primitive and "simple annals" of that beginning era of settlement and civilization, to wit: The Records of the Courts of Record held in the Corporation of Germantown, from the 6th day of 8th month, anno 1691, [the year of their getting their charter from William Penn,] and thenceforward from time to time;-thus transcribed by order of a general court held at the said Germantown, the 26th day of 10th month, in the year 1696. Anno 1691. The 6th day of the 8th month the first court of record was held at Germantown, in the public meeting house, [of Friends,] before Francis Daniel Pastorius, bailiff, Jacob Tellner, Dirk Isaacs op den Graef, and Herman Isaacs op den Graef, the three eldest burgesses. Isaac Jacobs van Bebber, recorder; Paul Wolf, clerk; Andrew Souplis, sheriff; Jan Lucken, constable. Proclamation being made by Andrew Souplis, the charter was read, and the officers attested. Caspar Carsten and his wife, who were both bound over to this court for menacing the constable, when about to serve a warrant upon them, were called, and, submitting to the bench, were fined two pounds, ten shillings. The court adjourned until the 17th of November next. 1692, the 29th day of 9th month. John Silans (upon Jacob Schumacher's complaint) promised before this court to finish the said Jacob Schumacher's barn within four weeks next coming. [Observe there are no fines or penalties in the case-only a promise of better action!] Walter Simons and James de la Plaine, for themselves and in behalf of their neighbourhood, protested against the road from the Mill street towards Thomas Rutter's, as not being laid out by the governor's order. 1692-3, the 21st day of 12th month. By reason of the absence of some, for religious meeting over Schuylkill, this court was adjourned till the 4th of 2d month, 1693. [How considerate and accommodating!] 1693, the 8th day of 6th month. Francis Daniel Pastorius, as attorney of the Frankford Company, delivered unto Wigart Levering a deed of enfeoffinent containing fifty acres in Germantown. James de la Plaine, coroner, brought into this court the names of the jury which he summoned the 24th day of 4th month, 1701, viz.Thomas Williams, foreman, Peter Hearlis, Herman op den Graef, Reiner Peters, Peter Shoemaker, Reiner Tissen, Peter Brown, John Unslett, Thomas Potts, Reiner Hermans, Dirk Johnson, Herman Turner. Their verdict was as followeth: We, the jury, find that through carelessness the cart and the lime killed the man; the wheel wounded his back and head, and it killed him. 1701, the 20th day of 11th month. Reiner Peters, for calling the sheriff, on open street, a rascal and liar, was fined 20 shillings. 1703, the 28th day of 12th month. When the cause of Matthew Smith against Daniel Faulkner being moved, the plaintiff, by reason of conscience, viz., that this day was the day wherein Herod slew the innocents, as also that his witnesses were and would for the aforesaid reason not be here, desired a continuance to the next court of record to be held for this corporation; which was allowed of, provided the said Daniel Faulkner do then appear and stand to trial. 1703-4, the 8th day of 12th month. George Müller, for his drunkenness, was condemned to five days' imprisonment. Item, to pay the constable 2 shillings for serving the warrant in the case of his laying a wager to smoke above one hundred pipes in one day. [At this place there seems to be a stoppage of court proceedings, until the next opening in 1706-7, which was then made final. A letter of Pastorius to Wm. Penn, when in Philadelphia in 1701-2, which I have seen, says, he believes there will be a difficulty to get men to serve in the general court, "for conscience sake"-meaning the oaths.] On the 17th of 12th mo., 1701, the general court of Germantown present to Wm. Penn, their "honourable and dear governor," newly arrived, "the petition of the Germantown corporation"-to the effect," that seventeen years preceding they had laid out the township in lots and more compact settlements than elsewhere had been done, so that some dwelling so near each other, had not enough of timber to make their separate fences, whereby they were compelled to fence in four quarters-[meaning, it is believed, on the four angles of the oblong square, on the outside only]-consequently requiring much care, lest by carelessness of one or other, the rest [within the enclosure] should suffer harm or injury." They also represent, "that by reason of the charter of 1689, granted unto Germantown-construing the same most beneficially to the grantees, they have hitherto refused to pay those taxes, levies and impositions, which the county courts do lay upon those under their jurisdiction-for being by the said charter exempted from the county court of Philadelphia, and having our own court of record, as well as our general court, we cannot but believe that we are freed from all charges towards the said county-seeing that it would be rather a burthen than a privilege to pay both the county taxes and the taxes of our own corporation. [Just the very thing which citizens of Philadelphia now do.] As to the provincial taxes we make no exceptions, and are willing to bear our share, as good and loyal subjects should." "We implore thy benevolence, that thou wilt so defend and support our township, by way of explanation to thy aforesaid charter, that our corporation may be exempted from all and every county tax; and whereas, we before represented a difficulty of finding persons to serve in the corporation, for conscience sake, we hope it may be remedied, as it is already in part, by arrivals of new comers among us." 1706-7, the 11th day of 12th month, (January,) before Thomas Rutter, bailiff, &c. The court was opened; the queen's attorney George Lowther laid the following points before this court: 1st, that the general court of this corporation did lay taxes, &c.; 2d, that the justices wanted their qualifications; 3d, that this court did clear by proclamation, &c., and 4th, bind over to the peace, and not to the Philadelphia county; 5th, that Johannes Kuster married a couple without the limits of the corporation; and [he, the said queen's attorney,] desired the court's answer to the government: whereupon this court adjourned till two o'clock in the afternoon, and having given their answers to the said attorney-general, further adjourned to the 25th day of this instant. N. B. The said attorney-general promising then to procure the government power to qualify them himself-the which, nevertheless, he did not, though often required and well paid; and therefore, from thence, no more courts were kept at Germantown! And the above charged points being partly false, and the others sufficiently answered, convinced the said attorney-general, as by his own handwriting, hereunto affixed, may appear. Old Mr. J. W., about the year 1720, purchased five hundred acres of land at 2s. per acre, adjacent to where his descendant now lives; when he afterwards sold much of it at £3 per acre, he thought he was doing wonders; some of it has since been worth $200 to $300 per acre. The price of labour in and about Germantown, sixty years ago, was 3s. a day in summer, and 2s. 6d. in winter. The price of hickory wood was 10 to 11s. per cord, and oak was 8 to 9s. Hickory now sells at $8, and oak at $6, and has been $2 higher. In 1738 a county tax was assessed of 11d. per pound on the city and county, (including Germantown,) for "wolves and crows destroyed, and for assemblymen's wages," at 5s. per day. The blackbirds formerly were much more numerous than now; a gentleman mentioned to me that when he was a young man, he once killed at one shot (with mustard seed shot) one hundred and nineteen birds, which he got; some few of the wounded he did not get; they had alighted in an oat-field after the harvest, and he was concealed in a near hedge, and shot them as they rose on the wing. There was a law in 1700 made to give 3d. per dozen for the heads of blackbirds, to destroy them. A person, now 80 years of age, relates to me that he well remembers seeing colonies of Indians, of twenty to thirty persons, often coming through the town and sitting down in Logan's woods, others on the present open field, south-east of Grigg's place. They would then make their huts and stay a whole year at a time, and make and sell baskets, ladles, and tolerably good fiddles. He has seen them shoot birds and young squirrels there, with their bows and arrows. Their huts were made of four upright saplings, with crotch limbs at top. The sides and tops were of cedar bushes and branches. In these they lived in the severest winters; their fire was on the ground and in the middle of the area. At that time wild pigeons were very numerous, in flocks of a mile long; and it was very common to shoot twenty or thirty of them at a shot. They then caught rabbits and squirrels in snares. The superstition then was very great about ghosts and witches. "Old Shrunk," as he was called, (George S., who lived to be 80,) was a great conjuror, and numerous persons from Philadelphia and elsewhere, and some even from Jersey, came to him often, to find out stolen goods and to get their fortunes told. They believed he could make any thieves who came to steal from his orchard "stand," if he saw them, even while they desired to run away. They used to consult him where to go and dig for money; and several persons, whose names I suppress, used to go and dig for hidden treasures of nights. On such occasions, if any one "spoke," while digging, or ran, from "terror," without "the magic ring," previously made with incantation around the place, the whole influence of the "spell" was lost. Dr. Witt, too, a sensible man, who owned and dwelt in the large house, since the Rev. Dr. Blair's, as well as old Mr. Frailey, who also acted as a physician, and was really pretty skilful, were both U- -e doctors, (according to the superstition then so prevalent in Europe,) and were renowned also as conjurors. Then the cows and horses, and even children, got strange diseases; and if it baffled ordinary medicines, or Indian cures and herbs, it was not unusual to consult those persons for relief; and their prescriptions which healed them, as resulting from witchcraft, always gave relief! Dr. Frailey dwelt in a one-story house, very ancient, now standing in the school house lane. On each side of his house were lines of Gerinan poetry, painted in oil colours, (some of the marks are even visible now); those on one side have been recited to me, viz. : Lass Neider neiden, Lass Hasser hassen; Was Gott mir giebt Muss mann mir lassen. Translated thus: Let the envious envy me, An idea was very prevalent, especially near the Delaware and Schuylkill waters, that the pirates of Black Beard's day had deposited treasure in the earth. The fancy was, that sometimes they killed a prisoner and interred him with it, to make his ghost keep his vigils there and guard it. Hence it was not rare to hear of persons having seen a sphoke or ghost, or of having dreamed of it a plurality of times, which became a strong incentive to dig there. To procure the aid of a professor in the black art, was called Hering; and Shrunk, in particular, had great fame therein. He affected to use a diviner's rod, (a witch hazel) with a peculiar angle in it, which was supposed to be self-turned in the hands, when approached to any minerals; some use the same kind of rod now to feel for hidden waters, so as to dig for wells. The late Col. T. F. used to amuse himself much with the credulity of the people. He pretended he could her with a hazel rod; and often he has had superstitious persons to come and offer him shares in spoils, which they had seen a sphoke upon! He even wrote and printed a curious old play, to ridicule the thing. Describing the terrors of a midnight fright in digging, he makes one of the party to tell his wife, "My dearest wife, in all my life Ich neber was so fritened; De spirit come, and Ich did run, 'Twas juste like tunder, mid lightning." Mr. K., when aged 78, and his wife nearly the same age, men. tioned to me, that in their youthful days they used to feel themselves as if at double or treble the distance they now do from Philadelphia, owing to the badness and loneliness of the roads; they then regarded a ride to the city as a serious affair. The road before it was turnpiked was extremely clayey and mirey, and in some places, especially at Penn's creek, there was a fearful quicksand. Several teams were often joined at places along the bad road to help out of mires, and horses were much injured, and sometimes killed, thereby. Rail stakes used to be set up in bad places to warn off. In those times the sleighing used to continue for two or three months in the winter, and the pleasure parties from the city used to put up and have dances at old Macknett's tavern, where his son since lived. It was then very common for sailors to come out in summer to have frolics, or mirth and refreshments at the inns. The young men also made great amusement of shooting at a target. They used no wagons in going to market, but the woman went, and rode a horse with two panniers slung on each side of her. The women too carried baskets on their heads, and the men wheeled wheel-barrows-being six miles to market! Then the people, especially man and wife, rode to church, funerals and visits, both on one horse; the woman sat on a pillion behind the man. Chairs or chaises were then unknown to them; none in that day ever dreamed to live to see such improvements and luxury as they now witness. The first carriage of the coach kind they ever saw or heard of belonged to Judge Allen,† who had his country seat at the present Mount Airy College; it was of the phaeton or Landau kind, having a seat in front for children, and was drawn by four black horses: he was of course a very opulent man, a grandee in his generation— such phaetons cost £400. The country seats then were few. Penington had his country house where Chew's now stands, and the present kitchen wings of Chew's house sufficed for the simplicity of gentlemen of those days. Another country house was Samuel Shoemaker's, a mayor of Philadelphia, and is the same now a part A copy of it is in the Athenæum Library. There were three or four earlier carriages in Philadelphia, viz.: Norris, Logan, and Shippen's. VOL. II.-E |