennial year of grace, 1876, remembers the
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66 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
scandals of his day, and pauses to heave a sigh, not for the leather
breeches, linsey-woolsey, woolen mittens, rum and cider, of the
Spicers, but for more of the conscientious good sense which made
virtue, diligence, and economy the height of fashion, public spirit
the pride of the citizen, and inflexible integrity the historical glory of
the merchant and magistrate !
But with all the usefulness and sterling worth of Jacob Spicer (2d)
notwithstanding he was for twenty-one years— nearly half his days —
an officer and representative of his neighbors, still Aaron Leaming (2d),
was the man the people of Cape May especially delighted to honor.
He served them as their representative for thirty years : well educated
for the times, of great natural good sense, very industrious, and, withal,
somewhat aristocratic, no man was ever more highly honored by the
county, and none, perhaps, better deserved the regard and confidence
of his constituents. Neither Leaming nor Spicer were place-hunters,
dependent upon local prejudice for recognition. Serving as colleagues
in the assembly for a score of years or more, their ability and fidelity
were made manifest, and together they were selected by the legisla-
ture for the responsible work of compiling the laws of the State. This
they completed to the satisfaction of the public, and *' Leaming and
Spicer's Collection" is, to-day, a respected authority in New Jersey.
Leaming was a great speculator in land, and yet found time to write
copious " Memoirs," which remain a faithful transcript of the times in
which he lived. Born in 17 16, the son of Aaron Leamyeng, from
Connecticut, a man who had worked his way against adverse circum-
stances to superior knowledge, large possessions, a Quaker faith, and
public respect, Aaron Leaming (2d) maintained the honor of his family,
filled with credit and dignity the important position assigned him, and
died, much regretted, in 1783.
The Leamings, Goldens, Spicers, Stites, Stillwells, Willetts, Ludlams,
Causons, Hands, Townsends, Youngs, Swains, Hughes, Garretsons,
Hubbards, Mackeys, Godfreys, Reeves, and Weldons, Whilldens, or
Whilldins, with others, were among the early and principal settlers of
Cape May.
While history records the virtues of the early sons of the Cape, their
prominence in seamanship, in commerce, in the halls of legislation,
what shall be said of the women of the place and time ? Theirs may
have been a less conspicuous position, but many of them were of that
class whose " children rise up and call them blessed ;" diverse, yet equal,
in domestic life they were accomplished in all good works, nor are we
left without evidence of a bright intelligence, in many cases, to more
endear them. Very early, the Quakers did much in West Jersey to
modify and elevate the estimate of woman. In the library of Sarah
Hall, of Salem and Alloway's Creek, Aaron Leaming the elder, as a
boy, ''very poor, helpless, and friendless," read law; the aged Quaker
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THE MITTEN ARTICLE. 6/
lady being herself ''an eminent lawyer for those times." The student
may fumble in vain among the dry leaves of court records, account
books, and scattered memoranda, for the chronicle of great deeds by
the mothers of Cape May ; but while '' like sire like son" has become
a proverb, do we not know that the mother is equally the parent of the
child, and that the men who have done honor to their native county
learned, like Washington, their noblest lessons beside a mother's knee?
In an estimate of the resources, income, and expenditure of Cape
May County, for 1758, made by Jacob Spicer (2nd), there is credit
given the county for production of the " mitten article," to the value of
five hundred pounds sterling. The manner in which the mitten trade,
which, as thus appears, was quite a reward to the female industry of the
County, was encouraged, is related in the following letter from Dr.
Franklin to Benjamin Vaughan, dated Passy, July 26th, 1748, ''on the
benefits and evils of luxury:"
" The skipper of the shallop, employed between Cape May and Phila-
delphia, had done us some service, for which he refused to be paid. My
wife understanding he had a daughter, sent her a present of a new
fashioned cap. Three years afterward, this skipper being at my house
with an old farmer of Cape May, his passenger, he mentioned the cap
and how much his daughter had been pleased with it; ' but,' said he, ' it
proved a dear cap to our congregation.' How so ? ' When my daugh-
ter appeared with it at meeting, it w^as so much admired that all the
girls resolved to get such caps from Philadelphia, and my wife and I
computed that the whole would not have cost less than one hundred
pounds.' ' True,' said the farmer, ' but you do not tell all the story. I
think the cap was nevertheless an advantage to us, for it was the first
thing that put our girls upon knitting worsted mittens for sale at Phila-
delphia, that they might have wherewithal to buy caps and ribbons
there, and you know that that industry has continued, and is likely to
continue and increase to a much greater value, and answer better pur-
poses.' Upon the whole I was more reconciled to this little piece of
luxury, since not only the girls were made happier by having fine caps,
but Philadelphians by the supply of warm mittens."
The old times were trying times; hardly were the pioneers of Cape
May settled in comparative comfort, before the entire country was
plunged in the horrors of the French and Indian wars. Surrounded by
the faithful Lenni Lenape, Cape May had no experience of the ruthless
barbarities which were suffered elsewhere, but for many a year no one
could tell when some French cruiser or Spanish privateer would break
into the Delaware, and retaliate upon its defenseless shores the outrages
Argall had imposed upon the French Acadians in 161 3. New Jersey
always cheerfully and with alacrity met the requisitions upon her for
men and means ; while the soldiers of Cape May faced a cruel foe,
Jacob Spicer rallied the people to increased industry; " to meet the great
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6S SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
demands of the time," he demanded '*a thousand pounds of stockings/'
*' for our men in the field ;" faster than ever rolled the spinning-wheel,
faster still flew the needles; even before the Revolution Cape May
evinced a patriotic courage.
On the 1st of November, 1775, Jacob Spicer called a public meeting,
*'to do something for the country," but had to record his chagrin that
only James Whillden, Jeremiah Hand, Thomas Leaming, and John
Leonard attended. It was the era of doubt ; the magic word, Inde-
pendence, had not yet been uttered at Philadelphia,— the more honor to
the ready few. Cape May sent Jesse Hand to Burlington as member
of the Provincial Congress in 1775 and 1776. On the 21st of June, in
the latter year, that body decided upon the formation of a new State
Government. Hand was also a member of Council in 1779, and for
three years afterward. Jesse Hand, Jacob Eldridge, and Matthew
Whillden were the delegates sent from Cape May to ati:end the Con-
vention at Trenton, on the second Tuesday of December, 1787, to ratify
the Constitution of the United States; this was done by a unanimous
vote on the 19th of the month, when the members of the Convention
marched in solemn procession to the Court-House, where the act of
ratification was publicly read. New Jersey was the third State to ratify
the Constitution of the United States. By the Legislature of New
Jersey Jesse Hand was made a member of the Committee of Public
Safety, a most responsible and arduous position, but no one of those
who served the cause of Independence, in a civil capacity, deserved
better of his country.
Cape May has been noted for generations, as from natural causes, one
of the best of beaches; the same peculiarities constitute it one of the
most delightful driving places imaginable. Unequaled by nature, the
beach road has been extended along shore, over Poverty Beach, away
past the magnificent Cape May Lighthouse, past the beautiful cottages
and comfortable hotels of Sea Grove, beyond the United States Signal
Station, around the point, and for a perfect mile up the Delaware to
the steamboat landing; from thence the straight inland road runs for
three miles, over the turnpike, into Cape May City. Wherever the
start be made, the seven miles round brings the rider to his door again.
Hoof or wheel, it is the same good road, and all the way the ocean or
the bay is constantly in view, and the surf can scarcely stir unheard.
But what have all these well-known facts to do with Jesse Hand and
his offenses, he of ante-revolutionary fame ? Well, the simple fact is,
that gentleman and patriot utterly confounded, astonished, and dis-
gusted his neighbors by his audacity in presuming to ride over the very
route we have described, and others thereabout : the first man in the
history of the world to traverse the roads and beaches of Cape May
in the pretentious dignity and effeminate luxury of a top carriage. It
was none of your modern affairs from Kimball, Brewster, or Rogers,
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A TALE OF LOVE AND DEVOTION. 69
but a solid, old-fashioned " chair/' heavy enough, hard-riding enough ;
but what of that? Had not Aaron Learning traveled on horseback to
the Legislature ? Had not everybody else ridden in horse carts year
after year? And now Jesse Hand presumed upon a new and amazing
fashion before their wondering eyes. History records no popular
tumult, except of tongues, about the matter, but Jesse Hand never fully
regained the regard of some people, and jealousy and distrust, like a
curse, followed his new-fangled equipage; and though he and his gen-
eration are long since dead, yet the writer hath knowledge of traditions
that, still drawn by attenuated and discouraged equines, a very Wander-
ing Jew of vehicles, Jesse Hand's carriage still peregrinates, at a toilsome
pace, the interminable, sandy, woodland roads of Jersey.
As to the part which Cape May took in the Revolution, Dr. Maurice
Beesley, in his ** Early History of Cape May," writes as follows : " In
the contest of our forefathers for independence, nothing praiseworthy
can be said of the other counties of the State that would not apply to
Cape May. She was ever ready to meet the demands made upon her
by the Legislature and the necessities of the times, whether that de-
mand was for money or men. Being exposed, in having a lengthened
water frontier, to the attacks and incursions of the enemy, it was neces-
sary to keep in readiness a flotilla of boats and privateers, which were
owned, armed, and manned by the people, and were successful in de-
fending the coast against the British as well as refugees. Many prizes
and prisoners were taken which stand announced in the papers of the
day as creditable to the parties concerned. Acts of valor and daring
might be related of this band of boatmen, which would not discredit
the name of a Somers, or brush a laurel from the brow of their com-
patriots in arms. The women were formed into committees for the
purpose of preparing clothing for the army, and acts of chivalry and
fortitude were performed by them which w^ere equally worthy of their
fame and the cause they served. To record a single deserving act
would do injustice to a part, and to give a place to all who signalized
themselves would swell this sketch beyond its prescribed limits." Yet,
on another page, the doctor cannot forbear telling the story of the de-
votion of Sarah, the sister of Captain Nicholas Still well, the young
Mrs. Grifling. Captain Moses Griffing being a prisoner on the infa-
mous and murderous ** New Jersey Prison Ship," where the dying, the
dead, the famished and famishing were promiscuously huddled together,
Mrs. Griffing, ** actuated by a heroism which woman's love alone can
inspire," bravely made her way for a hundred and fifty miles through
a most dangerous country, swarming with enemies, romantically re-
solved to see and rescue him, or die in the attempt. The devoted wife
called at the camp of Washington by the way, who gave her in charge
an English captain to exchange; she reached New York in safety, and
finally persuaded Sir Henry Clinton to release her husband ; the ex-
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70 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
change was made, after a long and painful suspense, and the patriotic
wife enjoyed the happiness she deserved.
And thus the men and women of '* the time that tried men's souls"
fought the battle of English liberty on the soil of America; and to-day
the citizen of Britain may find in the extent and stability of his free-
dom abundant reason to rejoice in the result of a contest which, begin-
ning in the colonies as successful revolution, culminated in the mother
country in the achievements of liberal and progressive reform.
Notwithstanding the perturbations of war, or the changing policies of
peace, Cape May prospered, and gradually enlarged its population. It
was, however, no "Lotus Land," where the sdontaneous produce of
the soil supported the inhabitants in corrupting sloth, to breathe an
enervating air. Every ocean breeze of Cape May is an ethereal tonic,
pure as the quintessence of the elixir of life. There are no long-pre-
vailing, exhaustive extremes of torrid heat, and winter, comparatively
brief, is only rigorous enough to destroy the germs of malaria, to
superpurify the atmosphere with its frosts, and brace anew the vital
powers of man and beast. The necessary pursuits of the pioneers
were all manly, demanding hardihood, muscle, and courage; dev^elop-
ing strength, heroism, and force of character.
There were about fifteen hundred people in Cape May County in
1758, with an estimated income of about twenty-two thousand dollars.
When the war of 18 12 began, the Cape had a population of three
thousand five hundred persons, its commercial importance having in-
creased in a greater degree. The final war with England was a naval
contest ; the interest of Cape May in such a struggle may be inferred.
From first to last, in the various wars for freedom and independence,
the waters in view from the towers of Sea Grove have been the scene
of many naval conflicts. An interesting volume might be written of
events when a British fleet lay constantly over against Henlopen ; when
they captured and burned the small craft of the bay, and in their
launches cruised about, threatening to land and ravage the Cape.
What a romantic chapter the account of the watchful coast guard
would make ! And what an exciting scene it must have been, when
the fast Yankee frigate. Alliance, then under Commodore Barry, fled
out of the Delaware, to avoid a hopeless contest, and made her way to
Rhode Island at the rate of fourteen knots an hour, running down the
Speedwell and seizing two sloops of war, to fly back to the shores
where her timbers grew, and land her wounded commander in the port
of Boston ! Then there was the first naval conflict of the Revolution,
fought by the Hyder Ally, under the gallant Captain Barney, a privateer
with four nine-pounder guns and one hundred and twenty-six men,
which stole down from Philadelphia disguised as a merchantman, to
attack the General Monk with eighteen nine-pounder guns and one
hundred and fifty men on board. When the captain cried " Board !"
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IVNV AMERICA WON IN THE FIGHT, 71
his men were to fire; when he cried "Fire!" they were to board.
Alongside the Monk, Barry shouted his first command. The brave
Enghsh crowd to repel boarders ; the Hyder Ally rocks from stem to
stem ; everything that can carry a bullet explodes in the very faces of
the foe. *' Fire!"— in a flash the Yankee cutlasses are on the English
deck! Doubly duped, twice tricked, the Monk surrendered: two-
thirds of her crew were dead and wounded; but four were killed and
fifteen hurt on board the privateer.
Another fight, turning the other way this time. A large American
privateer, beset by a fleet of British launches, just off Cape May shore.
A long fight, and a close one, until the vessel manceuvering too near the
strand, strikes, and by and by goes to pieces in the breakers.
A.nd so a book might be written of the waters around Cape May, as
a scene of war and bloodshed. But to what good end ? It could not
prove that English hearts were cowardly, or that Americans were
more than the world admits them to be. America won, in the last
fight with England, because of finer modeled, better rigged, and more
'' handy" vessels ; and because on those vessels, for the first time, long-
range guns and cannon were supplied with ''sights," and trained with
the deadly accuracy of the rifle on the mark. It was the thunderbolt
against the hail-storm ; it was precision against mass ; it was the rifle
against the shot-gun; it was invention against routine; and science
won, as it will forever in any fight. To-day, England sights her guns
with telescopes ; she clothes her warrior-ships in sevenfold steel ; she
buoys them with cork; she lights them with electricity; she drives
them by steam, like avalanches ; and by steam handles guns of eighty
tons like toys, in the recesses of invulnerable turrets! Well, cannot
the United States do as much? They have done, and are doing,
better.
At the extreme point of Cape May, in the centre of Sea Grove
beach, a tall spar bears aloft the flag of the American Union. Near
by, a neat but peculiar building attracts the scrutiny of the observer.
This is the United States Signal Station, and there keen-eyed vigilance
watches and notes the skies, the clouds, the winds, the seas, and all
the grand phenomena and minute signs of nature. On lofty moun-
tains, amid deserts, by great lakes, everywhere throughout the terri-
tory of the United States, are similar posts of observation, and every-
where the same untiring watchfulness. The telegraphic wire links all
these points together, and connects all with the central observatory at
Washington. • • n
It maybe an overcast afternoon in September; nothing especially
betokens danger, but vessel after vessel comes down the bay, catches
sight of the station, and quietly passes behind the gigantic breakwater
above Henlopen. An English ship sweeps down the coast, the cross
of Britain bravely borne above her canvas ; she too sights the station,
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72
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
and turns her helm, and bears sail, to gain, ere nightfall, sea-room and
an offing. Night comes early, and with night the storm. The two
great lights answer each other's glances across the bay, over seas
which howl and show flashes of foam, like wolves snarling white-
fanged in the tempestuous darkness ! But the ships are safe, folded
like sheep in a quiet place; for all day long the danger signal has
been displayed, and they have learned to heed it; and that is an
American idea, deserving fuller development, and worth more than
the war-ships of the world.
There are three edifices most prominent at Sea Grove, the Light-
House, the Signal Station, and the Pavilion : they typify the Nation and
the Age; they actualize the beneficence of Popular Government, the
philanthropy of Science, and the power of Moral Sentiment, in the
subh'mity of Religious P>eedom : these, rather than batteries, armies,
and navies, are the conquering forces of the future.
To show the critical and useful nature of the work done by the
United States Signal Service, and as a matter of information, the fol-
lowing table is introduced ; of the value of such statistics no well-in-
formed person need to be advised.
The records of the United States Signal Service show the following
figures for the three most prominent resorts on the New Jersey coast :
MEAN DAILY HUMIDITY.
Cape Atlantic Long
May. City. Branch.
July 88.3 85.7 78.4
August 78.8 79.0 77.4
September 78.9 83.0 80.0
3 months 82.0 82.6 78.6
MEAN DAILY TEMPERATURE.
Cape Atlantic Long
May. City. Branch.
July 692 70.3 71.4
August 68 8 69.5 69.9
September 68.6 67.8 67.5
3 months 68.9 69.2 69.6
Thus it is seen that Cape May Is the coolest place along the coast,
and as dry as Atlantic City.
The village of Cape May escaped the ravages of war. Once, in 18 1 2,
the Poictiers, a British line-of-battle ship, appeared off the place, and
threatened it with bombardment unless it was supplied with water; the
cheap ransom was paid at once, and the enemy sailed away. While
the English fleet lay in Delaware Bay, in 18 12, its officers managed to
keep, so far as personalities went, on very good terms with the people
of Cape May, and made ** The Beach" what it is now, a place of health-
ful, free, and gay resort. The village of Cape May, though loyal, was
hospitable, and the chronicles assure us that its amusements were
shared by friends and foes together in the greatest amity, and that,
when the fleet of Albion sailed away at last, more than one of the
heroes and heroines of the time gave evidence of their faith, by obedi-
ence to the command, " Love your enemies."
In 18 12, the present site of Cape May City was already the location
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OLD-FASHIONED FROLICS AT CAPE MAY,
73
of a considerable hamlet ; even then popular as a place of resort in
summer. *' Cape Island" was purchased of Dr. Coxe, through his
agents, by William Jacoks and Humphrey Hughes, in 1689 — a tract of
five hundred and forty-six acres, or more. Jacoks sold to Thomas
Hand, and Randall Hewit bought an interest in the Island. Hand,
Hewit, and Hughes held the property until 1700, and it was long cul-
tivated and fertile land. But in the mean time the settlement increased,
and the corn-fields were narrowed. In 1829, Watson, the annalist,
visited Cape May City, **a village of about twenty houses," says he,
" and the streets were very clean and grassy."
Very rapidly after the war of 1812 Cape May began to assume a dis-
tinctive character as a watering place, and its history from that time
becomes modified accordingly. Gradually the fashions of Cape May
have changed — are changing still, and not for the worse.
For an idea of the earlier methods of travel, and the ways and
manners of sea-side visitors in the olden time, nothing can be better
than the following, from Lippincotfs Magazine: ''Strange old sloops
and bateaux used in those times to move slowly down the Delaware,
bearing eager Philadelphians on pleasure bent. Other sojourners
would drive miserably down in their dearborns, dragged by tired
nags through the interminable sandy road from Camden. On the
adoption of steam for navigation, a modest steamboat was conducted
by Mr. Wilmon Whilldin, and cut its way down the long Delaware
in what was deemed a fleet and stylish manner, greatly improving the
prosperity of the place. The customs of those earlier times were very
primitive and democratic. Large excursion-parties of gay girls and
festive gentlemen would journey together, engaging the right to
occupy Atlantic Hall, a desolate barn of a place, fifty feet square,
whose proprietor was Mr. Hughes. Then, while the straggling vil-
lagers stared, these cargoes of mischief-makers would bear down
upon the ocean, ducking and splashing in old suits of clothes brought
in their carpet-sacks, and gathering the conditions of a fine appetite.
The major-domo of Atlantic Hall, one Mackenzie, would send out to
see what neighbor had a sheep to sell; the animal found, all the visitors
of the male sex would turn to and help him dress it. Meantime, parties
of foragers would go out among the farmers around ravaging the
neighborhood for Indian corn. When the mutton was cooked and
the corn boiled, an appetite would have accumulated sufficient to
make these viands seem like the ambrosia of Olympus. Those were
fine, heart-hold times, and when our predecessors at Cape May went
down for a lark, they meant it and they had it. At night, when dead-
tired after the fiddling and the contra-dances, the barn-like hall was
partitioned off into two sleeping-rooms by a drapery of sheets. The
maids slept tranquilly on one side the curtains, the lads on the other.
Successive days brought other sports, — fishing in the clumsy boats,
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74 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
rides in hay-wagons over the deep white roads, the endless variety
being supplied, after all, by the bathing, which .was always the same
and ever new. These primitive bivouacs were succeeded by a steady
service of steamers on the Delaware and the erection of substantial
and civilized hotels."
Thomas H. Hughes, Jonas C. Miller, R. S. Ludlam, and the Messrs.
McMakin were among the first to erect large and commodious board-
ing-houses. Increasing custom demanded multiplied conveniences,
and a host of varied places of entertainment grew up, from the small
and modest restaurant to the monster hotel with its fifteen hundred
guests at once. Meantime private cottages became numerous, the
resident population enlarged, and a city was built up "where," says
a writer in 1856, *' a few years ago corn grew and verdure flourished."
It would be a pleasant task to note the particulars of such a progress
in full, and the reader could not fail of interesting information, but the
work is left for another pen, or a future time. Material increase and
prosperity is not the final test of development, and the scope of the
present discussion demands attention to other and important matters.
§Man is a religious being; the impulse to worship, an ineradicable
instinct of his undying soul. Tyranny is the trait of the brute ; it is
the bestial element in man which offends against the prerogative of
reason, and seeks, in intolerance, despotism over the spirit. Ambition
and avarice enlarged their efforts to aggrandize themselves in the
colonization of New Jersey; but, after all, the settlement of the State
is found to be due, through persecution, to the love of liberty and the
principles of religion.
"America," says an eminent historian, "was secured from bigotry
by her welcome to every sect ; each rallied round a truth, their collision
could but eliminate error. The eclectic American mind struggled for
universality while it asserted freedom. The Old World looked to the
American Colonies for the benefit of commerce, for mines, for natural
productions, but received revolutions, — the consequence of moral
power." At Cape May, in as great a degree as in any other place,
influences were early at work tending to hospitality of opinion and a
broad and catholic spirit. Counting the whalemen as the pioneers of
the county, Calvinism was the form of faith earliest introduced, but
the Swedish Lutherans soon exerted an influence upon the community,
and the Baptists and Quakers, not long after, were added as a powerful
element. The English Church was strong on the shores to the west
of the bay, where, for a time, the Reverend William Becket, an author
and poet, held a broad parish. It had its adherents at Cape May also,
but its connection with the monarchy, as an established Church, weak-
ened its influence at the Revolutionary period.
The Baptists are said, in " Benedict's History of the Baptists," to
have arrived at Cape May from England and formed a church as early
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''THE SCUM OF THE REFORMATIONr 75
as 1675. Johnson, in his sketch of Salem, says the same; but Dr.
Beesley supposes a mistake in the date, as there is no record of a white
population until 1685, none of a Baptist church until 171 1. Else-
where the doctor writes, '* History throws no light on the original
occupiers of the soil. Conjecture only can be consulted on the sub-
ject." It is quite probable that some of the Mennonist Baptists of
Plockhoy's colony may have escaped to Cape May, from the spoliation
of Carr, in 1664, with Swedes and Dutch from Christina and New
Amstel, — refugees for the same cause.
The Baptists, *' the scum of the Reformation," as they were called,
were the democrats of the Protestant Church; the Calvinists aspired
for theocracy, and made the Church dominant in the State ; the Church
oi England took ** submission" to royal prerogative as a "badge," and
Luther taught that it was '' a heathenish doctrine ; that a wicked ruler
may be deposed." But, plebeians themselves, the Baptists were consist-
ent, and unflinchingly dealt with the relations of life, threatening an
end to kingcraft, priestcraft, and feudalism. Hosts of the peasantry of
Germany perished in the persecutions against the Baptists ; arrogantly
they were trodden under foot, and scorn and reproach heaped upon
their memory. As might be expected, wherever the Baptists found
shelter in America, in Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, they
became a power, witnessing for independence, republicanism, and free
religion.
One of the early pastors of the Baptists at Cape May was Nathaniel
Jenkins, a Welshman, born in Cardiganshire in 1678. He arrived in
America in 17 10, and assumed his position in the church at Cape May
in 17 1 2. Mr. Jenkins was a man of character and ability, with fair
education ; from 1723 to 1733 he was a member of the Assembly ; he
was also a trustee in the Loan Office, and a local deputy and attorney
of Governor Hamilton, in all of which positions he served with honor.
Not long after the Baptist pastor became a legislator he had the oppor-
tunity of doing the state some service and distinguishing his princi-
ples. The emigrants from New England, accustomed to puritanical
rigor, quite conscientiously strove for a long time to engraft their perse-
cuting policy upon the institutions of New Jersey. When Mr. Jenkins
was first a member, a bill was brought into the Assembly to punish
such as denied the doctrine of the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, the
inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, etc., etc. This the Baptist legislator
opposed with all a Welshman's zeal and action. " I believe the doc-
trines in question," said he, '* as much as the promoter of that ill-
designed bill, but will never consent to oppose the opposers with law,
or with any weapon .save that of argument." ** Accordingly, the bill
was suppressed, to the great mortification of those who wanted to
raise in New Jersey the spirit which so raged in New England."
The Baptist church was from six to seven miles north of Sea Grove,
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76 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
at what is now the district of Cape May Court-House; there Mr. Jen-
kins died and there is his grave.
The early presence and work of the Baptists at Cape May perhaps
left fewer to adhere to the Quakers. There were a number of Friends
at the Cape in the early days, but they never became as numerous as
in Cumberland and other counties. Neither the Friends nor any others
have been persecuted at Cape May. Quakers generally went where
they were not wanted, but needed ; sometimes their peculiar principles
subjected them to loss, even at Cape May, but no persecution appears
to have been intended. Thomas Leaming, who came to Cape May in
1692, and became a whaleman, and then a farmer, seems to have been
a Quaker; among other things he records : '' In 1706, I built my house.
Samuel Matthews took a horse from me worth ^7, because I could
not train." '' Training" would have prevented the levy, and paying the
fine for contempt would have saved the horse from sale; Quaker prin-
ciples forbade one and the other; it was hard up6n Thomas Leaming,
but what could Samuel Matthews do with a Christian who would not
fight — nor swear !
Within the memory of the elder people of this generation, a Quaker
meeting-house stood in the northern part of Cape May County, and
there the tradition is that year after year, every First-day, two old
Quakers got together, and silently sat out the hours ; furthermore, these
Friends were not friendly, not on speaking terms, and so spake not
at all. By and by one of the old men died, and then the survivor sat
alone, scarcely more solitary, no whit more silent, until at last he too
came no more. But the part the Quakers took in founding Cape May
County has not been without a permanent effect for good, — and there
are men to-day everywhere who, could they but learn to hold their
tongues as faithfully as the two in the above story, '* the world would
be the better for it 1"
Pre-eminently, Calvinism has appealed to the human intellect. The
Democratic State, Free Church, and Common School arose together.
The Church which invoked thought, as a co-worker with zeal and faith,
gave guarantees to progress; the Antinomians of Massachusetts ad-
vanced beyond Geneva, and in Connecticut, where Calvinism enjoyed a
hundred years of peace, Massachusetts was left behind. There reli-
gious pride was forgotten; predestination was less considered than
philanthropy ; persecution was abandoned, and reason and charity were
made the basis of law. " Virtue," said the great Connecticut Presby-
terian divine, Jonathan Edwards, ** consists in universal love." From
the churches of Connecticut were drawn the men and women who
planted Presbyterianism at Cape May ; there also freedom and peace
favored the finest developments, and the infliuence of Calvinism may be
recognized in the stability, thoroughness, and intelligence which have
characterized the people.
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HISTORY OF COLD SPRING CHURCH, yy
The first Presbyterian church in Cape May County was established
at Cold Spring, two miles to the north of Sea Grove; its earliest
chronicles have disappeared, but it is recorded that the first minister
was the Rev. John Bradner, a native of Scotland. Mr. Bradner was
a candidate for the ministry when invited to Cold Spring, but Rev
Allen H. Brown, in his "Outline History of the Presbytermn Church
m West South Jersey," says he had no authority to preach, and it
marks the unorganized state of Church affairs at the time, that Messrs.
Davis, Hampton, and Henry, the three nearest ministers,' took the re-
sponsibility of examining and licensing him in March, 1714 he beinp-
ordained May 6th, 1715. In 1721 Mr. Bradner was removed to Goshen,
Orange County, New York, still keeping, however, his connection with
the Presbytery of Philadelphia. Mr. Bradner died before September,
1733. The estate now occupied as the parsonage, consisting of some
two hundred acres, was conveyed by him, for the use of the pastor of
this Church, to Humphrey Hughes, George Hand, John Parsons
Joseph Weldon (Whilldin), James Spicer, and twenty-seven others!
Mr. Bradner was succeeded by Rev. Samuel Pauley, who, as a resident
at Cape May, often officiated, though not settled there. Mr. Finley was
distinguished for learning and personal holiness; the great revival
among the Presbyterian and Baptist churches from 1740 to 1743 was
regarded as, in a large degree, God's blessing upon his labors; in 1761
he became President of Princeton College ; he was made a doctor of
divinity, by the University of Glasgow, in 1763, and, after an active and
useful life, died in remarkable peace and happiness, at Philadelphia,
July i6th, 1766, being then fifty-one years of age.
From 1721 to 1751 the Cold Spring Church had no settled minister;
Messrs. Beatty, Dean, Davenport, and others, were a temporary supply.
The Rev. Daniel Lawrence was at last installed, June 20th, 1754. Of
his ministry little is known, except that in addition to his labors at
Cape May he was often at the Forks of Brandywine, and, in 1755,
went to preach at " New England over the mountains." Mr. Law-
rence ministered to the Cold Spring Church twelve years ; he died in
1766; his grave is at Cold Spring. After the decease of Mr. Law-
rence, the Rev. John Brainerd supplied the Cold Spring pulpit in 1769
and 1770, and there is a report that a Mr. Schenck, a progenitor of the
Hon. Robert Schenck, preached at Cape May, probably about this
time.
Mr. James Watt was the next minister ; the tombstone records his
death November 19th, 1789, aged 46 years. Mr. Watts is said to have
been a man remarkable for disinterested kindness, integrity, and ability;
he was of the First Presbytery of Philadelphia, and represented that
body in the General Assembly of 1789.
The sombre manners of some of the stern New England forefathers
gave reason for an accusation trite as untrue, that Presbyterians were
6
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78 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
always an austere, sour, morose set of ascetics ; the biographical anec-
dotes of the Rev. Mr. Watt might be quoted in refutal. Like the
apostle Peter, Mr. Watt was much inclined to ** go a-fishing," and of
all fish the devil-fish was the one he most delighted to pursue. " The
devil" is often a large, powerful fish, its capture rough sport. On one
occasion, while accompanied by two other clergymen, Mr. Watt har-
pooned a devil-fish in Delaware Bay, so large and strong that it
rapidly drew the boat toward the sea. Amid the apprehension felt by
all, but especially by his guests, Dr. Watt, as he was familiarly called,
broke out in hearty laughter. He assured his companions that he
could not conceal his amusement at the idea of three clergymen of
the orthodox Church being run away with by the Devil !
Mr. Watt was succeeded by the Rev. Abijah Davis, of whom there
is no record. The Rev. David Edwards followed him, dying in 1813.
After 1808, the church-record has been preserved. The Rev. Isaac
A. Ogden was installed 1817; he resigned and went West in 1825.
His successor was the Rev. Alvin H. Parker, installed June 19th, 1825,
on the occasion of the first meeting of the Presbytery at Cold Spring,
The elders composing the session were Matthew Whillden (Whilldin),
John Stites, Jacob Foster, Jesse Hughes, and Jacob R. Hughes. Moses
Williamson was ordained and installed at Cold Spring in 1831 ; he
founded a successful academy there. Under his ministry the church
prospered; he resigned in 1872, being now an honored resident of
Cape May City.
The pastor at Cold Spring is the Rev. Thomas S. Dewing, to whom,
with the Rev. Dr. Alfred E. Nevins, thanks are due for items of this
history. Mr. Dewing began his labors October ist, 1873, and was
installed May 6th, 1874. The Cold Spring Church has two hundred
members; the Sabbath-school two hundred and fifty scholars ; a chapel
has been built near the Cape, and the church improved, the means
tberefor being derived from a legacy by Hon. Matthew Marcy.
The Presbyterian church at Cape Island was erected in 1845, as
" the visitors' church ;" there the Rev. Mr. Williamson, before men-
tioned, preached on Sabbath and Tuesday evenings, until 1851, when
the Cape Island Presbyterian Church was organized. The Rev. E.
P. Shields is now in charge, and under his '* diligent culture" and
''judicious oversight," says Dr. Nevins, the society is prosperous.
There is also an Episcopal, a Methodist, and a Baptist church at
Cape May City.
In the Cold Spring church-yard, and in another burying-place near
the bay, above the steamboat landing, are entombed the ashes of many
of the pioneers of Cape May, and of the generations which followed
them. The tombstone is the only record of some who, once active and
conspicuous, are now no more regarded ; their names, their memory,
obsolete, except among the venerable few.
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ALEXANDER WHILLDIN, FOUNDER OF SEA GROVE.
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THE SAFE BASIS OF PROGRESS. 70
But an enlightened faith dwells not in tombs, and recognizes death
only as an incident of life ; they whose bodies went down into the
grave at Cape May came to their earthly consummation in a laijd where
the hope of a happy immortality was part of the common creed.
Strong in religious faith, upheld by a consciousness of spiritual things,
the hour of their departure was to many of them an hour of triumph!
One and all, they lived— they died; their example still remains: in
high or low degree they filled the sphere they found, *' whereunto
they were appointed." The soul scorns the history that ends at the
grave; as we stand amid the trampled dust of by-gone myriads, it lifts
its voice within, to assert the presence of the angelic hosts and pro-
claim over all the just and loving providence of God.
Considering thus briefly the history of the churches of Cape May,
regarding especially the Presbyterian organization, it is noticeable that
while Calvinism has been influential, it has by no means been the sole
creed of the people ; the author follows the record of Presbyterianism
at greatest length, because the past history of that church and the
recent action of Presbyterians at Sea Grove are strikingly pertinent
to his argument, that freedom and equality are the safe basis of ma-
terial and spiritual progress.
Society, as some imagine, depends upon despotism, and religion they
think a tender plant, thriving best in the shadow of a throne, hedged
by bayonets ; grafted, at least, upon some constitution, and guarded by
facile courts. The Presbyterian Church is a free, a self-governing
republican church. New Jersey has been democratic in the extreme,
and absolutely tolerant. At Cape May Presbyterianism has had free-
dom, continuity, scope, and time, without isolation; it is fair to accept
the outgrowth as a test of democratic republicanism and of the ten-
dency of Calvinism in the United States. To learn this requires, in
addition to a survey of the past, an observation of the novel yet
characteristic developments of the present.
§ In passing from that which has become historical in relation to the
Presbyterians of Cape May to an observation of the present, one thing
may be remarked of peculiar interest and significance: the faith of the
forefathers has, as it were, become hereditary; the names of prominent
Presbyterians to-day are those found in the old church chronicles and
traditions. Thus, Joseph Weldon (Whilldon, Whillden, or Whilldin)
was one of the original trustees of Cold Spring Church. Matthew
Whillden (Whilldin), with John Stites and Jesse and Jacob R. Hughes,
were elders of the session in 1825, and to-day Alexander Whilldin, after
serving his church for a full generation as an elder, is now President
of the Sea Grove Association. Of the above officers of the church,
Mr. John Stites and Matthew Whilldon each held the position of
*' active and ruling elders" for fifty years or more ; they were contem-
poraries, and their terms of office were nearly coincident.
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So SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
The organization over which Mr. Alexander Whilldin presides,
having both secular and religious purposes, is Presbyterian in its
antecedents and affiliations, though not exclusively sectarian in its
constituency and designs, yet its work has been one of the most
striking manifestations of character and tendency given by Presby-
terians for many years ; and hence the value of the history of the
Association, and its force as evidence in establishing the assumptions
which are embodied in the first paragraphs of this work, and which
are the conclusion of its argument.
Following the course of our narrative and the discussion together,
the history of Sea Grove becomes repuisite, and immediately in order.
No account of the Sea Grove Association, its origin and operations, can
be^ at all complete without some sketch, more or less circumstantial,
of the gentleman who presides over the business of that corporation ;
hence the necessity of reference to him in the succeeding paragraphs.
The founder of Sea Grove is a native of Philadelphia, having been
born in that city in 1808; his father was a sea-captain, and a native
of New Jersey. In 18 12, leaving France on a return voyage to this
country, he never reached our shores, no tidings of his fate ever
coming to relieve the suspense of the bereaved family. This sad
event left Alexander Whilldin an orphan at the early age of four years.
The widow with her son and two daughters left Philadelphia, and went
to reside at the old homestead in Cape May County.
There, on the old farm near the Court-House, Alexander lived for
twelve years, receiving only the meagre education that the country
school-house of that day could give. In his sixteenth year he returned
to Philadelphia and entered a store, where, without grumbling, he
performed the duties of youngest clerk, including making the fires,
sweeping the store, running of errands, and other things too often
counted as drudgery nowadays. He was not too proud to work,
and he worked earnestly, industriously, faithfully. He remained here
as clerk eight years, rising from one position to another, gaining the
confidence of his employer and of all about him. In 1832 he started
business for himself, as a commission merchant in cotton and wool,
the first year with a partner who brought in needed capital, and after-
wards alone.
His career as a business man now began in earnest. He soon de-
veloped those traits which mark the solid man of business wherever
you find him. He was prudent, sound in judgment, courteous, self-
reliant, industrious, and of indomitable energy and persistence. He at
once gave proof of great executive ability, and of capacity to direct
extensive and complicated affairs. With such a power at the helm,
his business rapidly grew to large proportions ; and although at one
time embarrassment surrounded him, his native resources of energy,
sagacity, and superior judgment enabled him finally to extricate him-
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AN AMERICAN CITIZEN. 8 1
self honorably, to meet every obligation he had assumed, and to build
himself up on the experience of his trials upon a broader and surer
basis than ever.
The peculiar talents of such a merchant could not of course remain
the exclusive possession of his own large business. Mr. Whilldin was
sought in commercial and financial circles, and was for many years
President of the American Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia,
and prominently interested in the management of other pecuniary
trusts. His philanthropic sympathies, known generosity, and the
personal interest he has always taken in educational, benevolent, and
religious enterprises have made him prominent also in many noble
public charities of Philadelphia ; his upright character, and wisdom in
counsel, making him invaluable as a leader in his own church denomi-.
nation, and very efficient as a manager in the American Sunday-school
Union, Presbyterian Hospital, and other worthy educational and phil-
anthropic institutions.
A truthful likeness of Mr. Whilldin is included in the illustrations
of this work. Although nearing his seventieth year after a laborious
life, he enjoys the reward of ever temperate habits in an eye as clear,
a step as elastic, and a mind as vigorous as most men of fifty. He is
still actively at the head of his extended business, which is conducted
in company with his three sons, and remains, as he has been for a full
half-century, a respected and useful citizen of the great city where he
was born. Though so long a resident of Philadelphia, the experienced
merchant has never outworn his fondness for the scenes of his boy-
hood, or failed to appreciate the advantages of an annual sojourn at
the old familiar sea-side places. It has been for many years his delight
to escape from the cares of business, and seek beside the waters of
Cape May the recreation which nowhere else seemed as grateful and
complete. For half a century, except one season in Europe, he has
been there every summer.
Not only as a visitor to Cape May, but as the holder of considerable
real estate there, Mr. Whilldin has watched with interest the growth
and peculiar prosperity of the county ; desirous, as a philanthropist,
that all should enjoy and be benefited by the natural peculiarities of
the place, he has seen, with regret, the increase of a bad fashion which
renders the season for rest and health-giving resort to nature but a
wearying round of dissipation. " More than twenty years ago," says
the founder of Sea Grove, " I had this subject under consideration."
Many beside Mr. Whilldin had long deplored watering-place extrava-
gance, and several denominations had established quiet places of con-
genial resort for their members, but none existed among Presbyterians.
Providentially, as some of his friends declare, Mr. Whilldin was in
possession of a most convenient location, whose great but long-reserved
natural advantages invited occupation; besides, he had the courage,
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82 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
the means, and the influence, to make successful whatever he con-
sidered it his duty to undertake.
The site of Sea Grove was purchased of '* The West New Jersey
Society in England," by Jonathan JPyne the elder, through Jeremiah
Basse as agent ; being inherited by Jonathan Pyne (2d) and Abigail
Pyne, it was deeded by them and Robert Courtney, Abigail Pyne's
husband, to Henry Stites, in 1712. The property remained in the
Stites family until the marriage of Jane G. Stites with Alexander Whill-
din, in 1836, and was by them conveyed to the Sea Grove Association,
March 15th, 1875, having been in Presbyterian hands one hundred and
sixty-three years.
'*I have come," said Mr. Whilldin, *' to consider it the providence of
God that we have been led to retain this Presbyterian ground all these
years, to become a subject of special consecration at last." To him it
seemed little less than desecration to appropriate the place he loved to
the use for which nature had pre-eminently fitted it— that of a superior
sea-side resort — if it must be done in the ordinary manner. Yet it
seemed a pity so fine a place as Sea Grove should benefit so few, es-
pecially when scores of thousands in the great cities not far away
needed every summer the comfort and help of the ocean air, and yet
found themselves repelled and excluded from most popular resorts by
the crowding, the confusion, the mad revelry, and recklessness which
more and more characterized them.
Under the circumstances, Mr. Whilldin took counsel in the first
place, as has been stated, of his own thoughts and inspirations, for some
time considering the matter; then, like a wise and practical man, he
conferred with his wife. *' We," said he, *' laid the matter before God;"
and thtn, feeling as if Heaven intended to bless the work, the Presby-
terian man of business conferred with his brethren. His suggestions
were generally approved, and it was decided to utilize the choice loca-
tion at the point of Cape May, and ''furnish a Moral and Religious Sea-
side Home for the glory of God and the zvelfare of Man, whei^e he may
be refreshed and invigorated body a7td soul, and better fitted for the highest
and noblest duties of life!'
In furtherance of this object an organization was effected the i8th
of February, 1875, which was chartered, with liberal franchises, by the
Senate and General Assembly of the State of New Jersey the same
year.
This corporation was styled the " Sea Grove Association," and its
Board of Directors was made to consist of Alexander Whilldin, Dr.
V. M. D. Marcy, Downs Edmunds, J. Newton Walker, and John Wana-
maker.
Section 6th of the charter vests the Board of Directors with the
power of regulation and control in the following terms :
*'6. And be it enacted, That a majority of the directors for the time
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LAW AND ORDER AT SEA GROVE.
83
being shall form a board for the transaction of the business of said
corporation, and shall have power to make such by-laws, ordinances,
and regulations as shall seem necessary and convenient for the man-
agement and disposition of the stock, effects, and concerns of the said
corporation, and for the purpose of restricting nuisances and of compel-
ling a uniform system of improvements ; the said company are hereby
authorized and invested with power to incorporate into any deed or
conveyance made by them, whether in fee simple or otherwise, a clause
or condition forbidding the sale upon the premises of any spirituous
or intoxicating liquors, and to require of any grantee of said company
to make and maintain such style and character of improvement on said
lots so conveyed, or on the streets fronting thereon, as to the said com-
pany may seem best for securing a uniform system of development and
improvement throughout the said settlement ; and the board of directors
of said company shall have the power to appoint such peace officers as
they may deem necessary for the purpose of keeping order on the
premises, which officers shall be paid by the said company, but shall
have when on duty the same power and authority and immunities which
constables and other peace officers under the laws of this State possess
or enjoy when on duty as such, and they shall have the same power to
enforce obedience to any rule and regulation of said corporation for the
preservation of quiet and good order on the premises of said corporation
and their grantees; provided, that such by-laws or regulations are not
contrary to the laws or constitution of the United States or of this State."
Subsequently the officers of the Association were elected, with Alex-
ander Whilldin, President and Treasurer, 20 South Front Street, Phila-
delphia; J. C. Sidney, Secretary, 204 South Fifth Street, Philadelphia;
Downs Edmunds, Assistant Secretary, Cape May Point.
The Directors of the Sea Grove Association adopted a series of by-
laws and regulations which provided for the systematic and business-
like conduct of its affairs, according to the terms of its charter. Of
these regulations the 12th, 13th, and 15th are special and significant in
character, and by their nature or general interest, and are therefore here
inserted :
" 12. All buildings and other improvements will be subject to the
approval of the directors or to an agent appointed for that purpose by
them.
" 13. All deeds will contain a clause for the purpose of restricting
nuisances and of compelling a uniform system of improvement, forbid-
ding the sale or keeping for sale any spirituous or intoxicating liquors,
and generally providing for the submission to such rules and regulations
as the Board may from time to time direct. Neither the holder of a lot,
stockholder, or other person shall permit any amusement or act incon-
sistent with the character of the place and the objects of the Association,
as set forth in the charter. ********
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84 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
"15. The Pavilion is intended for religious or other meetings. Parties
desiring to occupy it will not be permitted to do so without the authority
m writing of the President, or in his absence of the majority of the
Board, who shall first ascertain the character of the intended meeting,
refusing the use thereof to all such as are not compatible with the objects
and purposes of the Association/'
The stock of the company being taken up at once, operations began,
and were pushed with great energy. After the manner of the Calvinist
Puritans of New England long ago, the first structure in the new settle-
ment was an edifice for the purposes of education and religion. "The
Pavilion," though vastly different from the comfortless churches in
which the Pilgrims delighted, was yet the creation of the same spirit,
though working under vastly different circumstances. As a building,
it is well adapted to the purpose for which it has been constructed. In
whatever respect it may fall short of the too great splendor of some
city sanctuaries, it has one excellence in which many costly churches
are deficient: as seen by the view on another page, it admits of perfect
ventilation.
Completed late in the spring of 1875, the history of the Sea Grove
Pavilion is evidently brief; still, as the centre of Sea Grove enterprise,
it has already attracted much attention, and been the scene of several
memorable gatherings. For the ensuing record and description of the
first season of Pavilion meetings the author is indebted to the Rev. Alfred
E. Nevins, D.D., the superintendent and friendly manager of the services.
Though a distinguished array of clerical talent of various denominations
was always available through the season, yet to the supervision and
care of Dr. Nevins was due much of the regularity and success of those
assemblies. In connection with the regular Pavilion services on Sunday,
a Sabbath-school was organized, and conducted with decided success
by Mr. S. E. Hughes, a member of the Methodist church.
Recounting the already stated objects of the Sea Grove Association,
Dr. Nevins proceeds to remark: ** During the season of 1875, it was
truly gratifying to see how this ' object' was kept in view, appreciated,
and carried out. Early in July, in the attractive structure set apart for
Divine service, and standing where but a few months before were seen
the dense and dark forest, hundreds of visitors were summoned from
the commodious hotel and handsome cottages by the clear and sweet
tones of the bell, ringing through the grove and along the beach, to
engage in the worship of their common Creator and Redeemer. And
on every succeeding Sabbath was the same invitation given and
accepted. A pleasing spectacle it was, on such occasions, to behold
those who, though differing in some points of faith, yet agreed in the
essential elements of our holy religion, the veteran and the child, the
stranger and the familiar friend, all mingling their voices and uniting
their hearts in praise and prayer to the God and Father of our Lord
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RELIGIOUS SERVICES IN THE PAVILION.
85
Jesus Christ, and listening with eager ear and ardent interest to the
exposition of His most excellent Word. Still more pleasant, if possi-
ble, was it to see several hundreds of representative ministers and lay-
men of the various evangelical denominations, who had been invited to
convene for the consideration of great moral and religious subjects, on
the 25th of August, engage for several days in the noble Pavilion in
earnest devotions and discussions, and then on the holy Sabbath unite
in celebrating the love of Him who * died for our sins, according to the
Scriptures,' who prays that His followers * all may be one,' and who
has gone to prepare for them a place where they shall dwell together
in blissful fellowship through an endless existence. There is some-
thing in the magnitude and grandeur of the ocean, as it is gazed upon,
a. great symbol of eternity, to overwhelm the mind, and cast minor
matters into the shade. The very sight of it, in this view, tends to
magnify the essentials of Christianity and to minify its circumstantials.
And this effect was evidently realized in no small degree by the visit-
ors at Sea Grove. May the flame that was kindled on the ' shore' —
a spot which, in another land, Jesus so much delighted to frequent —
send its light and heat throughout the country and the world!
" *One sole baptismal sign,
One Lord, below, above.
Zion, one faith is thine,
One only watchword — Love.
From different temples though it rise,
One song ascendeth to the skies,
" * Oh, why should they who love
One Gospel to unfold,
Who seek one home above,
On earth be strange and cold ?
Why, subjects of the Prince of Peace,
In strife abide, and bitterness ?
" * Head of the church beneath,
The catholic — the true —
On all her members breathe —
Her broken frame renew !
Then shall Thy perfect will be done,
When Christians love and live as one.' "
While the Pavilion was going up, a heavy force of men were grading
the streets, avenues, and boulevards of Sea Grove. In the " Bird's-eye
View of Sea Grove" which illustrates this book, the plan appears as
laid out by Mr. Sidney, the architect. At the same time, the founda-
tions of the "Sea Grove House" were laid, and the building pushed
with great energy, being ready for use and thronged with hundreds of
guests the same season. Simultaneously, many cottages arose here and
there, all neat and attractive, and some ornately elegant ; notably that
of the Whilldin family, illustrated, with the original Sea Grove House,
in the view of " Atlantic Beach," from a photograph taken upon the
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S6 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
completion of the first buildings of Sea Grove. Besides, as early ex-
amples of fitness and characteristic good taste, might be mentioned
the cottage of John Wanamaker; one for Mr. Stockton, an Episco-
palian divine; several built on account of J. Newton Walker, M.D. ;
those constructed by Mr. Hughes, etc., as shown in the bird's-eye view.
Episcopalians, Lutherans, Methodists, and Christians of other de-
nominations were already owners of the soil, and began to build ; be-
sides, people, not members of any church, were drawn by the promise
of order and morality to seek a resting-place in the borders of the new,
fast-growing town. The frontispiece represents Cape May Point, the site
of Sea Grove, as it appeared in 1776; the picture of Sea Grove Beach
by Moonlight" is a sketch of the same locality, from a different point
of view, just before the lighthouse was moved inland, the constant
action of the sea having worn away the low bluff until the tower
would soon have been in danger of a fall into the encroaching waves.
These engravings are essentially accurate, except that in the original
paintings, from which both of them were copied, the artist, Mr. Charles
W. Knapp, of Philadelphia, well known by his fine authentic American
landscapes, though reproducing faithfully and beautifully from older
sketches and various data the natural features of each scene, has in-
troduced, for artistic effect, more figures of men and women than often
gathered on " Barren Beach" in those days. The lighthouse being
moved back in 1847, the scene remained without much change until
1875, when the improvements of Sea Grove began.
The *' Bird's-eye View" is reduced from a design by Armitage, of
Mr. Sidney's office, and gives the appearance of Sea Grove in the
spring of 1876. Studied thus in connection and contrast, these pic-
tures are more expressive than any words the writer can command.
The other views in this volume, being from sketches by David B. Gul-
ick, of New York, are, of course, reliable pictures ; they present ar-
tistically the actual features in a peculiar landscape, and, as will soon be
seen, are significant of the remarkable influence of changing phases of
religious sentiment upon general progress. Let the reader look at the
picture of the gateway of Sea Grove, at the view of Lake Lily, and at
the architecture of all the buildings in the various scenes, and then com-
pare the liberality, taste, and good sense of Presbyterians to-day, with
the temper manifested by the conscientiously ugly and uncomfortable
"meeting-houses" of New England Calvinists two hundred years ago!
§''A sea-side resort," say the Directors of the Sea Grove Associa-
tion, in one of their publications, '' is generally associated in the mind
with lavish display, extravagant living,. dissipation, and consequent ex-
pense, to be regretted when the apparent pleasure is past and gone.
To families of quiet habits, and who visit a summer resort, even
where expense is no object, the glitter and show do not compensate
for the health lost or for bad habits formed, especially by the young.
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SUMMER HOMES BESIDE THE SEA.
37
The fashionable hotel at a watering place may afford at enormous
prices some luxuries and some exciting amusements, but attending
these are generally small, inconvenient rooms, dissipation of every kind,
a mixed, often immoral, company, the irreverent element preponder-
ating over the moral and religious." In view of these facts, they ex-
plain that their enterprise has been undertaken *' with the idea of afford-
ing a sea-side resort, and sea-side homes, with their economies and
pleasures, as well as the influences arising from a religious sentiment,
good order, and a freedom from all dissipation attending the merely
fashionable watering places."
To encourage home life and influences at the sea-side, the greatest
inducements are extended to those who build at Sea Grove. Aside from
all other advantages of ready-made and perfectly graded streets, etc.,
each builder of a cottage will be entitled to a free pass over the West
Jersey Railroad for one, two, or three years, agreeably to cost of im-
provement ; and all materials will be carried at a reduced rate. The
Association, to facilitate transit from Cape May City and the steam-
boat landing to Sea Grove, have constructed a horse railroad between
those places. Good-sized lots at Sea Grove have been put at moderate
prices, and, to prevent monopolizing speculation, none are sold except
to those who agree to build within three years. The observer can de-
tect neither overreaching greed or insane fanaticism in the develop-
ments of Sea Grove ; the enterprise is no crusade, no pilgrimage to
some *'holy" but unhealthy sacred place, at the command of super-
stition.
Presbyterians to-day expect God's blessing of health only as they
conform to natural laws, the dictates of sanitary science, and good
sense. Speaking of the site of their enterprise, the Directors announce :
''The land is sufficiently rolling to afford good drainage in every di-
rection, and there are many building-sites rising twenty-five feet above
the level of the ocean. There is no swamp on the tract, and the whole
plot is available for building purposes. Water for drinking and culin-
ary purposes, of the purest quality, is obtained on any part of the ground
at a depth of sixteen feet from the surface."
Hospitable religion, broad boulevards, perfect drainage, pure, plen-
tiful water, hygienic living; this is the Presbyterian programme to-day.
Not very long ago, moody, mistaken " saints," of varied sects, counted
religion, or the madness they called such, godliness enough, leaving
cleanliness and care for the body to be regarded almost as a vice ;
herein is evident improvement. Progress involves no shifting of the
grounds of principle, no change in the immutable basis of truth; it is
a matter of perception and receptivity. It is mankind that is *' con-
verted from the error of its way,'*' to grow in intelligence, in morals, in
spiritual unfolding, to the measure of a perfect life!
Peculiar in its origin, remarkable in its development, striking in its
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88 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
results, as a work of high civilization, as an index of progress, Sea
Grove commands attention by the liberality, skill, and judgment every-
where evinced, but is equally a display of good taste, a substantial re-
cognition of the claims of the beautiful. Calling to mind the '* crop-eared
boors" of Marston Moor, the '' Roundheads" of Cromwell's army, the
parliament of '' Praise God Barebones," the grim Puritans of Salem and
Boston, the Pilgrim Fathers, " the Saints" of New Haven, the Cove-
nanters of Scotland, and the early Presbyterians of New Jersey, with
all the stern dogmatists of a persecuted denomination whose members
were accused of regarding propriety and comeliness as a " wile of the
wicked one," how strange, how inconsistent seem the works and
ways of their lineal descendants in the spirit — the inheritors of the
faith, the Presbyterians of to-day. Yet, whatever may, at first thought,
seem to be the case. Sea Grove is a coherent outgrowth of Geneva,
and Calvinism as much at home there as it was with the democratic
and catholic Pilgrim. P^athers aboard the Mayflower and at Plymouth,
or amid the privations, gloom, austerity, and exclusiveness of the per-
secuting Puritans during the first years of Salem and Boston.
To make it still more plain that the principles, good manners, and
morals of the elder generations of Calvinists are essentially preserved,
and their foibles alone omitted, by the people of Sea Grove, the following,
from the pen of an experienced, observing, orthodox minister, is here
added: "Throughout the season a bright, cheerful, and sociable spirit
prevailed. Innocent and agreeable amusements abounded. Cultured
and friendly intercourse was cherished. Guests, without any constraint
to do so, had an opportunity of attending family worship morning and
evening, as well as public Divine service on the Sabbath. Nothing oc-
curred of any kind to mar the pleasure of the visitors from North, South,
East, and West, and every sign indicated a brilliant and useful future for
Sea Grove. It was evident to all who visited the place for a day, a
week, or a month, that it is just the resort that is needed, one where
fashion and dissipation do not hold sway, where extravagance finds no
sphere for display, where guests, without an affected pretense of piety
or of devotional services, may enjoy the means of grace to which the
inmates of Christian homes are accustomed in their church relations,
and where, whilst religious advantages are supplied and cherished,
everything like sectarianism and bigotry is eschewed. It was a joy
to the writer that, during a visit of a number of weeks at Sea Grove,
whilst witnessing much cheerful enjoyment, and sharing in it, he nei-
ther saw a card or glass of liquor, nor heard a profane word. And this
was peculiarly gratifying, as so many young persons were present, who
could not but be benefited by so much exemption from evil influences,
while under the power of others of an opposite character, genial, cheer-
ing, manly, and eminently salutary."
§ It has been stated that not only Presbyterians, but Episcopalians,
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EPISCOPALIANS AT SEA GROVE. 89
Lutherans, Methodists, and others were attracted to Sea Grove. To
show how some of these people regard the place and its arrange-
ments leads the author directly to the point of his perhaps too long
and circumstantial argument. The subjoined paragraphs are from an
Episcopalian in training and by long affiliation a liberal man and a
reformer, one familiar with great enterprises, and to whom some of the
most remarkable acts of the Senate of the United States owe their
conception. This gentleman made a careful examination of the affairs
of Sea Grove at an early date, and in a letter from thence to a friend,
but for publication, he wrote, —
" Another visit to this delightful spot demonstrated the fact that the
success of the enterprise is assured.
*' Although somewhat surprised at the rapid advancement of the
work as it appeared a few weeks ago, the sight presented last Saturday
seemed quite bewildering.
'' The place, considering the brief interval, had assumed the air of
a lively little village, with evidences on all sides of the greatest activity
and healthy progress. Cottages are springing up as if under the
inspiration of magic, the commodious hotel recently begun is now
open, the beautiful wide avenues are being graded and graveled, the
sidewalks gently elevated above the smooth, level drives, and the busy
workmen finishing their labors give hopeful note of preparation for the
coming season.
** The excursionists last Saturday appeared to enjoy the visit very
much ; after taking a bird's-eye view of Sea Grove from the lofty
steeple of the Pavilion, they strolled off along the beach, and visited
the numerous objects of interest, as the clear fresh-water lake, the new
hotel, the cottages, and grounds.
** A sign of the progressive times is the fact that men of large ex-
perience, keen sagacity, and ample means are attracted to South Jersey
partly from its superior natural advantages, and, in some measure, from
the moral tone and growing sentiments of the people upon the vital
questions of temperance and prohibition, without which no community
can reach the highest degree of moral development and material wealth.
" The Sea Grove Association, composed of such men as Messrs.
Alexander Whilldin, John Wanamaker, J. C. Sidney, and others of like
earnestness and capacity, recognizing these principles, has founded this
new settlement on the basis of morality, religion, and temperance, and
procured such legislation as will effectually banish, within the cor-
porate limits, the sale and traffic of intoxicating liquors. Built on this
superstructure, with its natural advantage of position, health, accessi-
bility, moral tone, and religious sentiments, the future of Sea Grove is
assured.
" The temperance feature is one which your valuable journal cannot
too highly commend. The beneficent result which will soon be ap-
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90 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
parent from the practical workings of the prohibitory provision will
furnish you additional arguments and illustrations to continue the
manly fight made in Pennsylvania against the rum traffic and in favor
of prohibition throughout the State.
" The party returned to the city about eight o'clock without acci-
dent, seemingly well pleased with the day's enjoyment." -
But all the world are not Presbyterians, all are not Episcopalians ;
some are not members of any church, and yet are people of discrim-
ination, at least in secular matters. John Calvin, in Geneva, could not
raise himself above the persecuting spirit of his age altogether. The
Calvinists in Holland, in England, in Massachusetts, were by the
record held guilty of conscientious bloodshed for the offenses of con-
science. Coming down the tide of time, what spirit ruled at Sea
Grove? The hospitality, tolerance, and courtesy of the Sea Grove
Christians were early put to a test, and as to the manner in which they
bore the trial, the evidence of the one who gave whatever provocation
may have been felt shall be admitted.
The letters here quoted from were published at Boston, Massachu-
setts, in the '' Banner of Light," an old, ably-conducted Spiritualist
journal, much respected by its supporters, and of world-wide circula-
tion. Addressing the editor as a personal friend, the correspondent at
Sea Grove freely comments as follows :
'' While your various correspondents are sending you cheerful notes
from different points where the thousands of liberal souls congregate
and enjoy the satisfaction of a refined society and philosophical teach-
ings, I add my scribble from another locality, where it may seem that
I am out of place and ought to be uncomfortable.
'' Sea Grove is a creation, and a creation by Presbyterians. If you
take your United States map, and let your pen-handle run down the
coast of the Atlantic southwardly until you reach Cape Henlopen, you
will be fourteen miles beyond where I am. Still, Cape Henlopen light,
shining across the entrance of Delaware Bay, threw its rays into my
window last night, for I slept at the very end of Southern New Jersey,
on the shore of the actual Cape May. The long-established watering-
place of that name is north of here, in a much less desirable locality,
not on a cape at all — hence, in our American way, its name.
** On the point of the Cape a few Presbyterian gentlemen and capitalists
have laid out in noble style a small town, building, as their forefathers
in the faith in New England did, a church first, and then, as the pilgrim
fathers did not, a comfortable hotel, with modern improvements, next !
Nor this alone, but they have leveled the sand banks, improved the
shores of a small fresh-water lake, and multiplied streets, roads, ave-
nues, and boulevards in every direction. Fine cottages have been
erected, and the place is rapidly developing characteristics of material
order and beauty.
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DISINTERESTED EVIDENCE, qj
"The Abraham, the Moses, the Solomon of this enterprise is Alex-
ander Whilldin, Esq., a wealthy wool merchant of the city of Philadel-
phia, in whose family the land hereabouts has been a legacy for genera-
tions. Presbyterianism has descended in the same line as the property,
but it must not be understood that the large fortune of Mr. W. was all
inherited, or that he is of that class of men who accept their creeds
ready-made from their ancestors. On the contrary, he is a thorough
man of business, as liberal in his charities as thoughtfully tolerant in
his adhesion to his sect. In association with him is the famous Napo-
leon of clothiers, John Wanamaker, of the same city. Both these
persons are remarkable in the same way — men whose broad views and
ceaseless energies, coupled with catholic syrhpathies, make mere sec-
tarianism seem impertinent, and exalt our conception of human nature
as we observe their philanthropic activity and eminent public spirit.
" The plan of this sea-side paradise, this New Jerusalem in the sand,
as well as the public improvements, reflects credit upon the taste and
skill of Mr. J. C. Sidney, another Philadelphian, and an architect of
repute. Under his superintendence, backed by abundant means, the
growth of this place has been exceedingly rapid, and yet substantial
completeness is everywhere evident.
** Under the favorable laws of this State (New Jersey), the regulations
of this new town are as peculiar as the old Presbyterian Blue Laws
of Connecticut ; in fact, they smack somewhat of their character. I
should hesitate long before I consented to such laws for a State or large
city, but here, and now, very possibly they are excellent ; anyway, those
who disapprove can go to — Cape May, or even Long Branch, which is
worse.
'' For my part I am glad to get to a place where rest and health and
personal improvement seem really to be the object of those around
me. I am rejoiced to be, even for a week, where my eyes are not
offended by the emblazonry with which the rum traffic decorates so
many fronts in town, and where the tippler tippleth not and the drunk-
ard Cometh not. Continual swearing (/;/ others) is not essential to my
happiness, while slang and obscenity, such as I often hear in some re-
sorts, make me crawl all over with disgust. Sea Grove has no rum
traffic — never will have ; it has no scenes of riot, and moreover is clean
and decent in every way. I don't know how rigid the regulations are,
but I do know they will be enforced, whatever they may be ; and that
now the result is every way satisfactory if health and rest are really
desired.
" It seems queer to see the people of a hotel convene twice a day for
family prayers, where various clergymen 'address the throne of grace,'
and a fine quartette like this of the Hayes family leads the singing;
yet such is the fashion here, and I, wishing to be in style, followed the
fashion. I cannot detect any demoralization in myself in consequence
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92 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
of this self-indulgence, and if I think my own thoughts the while prayer
and music go on, I do not think I am surrounded by a company of
mere hypocrites and canting, pretentious formalists ! I am sure some
people I know would be surprised to learn how much of real human
goodness unspoiled there is in all the churches. The danger here seems
to be that so much piety and propriety, * taken straight,' may become
dull from monotony, and so efforts have been made to avoid sanctimo-
niousness. A very distinguished Presbyterian divine organized a
minstrel troupe from the kitchen and the dining room, and they gave
an entertainment. Then last evening there was in the parlor an exhi-
bition of sleight-of-hand by ' Professor Guernella and lady.' He belongs
to the assumed exposers of Spiritualism, and I have to say that he
was decent in his remarks and clever in his tricks, but his imitation was
as much like spirit phenomena as the pantomime of the deaf and dumb
is like the eloquence of Wendell Phillips; and so as before the facts of
Spiritualism remain, as Guernella says, to * puzzle longer heads than
mine.'
*' To-day, after the teachings of Guernella, that 'we should attribute
nothing to supernatural causes because we don't understand it,' we had
a sermon from the Rev. Mr. Nevins upon the stilling of the sea by
Jesus. He took occasion to inculcate 'muscular Christianity,' saying
salvation was incomplete without health, and that Jesus healed the sick.
He then told us that the storm on Galilee was the work of demoniacal
spirits, as were all storms, earthquakes, and other destructive outbreaks
of nature ! It was cheap science, even if good theology ; anyhow, it
showed Guernella had not effaced the idea that somehow good or bad
spirits had much to do with our life and its environment. Nevins is
an elderly Presbyterian minister. To-night, at 5 o'clock, we listen to
the Rev. Mr. Stockton, an ^Episcopalian of reform tendencies, but still
in full communion. From conversation with him, I expect liberal
things."
Disagreeing radically and frankly with those around him, the writer
of the above states, in the further course of his correspondence, that
candor and courtesy were the only concessions made by him in frequent
conversations and debates with both laymen and ministers ; and yet he
declares that nowhere w^as he ever so cheerfully tolerated, never treated
with greater kindness, *' not even in the radical Israel."
§ Such has been the course taken by the Presbyterian managers of
Sea Grove,. and such is the concurrent testimony of various parties as
to the order, morality, and liberal tolerance of those who frequent the
place ; yet there resides and rules the same Calvinism which was
believed in by the Puritans, who sanctioned the death of dissenters in
'England and Massachusetts a few generations ago. Since then, how
much of growth in grace !
Divorced from the entanglements of state ecclesiastlcism, the free
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CONCLUSION OF THE HISTORIC ARGUMENT. 93
Presbyterian Church, hke other Christian organizations,, has escaped
from potent influences of corruption and gained in spiritual life. De-
livered from persecution, endowed with freedom, resting secure, that
Church has outgrown the old-time Puritan arrogance, intolerance, and
cruelty. This is not a change in Calvinism, but it is progress among
men. It was not the creed, but the fears of the Puritans, which made
them exclusive and proscriptive.
The progress made manifest by the success of the Presbyterians in
New Jersey has been shared by the Episcopalians of Virginia as well,
and has extended to every Christian denomination in our country. It
is the fruit of religious freedom, of security, prosperity, and culture;
the expression of the spirit of the nineteenth century, the outgrowth
of the republican institutions of the United States of America.
" Calvinism ran to seed in iMassachusetts," it is said ; its thorns it
put forth in Europe in defiance — a defense against its persecutors.
After two hundred years oi tolerance and liberty, it blooms at Sea
Grove ; the humanities, the courlesies, the graces of life, blossom in
beauty on the same rugged stock which so long has nourished the
sterner virtues.
Freedom is the natural basis of civilization, progress, and a true life.
Religion needs no establishment except in the hearts of the devout.
The only legitimate rule is the law of equal rights, ''a government of
the people, by the people, and for the people" — '' never to perish from
the earth."
Such are our conclusions. Such the lesson of New^ Jersey and Sea
Grove; the historic argument of Scheyichbi and the Strand.
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GEOLOGICAL OUTLINES AND ITEMS.
•* A FACT IN NATURE IS AN ACT OF GOD."
" The course of nature is the art of God."
Young.
Cape May Lighthouse is at the southern end of the State of New
Jersey, and. according to the United States Coast Survey Reports, is in
38° 55' 50''' .42 north lati-
tude, and in 74° 57' 15''
.57 west longitude; high-
water mark by the same
observation was 1188 feet
due south of it, or in lati-
tude 38° 55' 39'^65 north,
and longitude 74° 57' 15''
.57 west. The light is one
hundred and sixty-seven
and three-eighths miles
from the northern limit of
New Jersey, and between
Delaware Bay and the At-
lantic Ocean. Immediately
west is located the settle-
ment of Sea Grove, includ-
ing the United States Signal
Station at the extreme point
of Cape May. Both the light
and the settlement, as well
as the long-famous resort of Cape May City, and the country thirty-
two miles north, are included in Cape May County.
Geologically, this county, in common with all the southern portion
of the State, belongs to the Tertiary and recent formation of the Ceno-
zoic period, and is characterized by deposit, drift, and alluvium. The
whole county is very low, level, and uniform, and, in the absence of mines,
quarries, or other deeo excavations, geological examinations have been
94
CAPE MAY LIGHTHOUSK
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THE ANCIENT SHORES, 95
confined to the surface, and the deposit to the depth of three hundred
and thirty-five feet beneath it. The best opportunities for observations
have been afforded by the boring of several artesian wells at different
points.
§ Not very long ago — as time is counted in geology — the ocean shore
of Southern New Jersey extended from Trenton, on the Delaware, to
Woodbridge, on Staten Island Sound, running nearly along the f resent
railroad from Trenton to Metuchen, Middlesex County, and from thence
eastward a short distance. This was the southern limit of the appear-
ance of the red sandstone of the Triassic formation. All the land
between there and Cape May, to a depth of about seven hundred and
forty-two feet, in the Cretaceous formation, and one thousand or more
deep the rest of the distance, has been '* made" either by deposits from
the sea and from vegetable growth, or by " drift" and wash of materials.
The Cretaceous formation extends from the southern line of the
Triassic southwardly about sixty miles along the Delaware as far as
Alloway's Creek, Salem County, and from thence northeastwardly to
Shark River Inlet, on the Atlantic coast, eight miles below Long
Branch. Clayton Station, on the West Jersey Railroad from Philadel-
phia to Cape May City and Sea Grove, is near the southern border of
the Cretaceous formation.
The Tertiary formation covers all the surface of Southern New Jersey
south of the line from Shark River Inlet to Alloway's Creek, except a
narrow margin of recent formation along the shores. Owing to the
nature of their materials, and the agencies which have operated upon
them through successive ages, it is very difficult to definitely outline
the field of these two formations. The Tertiary overlies the Cretaceous
in the north, and runs irregularly into the recent formation along the
shore.
Beyond the Cretaceous, to the north, appears the Triassic formation,
composed of the red sandstones and others, the trap and conglomerate
rocks.
North of the Triassic rise the mountains which stretch across the
State of New Jersey in its northwestern portion. These mountains
are composed of gneiss rocks and crystalline limestone, or marble, but
mostly of gneiss ; these are the outcrop of the metamorphic rocks of
the Azoic time, and are metamorphic, igneous, or primitive in character,
— that is to say, they are geologically the most ancient rocks, and owe
their character to the action of fire. The valleys among these mount-
ains are limestone localities, and all the territory of New Jersey beyond
the mountains to the northwest is a limestone region, and of the Paleozoic
division of geologic structure and time.
§ It being known that the metamorphic rocks of the Azoic period are
primitive, igneous, or Plutonic rocks, it is understood that they are the
oldest, and, if retained in place, would be the deepest buried, of all the
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96
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
strata, lying as an ever-shrinking shell of granite upon the fiery lava
which forms the liquid pulpy heart of the globe. All the strata, were
they " in place," would be piled one on another above this heated granite
floor. First would come the Azoic or Metamorphic rocks; then the
Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permean, Triassic, Jurassic, Creta-
ceous, Tertiary, Post-Tertiary; and last and uppermost of all, the
Recent formations.
This would place Southern New Jersey geologically where some of
its residents declare it is to be found in every respect, — '' at the top of
the heap;" but, since the central fire of the planet first began to cool,
and islands of red-hot stone floated upon the incandescent ocean, there
has been many a commotion and violent shaking-up of things in this
world, and geologists are not the only people who, in order to learn
the truth, are compelled to follow with painstaking care the clue of fact
through what seems a labyrinth of confusion before they catch a view
of the system of nature, comprehend in part the laws of the universe,
and realize with reverence the glory of the Infinite God !
The geologic strata are first formed, and then upheaved or depressed,
crushed, crumpled, and distorted, disintegrated, mixed, and distributed,
in a thousand ways and positions, by the action of known but incon-
ceivable forces. The shrinkage of the earth's crust crowds up enormous
ridges of granite or other rocks, which in cragged wedges slowly pierce
upwards through the superincumbent mass, or else the crash of earth-
quake explosions produces effects in a few moments othervyise the work
of ages. The variations of condition and character thus introduced in
the geologic elements by the causes described create an appearance of
utter confusion bewildering to the uninformed and heedless. It seems
to the superficial observer that the rocks and earths, the sands and the
soils, are jumbled together without sequence or significance, and such
persons, if induced to consider the subject at all, are inclined to surren-
der the use of their senses and reason, and atone for their imbecility and
unfaithfulness by the acceptance of some superstitious, heathenish, and
wicked pretension of a revealed Cosmogony. Thus they give up the
study, appalled by the difficulties which surround it, content to know
no more scientifically of the wondrous world they mysteriously inhabit
than did the saurian reptiles whose fossil remains enrich the marl beds
and banks of fossil shells. Such a course is blindly impious, and dis-
graceful to human nature.
It is true the Bible asserts that God made the world, but it gives
only the most exceeding vague intimation as to how or when the
Creation announced was effected ; whatever may or may not be re-
vealed in spiritual things, we are left to study geology hammer in hand,
knocking hard at the rocky doors of science. Yet we need not be dis-
couraged nor afraid ; the difficult is not of necessity impossible, and
although geology is an infant science compared to astronomy and
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SCIENCE AND TRUTH.
97
mathematics, and only a child beside even chemistry, yet the clue has
been discovered, the system made plain, and only diligence and cour-
age are required for the conquests of the future. The practical eco-
nomic value of geology is immense, and besides, it must ever be a high
gratification to read in the record of the rocks the history of the evo-
lution and progressive development of our home, the earth.
Tiiere is no danger the facts of Geology can annul, or even obscure,
the truth of religion. Men of science are not always scientific, but
while we trace the process by which that which is has been brought
about, it need not be that we become process mad, and unable to see
in and behind the unfolding the infinite spirit, which movers in the
wheels of existence. Here, are phenomena ; there, is law, process, and
evolution; the spirit is everywhere, all in all. There is no pebble so
small but law constrains it, no material so inert but evolution compels
its progress; the smallest grain of sand has being in an infinite order;
omnipotence overtops the loftiest crag, underlies the deepest primitive
strata, and sustains the central fire. Facts cannot disprove truth ; the
idea of God science can displace from the minds of candid and tho-
rough students is but the myth of morbid imagination, the shadow of
the fetich of barbarian ignorance.
§ New Jersey contains the out-crops of all the geologic formations
except, unfortunately, the carboniferous. In the absence of the coal-
bearing strata there are, however, other rich and rare mines and de-
posits in the State, notably those of zinc ; as well as an abundance of
iron, of lime, of valuable clays, of building materials, and natural fer-
tilizers. The remarkable geologic characteristics which have marked
the region, are the evident recurrent upliftings and subsidences of a
large part of the surface, and the effects of denudation and drift.
The Cretaceous formation of New Jersey, which with the Tertiary
covers the whole southern part of the State, was once the bottom of a
shallow and quiet ocean; it is evident from its stratification that the
surface of the land rose and fell with comparative regularity, so that
the sea would advance at times and cover it, and then the bottom
would be uplifted and the sea recede. Vegetation would start up upon
the marshes and upland, which would after a time by subsidence of
the land be overwhelmed in the waves, and then buried by degrees in
the sea sediment.
In proof of all this, the immense quantities of fossil shells in this
formation are found unbroken, and the bones of reptiles lying together
undisturbed near where they lived and died; this would not be the
case if the sea which covered them had been turbulent and stormy.
That marine shells and sea sediments are found both above and below
various beds or layers of vegetable fossils and the bones of land rep-
tiles shows that alternately the land was submerged, and then for an
age emerged from the waters. Yet all this time the land must have
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98
SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
been subsiding on the whole ; for a regular stratified formation some
eight hundred feet thick was thus aggregated, and the topmost layer
of shells was of course under the tide when it grew. This subsidence
was followed by an elevation of the whole coast to about four hundred
feet above the level of the sea, which was effected bodily; but the up-
lift seems to have been greatest in the northwest, so that the strata
slope or " dip" toward the southeast at present. This upheaval was
before the ** drift period." When it came, the process of denudation
reduced the land to nearly its present level and configuration.
The name of the Cretaceous formation is derived from England, and
is significant of the great amount of chalk which characterizes it. The
constituents of the formation in New Jersey are all earthy, except
where in a few detached spots the material has become cemented by
oxide of iron into a kind of sandstone or conglomerate. The strata
are the upper marl bed, the yellow sand ; the middle marl bed, the
red sand ; the lower marl bed, clay marls, and plastic clay. These
last are of fresh-water origin, and are supposed to have originated from
the decomposition of gneiss rock ; they are the underlying strata when
in place, but in actual situation crop out on the surface on the northern
edge of the formation at Woodbridge, Perth Amboy, South Amboy,
Washington, and Trenton ; they are also used as potters' clay at sev-
eral other places.
The other strata came to the surface one after another as distance
increases towards the south, until at the commencement of the Tertiary
formation the upper marl beds appear while the other strata are mostly
subterranean.
Next to the evidences of denudation and drift presented by the sur-
face of the Cretaceous district, the vast quantities of fossil shells and
bones are remarkable. The shells of the clay beds are of fresh-water
origin (such as the genus Unio^ as fresh-water mussel and others),
and may have grown at the bottom of lakes before the subsidence,
or the fresh water may have been kept from the sea by hills and ridges.
The green sand which abounds in the Cretaceous formation is sup-
posed to have become granulated by forming inside very small shells,
and is of chemical origin, and evidently a deposit from salt water, as
the vast amount of fossil marine shells contained in it demonstrates.
One species of these shells, the Terebatula Htndani, forms a layer
ninety miles long, over a mile wide, and about a yard in thickness in
the middle marl bed. This layer is made up almost entirely of this
species of shell, closely packed together. Immediately beneath the
Terebatula Harlani shell layer is another equally large, made up of
shells of the Pycjiodonta convexa, Many other kinds of shells exist in
great quantities in the Cretaceous formation at various places. Of
these over three hundred varieties have been classified and described,
with no certainty that the work is complete. In some marl beds a
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FIRST USE OF THE MARL.
99
dozen or twenty varieties might be found in comparatively small space,
and then again, as before described, beds of one kind of shells, a mile
wide and several feet thick, are scores of miles in length.
The plastic clays of the Cretaceous formation of New Jersey are
highly valuable to the potter and to the maker of fire-brick ; the com-
mon clays are useful too for ordinary brick-making ; the gneiss of the
Azoic formation, and the red sandstone or " brown stone" of the
Triassic strata, and, very generally, the various colored limestones of
the Paleozoic district of the State, are used in building ; the brown sand-
stone of southern New Jersey serves the same purpose. The Triassic
trap rock and sandstone is used in paving, and its slates for roofing.
Iron and zinc mines are very rich in New Jersey, the iron produced
being of the best; the zinc ore is generally rare elsewhere, yet ten
years ago twenty- five thousand tons of it wx^e dug yearly in Sussex
County. This ore yielded seven thousand tons of ''zinc white," and
five hundred tons of metallic zinc; this was seven-tenths of all the zinc
white manufactured in the United States, and about one-fourth of all
the spelter produced. Yet it is probable the marl beds of the Creta-
ceous formation, used alone as fertilizers, or in combination with its
shell and stone lime, and the muck and peats of the region, are or
might be made worth more than all the quarries and mines within the
Commonwealth.
The green sand marl was first used as a fertilizer, in Monmouth
County, in 1768, when "an Irishman" ditching for Peter Schenck
*' threw out a substance he called ' marl! " It was spread over an acre
and a half of land, where its good effects were visible for many years;
*' but," says the record, " this circumstance attracted no particular
notice until 181 1, when the farm came into the possession of John II.
Smock ;" then notice was taken of the effect of the marl, and the use
of it began in the neighborhood. It had been used somewhat at that
time in other places, but at no place in this country was the use of
marl general before the present century began.
The discovery and use of the marl have raised thousands of acres of
lands from sheer barrenness to remarkable fertility ; worn-out farms,
where a family could not be supported, are now making their culti-
vators rich by their productiveness. Bare sands are made to grow
clover, and then crops of corn, potatoes, and wheat. '* Pine barrens,"
by the use of marl, have been made into fruitful lands, and thus whole
districts have been saved from depopulation, and the inhabitants of
others increased.
Fifty-five years ago the six southern counties of New Jersey were
described by Morse as four- fifths waste and barren land ; this consti-
tuted two-fifths of the entire State: now, large portions of this desert
are under high and profitable culture, and the land in farms in the six
southern counties is worth an average of over fifty dollars an acre.
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100 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
The Irishman who spread the first marl in New Jersey deserved more
honor than many a conquering warrior ; a monument erected to his
memory would be more in keeping than to have him referred to in the
State Geologist's Report merely as "an Irishman!"
In the marl-beds of the Cretaceous formation are abundant and
extraordinary remains of extinct reptiles. They were of the orders
Thecodontia, Sauropterygia, Testudinata, Crocodilia, and Dino-
SAURiA. A fine specimen of the last order is preserved in the Museum
of the Academy of Natural Sciences at Philadelphia, and is classified
as the Hadj'osauriis Foulkii. It was a gigantic reptile, about twenty-
eight feet long. The hind legs were very long, more than double the
length of the fore limbs. The reptile walked on his hind legs as a
man uses his legs, and ate foliage and vegetable food. It was a heavy
unwieldy monster, living on land or in the marshes.
There were carnivorous reptiles also, some of them forty feet long,
some only about twenty-five feet long, with a body as large round as
an ox, and a long neck. These steered themselves by flippers like
those of a whale, and propelled themselves by their tails. Some of
them had flattened tails, and sculled themselves along as a boatman
uses a single oar ; some of them had great conical teeth : they ate fish
probably ; such were the Cimoliasaurus, the Elasmosaurus, the Mosa-
saurus, and the Clidastes ; the last, however, was more serpent-like,
and fifteen feet long.
There have been more than twenty kinds of Tortoises, Turtles, or
Terrapin found. One of them, the Euclastes, was full six feet long, and
very strongly constructed. Others were as large, and some had ex-
ceedingly thick shells, notably the Adocus Petrosus and Adocus Firmus,
The Crocodiles, Alligators, and Gavials were very numerous ; three-
fourths of the bones found are of this order, and the wonder is what
such swarms of them lived on, as they have left no remains of their
feasts to tell the story so far as yet seen. These horrid brutes were
twenty feet long in some cases, but they varied in size, some being
four feet long only.
The DinosaiLria^ of which order is the Hadrosaurus Foulkii, were the
highest order of reptiles, and in some characteristics resembled birds.
Many of them were as large as Mastodons and Elephants. Some of
them squatted; some jumped like the Kangaroo; some, with great
long legs, stalked around flopping their half-useless arms, and over-
looking the levels with bird-like eyes set in a ** bony visage," as if their
face was trying to become a beak !
Such were the monsters of the Cretaceous land, such the shells once
alive, when it was under the sea. These reptiles, and the vegetable
remains in conjunction with them, indicate a torrid climate; but the
bones of Walrus have been found in the neighborhood of Long Branch,
and it is otherwise evident that their long summer was, in the ** drift
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DENUDATION AND DRIFT, loi
period," turned, and perhaps suddenly, too, into an equally long and
appalling winter.
§ The phenomenal effects of Denudation and Drift are not confined to
any geologic formation or geographic locality, but may be observed
throughout many extensive sections, and indicate tha force of several
agents acting at separate times upon diversified materials in diffcTent
directions, and by various modes and in distinct degrees. These agents
are evidently three, — wind, water, and ice, — and the mode of action by
each is unlike. Exposure to the heat of the sun and the effects of cold
and frost disintegrates the rocks and subjects them to the effect of drift-
creating forces. The common variations of climate and season are
efficient in this respect, but special causes in different ages have vastly
intensified the influences of temperature and weather.
The influence of wind and of water is constant; but the vast effects
of the ice-drift are referable to the geologic '* Drift Period." The force
of wind is active not alone in wearing away rocks, by whirling grit and
transporting great quantities of sand, and building dunes and beaches
along low shores, but in some places it wafts the sands of shores and
deserts far over fertile fields and even forest hills, thus sadly increasing
the area of sterility. In the African deserts the awful simoom blights
vegetable growth and suffocates animals and men, then lets fall over
the dead caravan thick layers and hills of sand for their winding-sheet
and grave.
On the Western American plains, and among the mountains of that
region, the winds have cut countless cavities into solid stone; these
cuttings vary from small orifices and hollows to large channels and
openings ; in fact, in some localities the most of the strata has been
worn away, and only small isolated elevations of fantastic form remain
to denote the former level of the surrounding territory. On loose sand
the operation of wind is obvious : the finer earth and dust is lifted and
bodily conveyed to a distance in proportion to the strength of the blast,
while the coarser sand and gravel is rolled, slid, and drifted along the
surface, often up steep inclines and considerable elevations.
As a gale grows in violence, the power of wind increases in the same
degree to an unknown limit : typhoons and cyclones exhibit its force
in Indian seas, the West Indies are often devastated by hurricanes, and
in portions of the United States whirlwinds and tornadoes sometimes
level giant forests in their path, demolish strong buildings, and hurl the
ruins far through the air. A hurricane in the West Indies broke down
a very heavy wall, and rolled stones weighing hundreds of pounds along
the ground !
By forcing a blast of air through a nozzle, and charging it with sand,
made to impinge upon flint glass, artisans abrade, cut, grind, and en-
grave the glass most rapidly. In a similar way, the wind, forcing itself
through rocky canyons, notches, passes, defiles, fissures, and crevices
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102 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
among the mountains, and sweeping over rainless plains, takes up the
gritty debris and sharp sand and, whirling them along, drives them in
an enormo.us rotating sand-blast against the rocks. Gneiss and adamant
could not resist the impact and continued friction.
The effects of, water and ice in the Drift Period have been closely
studied and elaborately stated by the geologists, but it is possible the
effects of winds have not been as fully observed and noted. By some
commentators it is supposed that the destruction of the Assyrians
(II. Kings, 35) was accomplished through the agency of a simoom,
which certainly would be a sufficient natural cause for the death of
even that host. However it may have been in this case, there is evi-
dence throughout the scriptures of the Old and New Testament,*but
not confined to the Bible or any book, of the power of spiritual beings
who, under Providence, use the forces of nature as their instruments to
do the will of Heaven. No marvelous work is belittled or made less
wonderful because we are enabled to discern the agencies and the
method by and through which the Eternal Power is made manifest.
The evidence of the former submergence of vast areas which are now
the elevated portions of continents, and of tremendous floods which
have deluged the surface since it has been uplifted, appears almost
everywhere, and seems to be amply convincing: tradition among
savages, and the poems and mythological records of many races, refer
to such phenomena, ascribing them generally to the action of the'gods.
The Bible account of the deluge, it is thought by some, finds corrobo-
ration in these legends and poetical allegories of antiquity. Certain it
is that water, in showers, floods, and oceans, has been the potent cause
of distribution and change in geologic materials. When porous stones
are exposed to rain and severe frost, they rapidly disorganize : the
water penetrates the pores of the stone and is frozen there, the expan-
sion of water changing to ice bursts the cells of the stone by the exertion
of one of the most potent natural forces, and the rock soon crumbles
from the effect of such weathering.' Some rocks, when submerged or
long subjected to the action of water, become *' rotten stone," the
cementing material in their composition being oxidized or dissolved
away. In turbulent torrents the stones are dashed against each other
and broken, they are ground together and pulverized, and, after tritura-
tion, are borne away to form the sediment of quieter waters. Thus the
winds, the rains, the streams, and the waves co-operate, and through
their action, in time, the rocky mountains are reduced to a bed of sand,
to be drifted about by every flood or borne away before the wind.
The influence of changing weather and seasons is incessant: every
warm day, every wandering wind, every passing shower, is active in
changing the surface of the earth, while geologic indications prove that
not only have icy oceans rolled over what are now the mountain-tops
of temperate climes, but glacier-like formations of ice, during the winter
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THE EFFECT OF THE DRIFT 103
ages, crept down from the pole, submerging the life of the zone beneath
a curtain of frozen death. Gripping immense boulders of flinty rock in
their icy flow, the frigid seas dragged them for hundreds of miles, firm
fixed in the icebergs as a glazier's diamond in steel. Grinding heavily
on the bottom of shallow seas, these enormous tools in the hands of
Nature have scratched and scored the granite mountains, the trap
dikes, and the various ridges, until they have, in some cases, been
utterly worn away under the long-continued and terrific abrasion and
their debris scattered far and wide. From astronomical causes diver-
gences are supposed to occur in the polarities of the earth, producing
excessive and sudden but persistent changes in climate, or, as is known,
comparatively slight deflections of constant winds and currents grad-
ually bring about the same result. In the far north mastodons by
thousands are to be found imbedded in ice, where and as they stood
when the torrid climate congenial to them passed away at once, and
paralyzing frost and overwhelming snow descending upon them estab-
lished most abruptly the conditions of Arctic winter.
§The Drift of New Jersey indicates not only a grand movement of
the agencies of denudation from the northwest, but counter, or rather
divergent, currents of a similar nature, due to local elevations or other
secondary causes; the main line of advance however being toward the
southeast.
The Paleozoic formation to the northwest of the mountains was of
course the first affected by the southward tending drift. The amount
of material displaced is almost incredible. One body of drift in the
Paleozoic district is one hundred miles or more long, from ten to fifty
miles wide, and two to three thousand feet in depth.
The drift action in the Azoic formation has also been immense, and
the evidence of it is to be seen not only among the gneiss-crowned
mountains, but all over the State, as the disintegrated granite appears
everywhere in almost every foot of gravel bed. On the lower margin
or southern border of the Triassic formation a belt of gneiss rock is
exposed ; this was drift from Azoic outcrops in the mountains, and has
^gg^^gated in its present place and concreted into stone, and then again
has been in part abraded, disintegrated, and carried away. The most
common soil of the Azoic formation is drift, deposited among the
gneiss rocks and mountain ranges. There are limestone boulders in
the neighborhood of the gneiss which weigh two thousand tons each,
and which have drifted a mile at least, and perhaps several miles, and
have been lifted one or two hundred feet. On Sparta mountain, twelve
hundred feet above the sea, are found boulders which weigh a hundred
^tons, which have been carried there from an unknown distance. Boul-
ders of ore have been carried into distant deposits far from the original
strata, and have misled those who found them into the idea that they
were indications of mines in the place where they were discovered.
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104 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
It is in the Triassic formation, however, that the greatest signs of
drift action appear; there the red sandstone has in many places been
worn away from two to five hundred feet. The Newark marshes have
been dug out by drift action, and the excavation was carried below the
level of the sea, resulting in bays now but partly filled by mud, grass,
roots, etc., etc. Boulders of various kinds appear in this formation.
There is a boulder of five hundred tons' weight on the northwest slope
of I^rst Mountain, near the Newark and Mount Pleasant turnpike,
which has been carried by the drift current full thirteen miles. There
is another boulder near Woodbridge, more than twenty miles from its
parent strata, which must weigh two hundred and fifty tons. There
are trap and sandstone boulders everywhere in the Triassic formation,
and considerable deposits of Hmestone in loose masses. Paleozoic fos-
sils are also found scattered with the drift into Triassic beds.
The Cretaceous formation has been worn away and changed by denu-
dation nearly as much as the Triassic strata; Naversink Mighlands,
and the Mount Pleasant Hills of Monmouth County, have perfect sea-
shore pebbles upon their summits ; yet they are about four hundred feet
high, their valleys being one hundred feet above the sea-level. In the
Cretaceous beds and layers, the forces of the drift encountered only
friable materials, as the stratification was comparatively recent, and the
elevation referred to in a former page still later; hence, when these
forces became active among the shell layers and the loose sands which
had been imported from other formations and not concreted, the uni-
form surface of the uplifted land was worn into valleys, or washed away
entirely for large areas, to the depth of three or four hundred feet.
Thus were created the broad low plains now visible in South Jersey,
and the low hills with their shallow valleys between them, which there
mark the Cretaceous area. The sides of these hills, and the bottoms of
the valleys, afford excellent opportunities for geologic observation.
The sand, loam, and general mass of material dislodged, was carried
away toward the south. The drift action continued a long time, and
thus were the abraded constituents of all the strata to the north mixed
with the materials of the Cretaceous sediment, swept out to sea and
deposited there, creating the Tertiary formation.
That extensive areas should rise and fall, and even ** the sit-fast and
immovable hills" appear and disappear, grow and waste away, seems
incredible to the untaught, and is wonderful to all ; and yet in geologic
ages continents emerge from the sea and then sink again beneath the
ocean ; Himalayas, Alps, Andes, and Sierras swell aloft by the action
of geologic forces, and then subside into the subterranean, or are sculp-
tured into picturesque forms and worn away by denudation.
Geology gives time ; and in time, the sun, the rain, the wind, and the
frost, as has been demonstrated, will humble the head of the highest
mountain that lifts its granite top above the clouds ! Then again by
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THE EARLIEST LIFE ON EARTH 105
sudden or by gradual sbiftings of the balance and polarities of the earth,
tremendous and sometimes abrupt changes of climate have been in-
duced, and vast floods and moving fields of ice have been the conse-
quence. These awful forces, in tivie^ work out the grandest results and
most radical changes.
The whole solid crust of the earth, moreover, is no thicker in corh-
parison to its liquid, fiery mass than the shell of an egg to its contents ;
therefore any changes of the surface are not unnatural, or, in view of the
facts, a matter of amazement. The perpetual miracle and admirable
wonder is that, with such forces always in action in some form, the uni-
versal equipoise is maintained, and the conditions of human life and
happiness evolved, with Infinite wisdom, from the perturbations of
nature 1
§ Formerly, the names of Primitive, Transition, Secondary, and
Tertiary, were applied to various kinds of rocks, in geological classifi-
cation ; modern usage substitutes the technical terms of Azoic, Paleo-
zoic, Mesozoic, and Cenozoic, to define periods marked by peculiar
stratifications and fossils. The rocks themselves are now called Meta-
morphic, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian, Triassic, Jurassic,
Cretaceous, and Tertiary; the last significator being retained and
adopted from the old terminology; besides, the phrase Post Tertiary is
used, meaning since the Tertiary.
The rocks are named with regard to their constituents and character,
or derive their titles from geographic localities where they especially
abound, or where they were first scientifically observed. The Azoic
rocks are supposed to have been formed before vegetable or animal life
existed on this planet, and until the last few years it was supposed that
no form of life was known below the lower Silurian rocks, that is to
say, in Azoic time, before the Paleozoic period. American geologists
are disposed to admit that the recently investigated "eozoon" found
below the Silurian is the fossil of an animal form ; if they are right,
the history of life on earth must be antedated, and carried back very
far in time, and an Eozoonic age be recognized between the Azoic
and Silurian.
The Paleozoic period was the age of Mollusks or shell-fish, and their
fossil remains abound in the limestones of the Silurian division. The
Devonian sandstones and shales contain shells and the fossil remains
of vertebrate fishes. The Carboniferous division of the Paleozoic time
has no place in the geology of New Jersey, it is exceedingly developed
in Pennsylvanian coal measures; in its time land plants flourished
beyond comparison; these fossil plants are coal at present. In the
Triassic, the Jurassic, and Cretaceous divisions of the Me$ozoic time
there was an enormous development of Reptilian life, and the bones of
monster reptiles are plentifully found as fossils in the rocks of those
layers. The Mammals, which are warm-blooded quadrupeds, appear
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I06 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
as fossils first in the Tertiary rocks and strata, and the human period,
the time in which man has inhabited the earth, is included in the Post
Tertiary.
The divisions of the Tertiary formation are the Eocene, the Miocene,
the Pliocene, and the Post Pliocene, including the recent ; in New Jersey
it constitutes the formation of the territory south of the Cretaceous
strata, being bounded on the north by an irregular line from Shark
River to Alloway's Creek. The Recent formation lies along the sea-
shore and the banks of various streams, and generally includes all lands
less than twelve feet above the level of the tide.
None of the boundaries of the Tertiary fields are sharply defined
like those of the rocky strata; the drift and wash has intermixed the
materials of the formation, merging the outlines of the various beds
and layers. Though the earthy nature of the Tertiary formation sub-
jects its surface to change from storms and streams, by which the beds
are mixed together or discolored, yet the mineral substances therein
are undisturbed in their original places of deposit and not petrified,
while even the lowest Tertiary strata contain fossils of existing species,
proving the modern origin of the whole. The upper marl bed is in
the Eocene division of the Tertiary formation, and is the lowest layer
of its stratification.
In a well bored at Winslow, Camden County, New Jersey, there was
found:
First 5 feet of surface earth.
Then — 15 feet blue and black clay.
95 ** glass sand.
35 *-' miocene clay.
107 ** micaceous sand.
43 " brown clay.
A gum log one foot thick. ( !)
20 feet green sand, marl, white shells, teeth, etc.
15 " pure green sand.
At which point water rose from the bottom of the green sand. This
gives a good general idea of the structure of the Tertiary formation in
New Jersey.
Loamy clay, white quartz pebbles, silicified fossils, feldspathic rock,
etc., intermixed with sand, the materials of the drift, overlie the other
beds unless the surface has been washed away. This drift varies much
in constituency from pure clay to clean sand ; it is generally reddish
yellow from oxide of iron, often fertile and retentive as a soil, and
makes good roads, packing into a solid, smooth, durable bed, even
when spread over loose sand. The excellence of the road-bed of the
avenues of Sea Grove is due to the liberal use of this material upon
them.
The glass sand underlies the drift gravel to the depth of ninety-five
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FORMATION OF THE STRAND, 107
feet, and Is pure white quartzose sand, except when it conies to the surface
or at the bottom of the bed in places, then it is sometimes discolored.
Its use in glass-making is very common and important, and this sec-
tion, from which much glass sand is now shipped, contains enough of
this valuable material to supply the world for a thousand ages ! The
sandy plains of South Jersey are the exposures of this bed of sand
where the drift gravel has been washed away.
The Miocene clays and marls of South Jersey, so largely and suc-
cessfully dug as fertilizers, contain numerous fossils, and are a source
of wealth as well as a matter of geologic interest. The Micaceous
sand, one hundred and sevenWBi^ feet deep, found in the well at Win-
slow, does not crop out at the surface anywhere, and is in place below
the sea level. The same is true of the brown clay found as described.
Thus the layers of the Tertiary were formed, being deposited as
drift from the more ancient strata. Mixed with the Tertiary layers, or
distributed through them, may be found constituents of all the older
formations in the State; thus thrown together, they have, by chemical
action and reaction upon one another, entered into new combinations
and produced new substances ; these in turn, with all the rest, sub-
jected for thousands of years to the play of elementary forces, have
been variously manipulated and chemicalized continually, while all the
time impelled by the floods and streams toward the sea, along whose
shallow margin they have been deposited, forming in " Recent" ages
still another new shore to the ceaseless waves.
§ As the Tertiary formation is marked by drift and earthy deposit,
so alluvium characterizes its Recent division. In the Tertiary we find
clay, sand, gravel, loose pebbles, and some boulders, most of which are
from distant strata; the beds of the Recent are made up of finer
sands and clays, loams, mud, peat, etc., derived from adjacent deposits
or the remains of vegetable production. The fossils of the Recent are
all identical with existing species ; among them human remains and
relics are frequent. The Recent formation in New Jersey borders the
Atlantic from Sandy Hook to Cape May, and forms the shore of Del-
aware Bay up to Salem, also the banks of some of the rivers and
creeks. The sand beaches, the marshes, the cedar swamps, and an in-
definite amount of upland border in the State are recognized as being
included in this formation, and are in process of formation and change.
The general surface soil of the upland border is a fine sandy loam with
but little gravel, and contains organic matter enough to render it pro-
ductive and fertile ground. An example of such border land is to be
seen adjoining Sea Grove, and forms the Stites farm. The farm has
been for some time occupied by the Hon. Downes Edmunds, and has
been worked in places constantly and successfully for a hundred or
more years without any manure or dressing whatever, and yet has not
been at all impoverished. The land thus cultivated is so full of shells
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I08 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
in spots as to make ploughing difficult; the sub-soil is a deep, black,
sandy mould.
The tide marshes of the Recent formation of New Jersey are a re-
markable feature; there are about three hundred thousand acres of
such marshes \\\ the State, and Cape May County alone, with a total
area of one hundred and seventy thousand one hundred and seventy-
one acres, has fifty-eight thousand eight hundred and twenty-four acres
of tide marsh, including ten thousand four hundred and forty-three
acres of sounds, bays, inlets, etc. The marshes are but little above
ordinary tide level, and covered with grass, reeds, and coarse sedge,
but treeless. Beneath the surface of the marsh there is from a yard
to forty feet of mud or soft earth, with an average depth of twenty feet.
The marsh is deepest back from the beach and from the banks of
streams, water-courses, etc. The body of the marsh is merely a bed
of fibrous roots; near the beach, sand is intermixed with the roots, and
along the streams and water-courses mud has been deposited, and is
retained among them.
The marshes enlarge by encroachment in places upon the wooded
upland, and by growing into the sounds and waters they enclose; at
the same time the sea and bay have during the last century cut away
many acres of the marshes, which have become exposed to the waves
by the demolition and shifting of the sand dunes and beaches. The
surface of the marsh, when enclosed by beaches, or by the clayey banks
of streams, sinks slowly, by the decay and compression of the fibrous
mass of which it is mostly composed. The wash of streams and the
drift of the sea sand landward tends to solidify the marsh, as vege-
table growth and deposit elevates the surface; however, shutting the
water off from a true marsh causes it to sink, as it is really afloat,
in and through the water, and it is so unsubstantial that many cubic feet
of it when burned make but a very small quantity of ashes ; the marsh
is, in fact, a sound or cove choked full of fibrous roots and vegetable
deposit. Many hundreds of acres of that which was cedar swamp is
now salt or tide marsh ; the trees having been killed by the encroach-
ment of the sea water, have fallen, and are now buried, but undecayed,
in the deep mud, the sijrface growth flourishing evenly above them.
§ In treating of the Cretaceous formation, on a former page, it was
stated that alternate elevations and depressions of the shore line had
taken place, until finally, before the drift period, the surface of the
whole formation was lifted several hundred feet above the sea, from
which it has been degraded by denudation and drift down to its
present level and configuration. It can be readily and definitely shown
that similar but less extensive fluctuations have taken place in the
Tertiary and Recent formations and are now operative along the present
shores. How far inland the action may reach, or in what degree affect
the interior, is more difficult to decide.
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ALTITUDE OF CAPE MAY COUNTY. 109
In various elevated positions in the Recent formation marine shells
of the common species, or casts of them, are to be seen in their natural
attitude; on the banks of Maurice River, at Tuckahoe, and elsewhere
along shore, they lie from eight to twelve feet above high-water mark,
and indicate an elevation before the depression now going on; and as
the amount of subsidence at present is about seventeen feet on an
average, as estimated by measurement from tide level to the lowest
points where buried and submerged trees are found in the places in
which they grew, the former elevation must have raised the surface
from twenty-five to thirty feet.
The highest land of Cape May County is but about forty feet above
the level of the sea, and that only at a few points of very limited extent,
the average elevation being but eleven feet; so that when the shells
now from eight to twelve feet above tide mark were at the level in
which they grew, the greater part of Cape May County must have
been submerged.^ The last elevation carried the shore line at least
seventeen feet aboVe where it now is.
The operations of the Sea Grove Association in clearing and grading
the remarkable sea-side resort they have so well begun, have obliterated
some of the most interesting and characteristic traces of geologic action
to be found in the State. Between the gateway of Sea Grove and the
bay, and lying along the shore, were formerly a number of well-
defined parallel ridges of drift sand. These were the evidence of a
former uprising of the shore, and of the consequent receding of the
water of the sea, wdiich must have washed the gravel bank or fast
land ; the ridges were created, one behind another, by the wind, which,
blowing across the ancient strand, would raise the innermost ridge
first, and then, as the shore widened toward the sea, another between
it and the water, and so on.
The beach ridges, having been formed long since, were covered with
a heavy growth of black oak timber, which has been in part removed
by the Sea Grove improvements ; the parallel ridges have ceased to
advance seaward, but Mr. Alexander VVhilldin, a close observer, affirms
that at present Cape May Point is growing out into Delaware Bay, by
the deposition of sand upon it from the ocean front, and by the action
of the wind piling up dunes or sand-hillocks.
Almost entirely along the shore of New Jersey, the main or "fast
land" is separated from the sea by salt marshes of three miles or
less in width; outside of these, next the sea, occurs a row of long,
narrow, somewhat elevated, and more or less wooded islands, or
'' beaches." These are the Old beaches ; they are more ancient than
the marsh, and are supposed to have been formed during a former
period of depression. The waves beating upon a friable shore of earth
and sand, such as then existed, would wear a channel next the shore,
and pile up a shoal outside the surf; a series of such shoals would
8
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no SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND.
thus be formed parallel to one another, and when the next elevation
occurred they would appear above water, and form the basis of the
present beaches. Shrubs and trees would soon grow upon these
ridges, saving them from drifting away, and causing them to retain
all the sand the wind blew from the strand upon them. The lower
grounds between the ridges would finally rise above water, and pres-
ently become covered with vegetation, until a subsequent depression
again carried them below tide level, when they would become salt
marshes, filling with mud by the action of the tides, and keeping their
surface at high-water mark, by the growth of peat, just as one hun-
dred and seventy-eight thousand two hundred and forty-wo acres
of such formation, lying all the way from Long Branch southward
along the shore to Cape May, are now doing.
Fresh marshes form in the broad shallow valleys of the slow-
moving rivers and creeks of South Jersey ; as at Tuckahoe, and on
Great Egg Harbor Rivers. The salt marshes on Delaware Bay shore
have been formed as fresh marshes in the valleys of the streams which
flow through them to the bay, and are supposed to have had beaches
between them and the bay, which have gradually been washed away ;
in the same way a large portion of the marsh itself has gone.
§ The landward beaches which join the marsh are developed in long,
parallel lines, and, where the timber has not been removed, are covered
with a very old growth of it; the open spaces in the depressions
between the beaches are called savannas ; in wet seasons they are
saturated or more or less covered and filled with fresh water; they
are then called slashes, and are the haunts of numerous water-fowl
and game-birds, which makes them favorite resorts of discriminating
sportsmen.
The Old beach ridges are not over a rod in width, and not more
than ^v^ or six feet high; yet they, with the savannas beside them,
may be a mile or two long. The Old beaches contain a small portion
of clay with their sand, which partly saves them from drifting with
the wind, and promotes the growth of the timber. The Old beach
varies in height, increasing in elevation toward the sea ; part of the
low landward ridges have become submerged, and yet can be traced
m places by the lines of dead trees standing in the marsh.
At Sea Grove the marsh disappears from the Delaware Bay front,
and the Old beach has formed back directly over the marsh or against
and upon the upland. Lily Pond, or Lake Lily as it is now called,
occupies the place of what might be a marsh, and yet is a fresh-water
pond, from which water was formerly taken for shipping.
The water of Lake Lily had connection with the sea by a water-course
which ran from the shoreward end of the lake, between the strand and
the lighthouse, and along the foot of the upland, to the west of Cape
Island, and so into Skillinger's Creek and under the bridge to Cape Island
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DESCRIPTION OF LAKE LILY, j j j
Sound, and out by Cold Spring Inlet to the Atlantic. Now the sand
drift has filled and covered the water-course near the lighthouse, and
the Sea Grove Association have obliterated the natural features of the
lake. In their zeal for improvement they have detracted very much
from the scientific interest and value of the original pond, which is less
to be regretted however, as there are enough indications all around of
the same purport, and the engineers, by grading the shore of the pond
to a fine drive, putting up ornate boat-houses, etc., have succeeded in
makmg a very pretty miniature lake of what was a somewhat unsio-htly
even if pure and interesting sheet of fresh water. ""
Since its improvement as above stated. Lake Lily has become one
of the attractions of attractive Sea Grove, and is a great addition to the
pleasure of visitors. When the water-course referred to was open, it
was not very uncommon for the sea, in storms, to throw its waters across
the beach into it, making the waters of the lake brackish; but now the
natural and artificial filling in of the southern end of the water-course
and the lake prevents such an occurrence, so the lake has been care-
fully cleaned out, and stocked with valuable fish. The waters of Lake
Lily are solely from the rainfall ; they percolate slowly down and out
from the bed of the lake, displacing the salt water which infiltrates the
sand, yet not mixing much with it. Similar effects are produced
among all the beaches. The different gravity of salt and fresh water has
an influence upon the phenomena ; the fresh water being lightest, remains
at the surface, and can be obtained by digging a few inches beneath the
sand, anywhere between the beach ridges. Lake Lily is the only simi-
lar body of water on the Cape below Cold Spring.
§ The Recent formation of New Jersey, especially in the southern
part of the State, is noted for extensive swamps and marshes. Those
of the interior are heavily wooded, but none of them are much above
tide level; the more elevated and solid are ''timber swamps," and not
only furnish good and desirable lumber, but might in many cases be
improved by clearing and culture, and thus make valuable farms. It
seems remarkable more has not been done for the agricultural develop-
ment of the interior of South Jersey, but the original settlers looked
to the sea for their highway, and to a great degree for their harvest too;
for which reason they made their homes along the upland of the shore!
Of late, through the enterprise of several parties, notably that of
Charles K. Landis, of Vineland, the interior of the State has been
better appreciated, and, being extensively and judiciously advertised,
has attracted many intelligent and industrious settlers, who have suc-
cessfully planted many fine vineyards, orchards, and farms.
The cedar swamps, which are extensive on the banks of the rivers
and around their sources, are overflowed, not stable land like the timber
swamps ; the White Cedar (the CupressMs thuyoides of the botanical
nomenclaturej, which holds exclusive possession of them, flourishes
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112 SCHEYICHBI AND THE STRAND,
only in submerged or saturated soils. In many places in South Jersey
it grows in a peaty stratum, where there is neither clay, gravel, loam
or mud, but only a compact mass of fibrous roots, and the debris of its
own fallen growth. In such localities, as well as where more substan-
tial components partly form a true soil, the white cedar grows densely,
and in its young growth rapidly; afterwards it becomes crowded, and
grows tall, but increases more slowly in diameter.
The vegetable remains which fall from the swamp trees into the
wet mass are shaded from the sun by the evergreen foliage, and thus
kept cool and saved from rapid decomposition. Settling gradually
down, they become submerged and then buried, from which time their
decay is almost imperceptible. In this way the surface of the swamp
is gradually elevated; a layer of more than a foot thick has thus been
formed in sixty years.
The original growth of cedars were sometimes seven feet or more in
diameter, and immensely high ; the average size of the full-grown trees,
however, was but about two feet and six inches. There are none of these
great trees left, and as the whole area of Cedar Swamp is cut over
every second generation, or every sixty years, a living cedar tree a
hundred years old is now a rare specimen ; still, the natural term of
the tree is a lifetime of successive centuries. Various parties have
counted the annual rings in the logs and stumps of cedars, and various
witnesses affirm the existence of from five hundred to over a thousand
of them in a single specimen. Sir Charles Lyell, F.R.S., quoting a
newspaper article of Dr. Beesley, of Dennisville, says (Second Visit to
United States, vol. i. page 34) that " Dr. Beesley, of Dennis Creek
counted 1080 rings of annual growth, between the centre and outside
of a large stump six feet in diameter ;" this grew atop of a previously
fallen tree, which was half as old ; thus fifteen centuries were registered
in a couple of logs on the surface of a swamp, which has been sounded
in places from eight to ten or even eleven or more feet deep, and isfull
of fallen logs to the very bottom.
The white cedar, though a very tall, slim tree, sends no roots down
into the firm soil underneath the swamp, but spreads them laterally in
the shallow, soft, black, peaty, wet earth which is its congenial place
of growth. The timber standing in a natural ancient cedar swamp is
but a fraction of the quantity which has fallen and become subterranean.
The living timber thus buried is apparently indestructible, and has
been mined from its place of deposit buoyant and sound, and used for
the best quality of lumber, many hundreds and perhaps thousands of
years after it had grown. This mining of timber has been carried on
as a regular business in the swamps about Dennisville; between nine
and ten thousand dollars' worth of shingles, at fifteen dollars a thousand,
have been manufactured in a year from logs thus exhumed. The pro-
duction of shingles did not consume all the timber taken, as a part of
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CEDAR MINES A T CAPE MA V.
113
it was large, fine logs, more valuable for boards, into which it was sawn.
More than forty thousand dollars' worth of cedar rails and lumber are
produced by these cedar swamps every year, and an acre of good
swamp, fifty years in growth, is worth from five hundred to a thousand
dollars. The cedars are mined not alone in the growing swamps, but
in meadows where only stumps and dead roots break the surface, and
in places where a smooth turf entirely hides all traces of w^ood from
surface observation, as well in a part of the tide marshes, which were
once cedar swamps, but where the growth of timber has been stopped
by the encroachments of salt water in consequence of the subsidence
of the swamps along the shore. Of course many of the buried trees
are unfit for use. Those which grew when the swamp was shallow and
the roots of the trees touched the gravel bottom, are so ^/larfy as to be
unfit for splitting. Some of the trees fell only from extreme age,
deadness, and partial decay: these are worthless; some were prostrated
and grew long after they fell : these are hard and boxy on one side,
hence undesirable. The trees wanted by the miners are those not of
the bottom layer, which were broken doivn by the wind or otherwise,
and buried at the perfection of their growth.
The first tool of the miner is an iron sounding-rod; with this he
probes the mud of the swamp, finding often that the logs lie so thickly
across one another beneath the surface that it is only after repeated
efforts that he can pass his rod among them. The miner judges of the
value of the log he comes in contact with after examination with his
probe, by signs known to an expert only; he feels out the size, shape,
and position of it, and judges of the work required to secure it; he cuts
down to the log through the peat with a sharp spade, and manages to
get a chip from it; by smelling of this chip he can tell whether he is
dealing with a windfall or a breakdown, the latter being most likely to
be sound lumber. Removing the peat, mud, roots, and rubbish-timber
as far as necessary, the miner then saws off the log at the ends, his
saw working without injury, the soil being free from grit. The log
may be thirty feet long, but is generally shorter. Having sawn the
log off, the miner uses levers to loosen it from its place and to throw
off superincumbent timber; this being done, the log floats upward
with perfect buoyance ; the under side being most buoyant, the log, as
it floats free, always turns over. The logs for shingles are sawn into
bolts or blocks, and rived and shaved into shingles on the ground.
The ground is gone over again and again with success by the miners,
as the logs, once disturbed, continually work toward the surface.
An inch of vegetable matter is deposited by the fall of foliage, twigs,
etc., upon the surface of a cedar swamp in about five years, but as this
fresh layer is itself buried it partly decays and diminishes in bulk pro-
gressively very much by compression and other causes, so that no clue
can be had from it as to the age of these remarkable swamps. Such a
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