Island. He mentions hearing, from day to day, for near two months after this, the heavy cannonading continued on that fortress-(80 gallantly and long defended). It sensibly shook the ground, he says, at Germantown!

October 4th. He returned to Germantown this morning from the city, and finds that a hot engagement had occurred between the two armies at Germantown. His poor wife was alone, up two pair of stairs, when a cannon ball passed through a window very near her.

October 6th. Great numbers came out from the city to satisfy their curiosity respecting the battle of yesterday. After the battle, the Hessian camp is placed just by him, and makes him much dislike their presence.

October 7th. Several were executed for desertion and others were flogged for offences. An aid of General Knyphausen, (one Copenhouse,) robbed him of a Map of Pennsylvania, and otherwise behaved unlike a gentleman. In the evening, a great number of the Highlanders were encamped up town,-and the following morning were again moved off.

October 10th. He notices the army to be in great motion this morning; and it is the opinion of some, that Washington is approaching-others say, (so uncertain is the news!) that he has crossed the Delaware.

October 11th. He notices the first white frost. Before day light the soldiers went off to try to surprise the Americans, and by eight o'clock, A. M., returned without falling in with any of them.

October 17th. Orders came for all horses in Germantown and the environs to be sent to Philadelphia by eight o'clock, with their harnesses. About five hundred were so sent and appraised, but only tories received their pay! His horse was exempted by the kindness of Sir William Erskine. At this time, his house being marked for the quarters of General Sterne, it is occupied below stairs by his aids; and next day, there came a great suite of his officers, and fixed their sentinels around the house-filling the stables with their horses ;but in an hour, much to his joy and comfort, came an order for their return, and to say, he would not come.

October 18th. Three regiments marched as high as Barren hill in quest of rebels, as they said. In the evening he heard thirteen cannons and volleys of small arms,-which proved afterwards to be a feu-de-joie from the Americans, for the capture of Burgoyne's army.

October 19th. The army is in motion at day light, to march from here and not to return. By ten o'clock, they were all gone for the city. In about an hour, the American light horse appeared, and soon had some skirmishing down the road. They took three or four prisoners and some wagons.

October 20th. A part of General Wayne's division marched down through Germantown, and returned in the evening. He speaks of several American officers as being entertained at his house as friends:

such as General Reed, Colonel Bradford, &c., and then, as returning to their camp in the afternoon.

October 23d. A part of General Washington's army began to march by ten o'clock at night through Germantown, and continued till day-break. They formed on the heights near the city and drove in the pickets. The enemy not venturing out, the troops withdrew, as they did not wish to attack the city. They hear the cannonading at the fort, and two violent shocks of explosion, shaking the earth, which afterwards proved to be the Augusta man-of-war blown up, &c.

November 10th. Several parties from our camp pass through town to forage. Several deserters from day to day from the city confirm the scarcity of bread, &c., there. The cannonade at the fort is still very heavy, and still shaking the very earth.

November 11th. A hard frost, and next day seems to begin the first of the winter-snow having fallen all the preceding night.

November 15. The weather clear and cold. They can see from a house in Germantown, by the aid of a spy glass, two men-of-war, closely bombarding the poor little fort, which has held out nobly since the 2d October, and only yielded at the end of seven weeks.

November 17th. Several women of the British camp were caught last night plundering the gardens, and were carried to head-quarters, to look and feel very awkwardly.

November 20th. Several women came from the city to look up a little provision for their families. Desolation and famine seem to threaten us.

November 22d. In the afternoon the British burnt the house of John Dickinson, Esq., (the same now known as J. P. Norris' house,) also the tavern of the whig lady, Mrs. Nice, at the Rising Sun, and several others in that neighbourhood, on the Germantown road. They also burnt the house of Jonathan Mifflin; Peale Hall, Francis' place, &c. This to their great shame!

November 25th and 26th. There was much alarm in Germantown, from reports that it was the purpose of the enemy to burn this place. It was even said, that the party for this purpose was resting at the Rising Sun. In consequence of this fear, he conveyed away a trunk of valuables as far as Chestnut hill.

November 27th. There appeared a great and surprising northern light-as red as blood.

December 4th. The enemy were much in motion-had pressed yesterday numerous horses, wagons, &c.

December 5th. The whole of the enemy's force, last night and this morning, passed through Germantown on their way to surprise General Washington at Whitemarsh. They did much damage as they went-wantonly burning and destroying houses and property in the night time. At ten o'clock, A. M., was heard a heavy firing begun on Chestnut hill, and lasting for two or three hours. They returned on the 8th instant.

December 6th. The enemy and our light horse place us in much danger, as they patrol our streets alternately.

December 10th. He finds many of the inhabitants of the town deploring their losses. Several had sent their goods for safety to Chestnut hill-where the enemy took some and burnt the rest. He, however, found that his trunk, which had been left at Mr. Bush's house, had escaped the pillage, although the house itself had lost much, while occupied as the temporary quarters of General Howe and his attendants. [This house was, since, Lentz's house, at the fork of the road.] When they returned, the night of the 7th, down the Old York road, they spared neither friends nor foes, but burnt and robbed all along the road. They carried with them about forty loads of wounded. Mrs. Bush was so frightened by the violence of some towards her son, Dr. Bush, then a wounded officer in bed, in threatening to stab him, &c., that she miscarried with her twentieth child, and was interred at Philadelphia, on the 21st December.

December 20th. The navigation at Philadelphia was stopped for ten or twelve days by the ice.

In January, 1778, the weather being severely cold, the British army goes into winter quarters-often sending out foraging parties to rob the country around, and on market days to protect the country people bringing them produce.

The 19th of May, a large detachment of British marched up the Old York road; and next day a second party came through Germantown, and had a skirmish. They returned about five o'clock, P. M. in some haste, with several wagons of dead and wounded. The Indians killed seven British horsemen on the banks of the Schuylkill.. May 28th. A large detachment of the enemy came up and re turned, without permission to do any harm.

June 3d. The British army came up and went through the town. by break of day, and returned by nine o'clock, A. M. They rob gardens and steal fowls, as they pass along.

June 6th. They came up again in force and returned by nine o'clock, A. M.-having with them a few wounded in a skirmish.

June 10th. The enemy came up again by different routes, and joined forces at Allen's lane, (now Mount Airy,) and returned before nine o'clock in the morning-effecting nothing but the plundering of gardens, &c.

The English commissioners came up strongly guarded as far as Chew's house, and returned just after the above force.

June 13th. The army marched up for the last time, and got as far as Mount Airy. They returned in two hours.

June 16th and 17th. They are embarking and making all preparations for a departure from Philadelphia; and on the 18th, the Americans again took possession of the city. Laus Deo!

The foregoing, it will be observed, speaks more of the preda tory aggressions of the enemy, than was generally complained of, by others. We give the facts as they have been told us.

Such are the leading facts of the ancient town of Germantown— first, of its antiquities, as old as Philadelphia itself; and next of its stirring incidents as a captured country, and a battle field. We conclude with a single additional recital and confirmation, to wit:

Mrs. Hall, of Philadelphia, gave a short notice of the retreat of her family to Jersey-which, like many others, was by market wagons, carts, and other rough vehicles. She went away with others in a wood flat, fully crowded, sitting in smoky cabins, or wrapped in blankets and laying on the decks. Many were thankful to get into barns and out-houses in the country on their first arrival. Those who met abroad felt an instinctive brotherhood, and all did what they could to help and accommodate each other. Some went down to Delaware and along the Chesapeake, and were again driven from their asylums in the following summer, by new alarms. When they afterwards met at their desolate homes, marvellous and amusing were the adventures recounted at the firesides. “ Sir, (said a gen tleman, whose name was eminent among the patriots,) these stories will be told by our children when we are dead and gone!" And so they shall,-Ecce res facta!

Frankford.

There has been an opinion prevalent about Frankford village, that it derives its name from Frank, a black fellow, and his ford, where he kept a ferry for passengers on foot; but, besides its looking too artificial to be true, there are obvious reasons against that cause of its name. It is called Frankford creek in Holmes' map, in 1682. I see it, as early as 1701, referred to in a public petition concerning a road under the name of Frankford: besides, it lies on the creek, the Indian Wingohocking, which comes from the "Frankford Company's land" in Germantown. It was their proper water passage to

the river.

Jonathan Dickinson, in 1715, writing respecting Fairman's land at "Frankford creek," says, "a ford there will be very needful, and very expensive, as the winds drive the waters from the Delaware over much marshy land." For two hundred and twenty acres he offers £400. It falls short in the survey thirty-seven acres, thus showing how vaguely it was first done. He says it cannot be surveyed on the marsh [now all converted into productive meadows, &c.] till the winter is so as to go over it on the ice. dred loads of timber were cut off it, because untenanted in the last winter, by moonlight night. Thus there were great depredators then! They probably cut it for staves and ship timber.

He states that one hun

In the year 1814, Christopher Kuhn, at Frankford, in digging a cellar foundation for a small store house, on Kinsey and Hilles' present tanyard, came to a pot of old coin, hid perhaps by pirates.

• Thomas Fairman had been a surveyor, who dwelt at the Treaty tree.

This tanyard, on the Frankford creek, was close to the bank where it is high; and at three feet depth, he came to an earthern vessel highly glazed, which held about half a pint, and contained one hundred pieces of various sizes and shapes of silver coin. None of it was left to be shown to me; the whole having been sold soon after to the silversmiths as old silver! On questioning him as to their character, he stated that there were many cut pieces of the size which would remain in cutting quarters and halves of dollars into sections of four pieces each. He observed dates to some as much as three hundred years old. One piece was as large as a crown, and was square. Two pieces had a tree on one side, and were marked Massachusetts; such a coin I have myself, of the year 1652. On the whole the vessel contained quite a treasure for a collector, and yet none were saved.

The aged Giles Gillingham, who died at Frankford in 1825, at the age of 93 years, said that when he was a boy, it was quite common with him to play with Indian boys in the neighbourhood. Frankford then had but very few houses, and was often called Oxford, after the name of its township. About the time of Braddock's defeat,' there came an Indian from a distance, blowing a horn as he entered the Indians' place; they soon went off with him, and were no more seen near the place.

The Frankford mill, now possessed by Mr. Duffield, was originally used as a mill by the Swedes before Penn landed. The earliest house in the place, now T. W. Duffield's, near the same mill, was deeded to Yeamans Gillingham, by Penn's commissioners, in 1696. The "Swedes' mill" was probably a saw mill, as wind mills were first used for grist.

It appears, by the minutes of council, that the inhabitants of Frankford petition, in 1726, that the road may be altered so as to ⚫ have but one bridge in use, instead of the two then existing.

Some very old tombstones are still in existence near Crescentville, in Bristol township, on the country seat of James N. Dickson, which have been intended to designate the remains of a mother and her two sons, of the name of Price, of Welsh origin, who died there in 1702. They were members of the community of Seventh-day Baptists, the same which afterwards took the name of Keithian Baptists, from their union in sentiment with George Keith, who had been a Friend. They owed their origin to Abel Noble, who arrived in 1684, and formed a society of Baptists in Upper Providence, Chester county, where he baptized Thomas Martin, a public Friend, and others. This last, as a public minister, baptized Rees Price, in 1697.

In the year 1702, Rees and John Price, and others, built a meeting house in Oxford township, on a lot given to them by Thomas Graves; but neglecting to get their deed in due time, it came to pass that the Episcopalians got both the lot and house, the same premises on which now stands the Oxford Episcopal church. The tomb stones referred to are thus inscribed, to wit: