without sin, let him cast the first stone: and they went out one by one," till no accusers were found! At the court held at Chester the 2d October, 1695, the grand jury state that the country is in debt, and that the prison is not yet finished, and that, besides, there are several wolves' heads to pay for; wherefore, they recommend a levy, to wit: on all real and personal estate of Id. per pound, and 3s. per head poll-tax. The valuation then given is important now, as showing values then, to wit: All cleared land under tillage to be valued 20s. per acre; rough land by the river £10 per hundred acres; lands in the woods at £5 per hundred acres; horses and mares at £3; cows and oxen 50s.; sheep 6s. ; negroes, from sixteen to sixty years, at £25; females at £20. Then come five mills at the earliest places, to wit: Chester mill £100; Joseph Coebarn's 50; Darby mill £100; Hartford mill £20; Concord mill £10. At the court of 10th December, 1695, Patrick Kelly and Judith Buller are presented for marrying against the law of 2d December. It is ordered that they appear at the next court, and that in the mean time, they marry again, as the law directs. The grand jury present Robert Reman of Chichester, for practising geomancy according to Hidon, and divining by a stick. He submits himself to the bench, and the court fines him £5 and costs, and never again to practise the arts. They also present the following books: Hidon's Temple of Wisdom, which teaches Geomancy, and Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft, and Cornelius Agrippa's, teaching Necromancy. The books are ordered to the next court. At the court at Chester, of 24th of 12 mo., 1701-2, the court then allows the charge of £26, incurred in running and settling the cir cular boundary line next to New Castle. Chester. In April, 1827, we made a visit to Chester, with a view to see and examine the venerable remains of that once distinguished town. We had for a companion a gentleman whose soul is alive to such inquiries. In our ride we often noticed the unusual indications of a very forward spring-such as has not before occurred since the year 1791: the wild flowers of the fields and woods were in bloom on the 23d April, which formerly appeared only in May. We were necessarily frequently pleased to notice the air of comfort and improvement indicated by various farms on the road side, contrasted with the few, still remaining, small log houses:-houses which Kalm, in his Travels, on the same road eighty years before, said were the general structures of that day. The numerous wild grape vines which he then noticed were gone, as well as the extended woods. Red clover-then unknown as to any practical benefit, now assisted with plaster of Paris, every where enriched the farmer and gratified our senses. The wild bees, which then sheltered their cells in the depths of the forest, now having lost that refuge by the clearing of the country, have become domesticated in the bee-boxes, seen by the wayside in the most of the gardens-then the road was but little travelled, by pleasure carriages, scarcely ever, when but very few existed. The few travellers who could be be met were on foot, or if on horse back,-often having a female up behind-or if a female going to market, having two great panniers poised on either side of the animal. Wilson has thus described them when going home. "There market maids, in lively rows, With wallets white were riding home; Through Gray's green festive shades to roam." The women and girls on these occasions were clad in homely, useful "homespun," and the beast was a real pacer. A chaise you could but seldom meet: but we were frequently met by gigs, sulkies and coaches, sometimes effulgent in glittering plate! So, times are altered! Having reached Chester, we could not make our entry without thinking of those primitive founders, all of whom had gone down to the dust. Our busy imaginations could not forbear to frame conjectures, and to weave, in fancy's loom, the images of things as we presumed they generally were in their early state. For the inhabitants whom we now saw in the streets, in modern habiliments, and some of modish mien, we substituted, instinctively, the homespun yeomanry of other appearance, manners and feelings. We peopled the streets and houses with Swedes and Quakers, with such men, and their wives and children, as Sanderlaine, David Lloyd, Robert Wade, Caleb Pusey, the Parkers, Richard Townsend and others; and instead of ancient and decayed houses, as several of them had now become, we contemplated all, as if then lately built or building. Instead of a dreary old court house, old prison, old church, &c., we saw them, in fancy, in the finish and brightness of a new thing, as buildings, of which the labour and expense of erecting was past, and the community was reposing in complacency, resting from their works. But to come more immediately to facts, as we now found them :Our first wish was to see the house of Parker, the colonial register, &c., and the father of that excellent and eminent lady, Mrs. Deborah Logan. There her good father and her mother lived and died. It was a two-storied brick house, of respectable dimensions, built in 1700, had much of old-fashioned wooden wainscotting. In the chambers up stairs the pannels were curiously painted in a congeries of colours, not unlike yellow mahogany. The house had originally small glass panes, set in leaden frames, of which a few specimens still remained in the casements on the stairway, large closets were on each side of the chimneys, large enough for small beds, which were lighted by small windows in the outer walls; on the side of the house stood a one-story office, which had long contained the records of Chester county, from the earliest dates, and which being since removed to West Chester, might prove curious, if now examined with antiquarian tact and skill. James Sanderlaine, often written Sanderlin, was a wealthy Swedish proprietor of all Chester, and extending back into the country a considerable distance on the Chester side of the creek; from him descended all the land titles. Robert Wade, of the Essex house, was an equally extended proprietor of all the lands on the other side of the creek. Sanderlaine appears to have been an eminent Episcopalian, and probably the chief founder of the old Episcopal church there, of St. Paul, as I find his memory peculiarly distinguished by a large and conspicuous mural monument in that church, covering a space of six and a half by three and a half feet. It is formed of fine sand-stone, and is chiseled in relief and ornament, in a very elaborate and skilful manner. It is in itself a curiosity, as expressive of a death of a citizen which occurred as long back as 1692. Not one of the name of Sanderlaine remains! His daughter was married to Jasper Yates. Jasper Yates, at an early period, built a great building, still standing, called the Granary, and sometimes the Bake-house, it having been formerly used for both purposes. In the cellar part was the bake-house, and above it were the grain rooms, intended in their day to receive and use up the grain from the fruitful fields of Lancaster county-a commerce disused for several years. The bakery, while it lasted, made biscuit by wholesale for shipping. Near to that building was shown me the first used court house of brick, now a dwelling house and cooper's shop, and owned by John Hart. Near to it is a part of the stone wall of the first prison, now converted into a dwelling house. The second, or present, court house and prison were built in 1724. We next visited the house of David Lloyd, a name of perpetual occurrence in our early annals, as a leading member of assembly opposed to proprietary interests; as a disturbing Friend, an educated lawyer-a man who had once been a captain in Cromwell's army, and who sought his peace by coming to this country. His house is the same building facing the river, now known as the altered house of Commodore Porter. It was built in 1721. Pestilent and refractory as D. Lloyd appeared in public life, he was excellent and amiable in his social relations. The body of himself and wife are marked by head stones in the Friends' ground. In 1798, Chester was visited with yellow fever in its most appalling form, derived from the families who fled from Philadelphia to Chester for refuge. It spread in Chester with frightful rapidity, and depopulated whole families and streets. Chester has been often called "Upland," in the Few, or none, have a right conception of the cause. early history The name, 1 am satisfied, was applied to the whole land held by the Swedes at and above Chester. They called the country of Philadelphia county, Upland County-wherefore the court town took the name of the country. The name was first given to contradistinguish the UpDelaware country, from the Low-Delaware country, or lower counties, where the Swedes first settled. Bucks County. This county had its first settlers located nearest to the neighbourhood of Bristol and Pennsbury. They were nearly all of them of the society of Friends; among these, James Harrison and Phineas Pemberton were most influential and conspicuous. Strong expectations were entertained by these first settlers, that the city of Philadelphia might have been located at either of those chief places; but it was deemed that the river channel was too shallow for ship navigation. All the first settlers who arrived were obliged to bring certificates of acceptable character, and to be enrolled in a record-book, which I have seen, kept by P. Pemberton, as clerk of the court, giving therein the names of the parents, number of children, names and number of servants, and the vessels by which, and at what time, arrived. This, it must be granted, forms a curious record of consultation now, and may show some families their " ancestorial bearings" then. The Indians were round about in small settlements in almost every direction. Some, long after, dwelt on the "Indian field," near Penn's estate at Pennsbury, and some at Ingham's spring; others were on the Pownall tract, the Streiper tract, and Fell tract. The last of the Indian race went off from Buckingham in a body, in the year 1775. The general state of woody wastes was much the same as has been already described in the county of Chester. The Indian practice of burning the underbrush in the woods, made the woods in general easy of traversing and exploring. The people of Bucks county have been, from the earliest settlement, trained and disciplined to a kindly spirit of good neighbourhood and frank hospitality. It arose at first from their universal brotherhood and mutual dependence; and it was long kept alive by the unreserved welcome, for ever cherished, under their eyes, by the Indians settled about them. A true Indian never deems any thing too good for his friend or visiter. The greater part of the centre grounds of Bucks county were located as early as 1700. Such was Buckingham and Solesbury. Among the first of those settlers there, were Thomas and John Byle, William Cooper, George Pownall, Roger Hartley, and other Friends, from the neighborhood of the "Falls Meeting." Thomas Watson arrived and settled among them in 1704. For the first few years, considerable of their supplies of grain for any new comers had to be drawn from the Falls, or Middletown; and until 1707, they had to take all their grain on horseback, for grinding, to Gwin's mill, on the Pennepeck, near to the Billet. In the mean time, many persons had to be content to pound their grain at home in wooden mortars. Several of the houses of the original settlers are still standing. Such a house, built for Thomas Canby, now belongs to Joshua Anderson. The great portion of the houses were constructed of logs, and called log-houses, a rude but very comfortable kind of building. Improved land was generally sold by the acre, at the nominal price or value of twenty bushels of wheat; so that when wheat was at 2s. 6d. a bushel, the land was actually sold at 50s. The women were always industrious, clothing their families in general by their own hands-spinning and weaving for all their inmates, all the necessary linen and woollen clothing. For common diet, milk and bread, and pie, formed the breakfast meal; and good pork or bacon, and a wheat-flour pudding or dumplings, with butter and molasses, were given for dinner. Mush, or hominy, with milk and butter, and honey, formed the supper. Chocolate was only occasionally procured, and used with maple sugar; and deer-meat and turkeys, when the season answered. Only a few of the wealthiest farmers had any wagons before the year 1745; about the year 1750 was the time of their more common use. Carts were the most in use in going to market. John Wells, Esq., was the only person who then had a riding-chair. Taverns were scarcely known any where; the one at Coryell's ferry was the first. After the year 1750, a new era seemed to commence, by the influx of more wealth among the people. Bohea tea and coffee were introduced, and sundry articles of foreign fabric for the farmers' wives, brought among them by the pedlers, such as silk and linen neckhandkerchiefs, some silk or figured gowns. The men, too, began to wear vests and breeches of Bengal, Nankin, fustian, or black everlasting, and cotton velvet. Coats also were made of the latter, But no man or woman, in any condition of life, ever held themselves above the wear, for common purposes, of home-made "linseywoolsey," of linen or woollen fabric. Bucks county has the honour of having had located, at the forks of the Neshamony, the once celebrated "Log College," so called, of the Rev. William Tennant, commenced there in 1721; and from it issued some of our best men of earliest renown. It was then "the day of small things." Bucks county, in the period of the revolution, was made conspicuous, by a daring "refugee family," called the Doans. Their numerous perilous adventures, in scouring the country for "whig families," and to make their plunder on such, brought them into great renown as bold desperadoes. There were five brothers of them, severally fine looking men, and expert horsemen. Great rewards were offered for them; and finally, two were shot in combat, and two were apprehended and executed. They were far above ordinary robbers, being very generous and humane to all |