United States or Azerbaijan ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
"Put yourself in his place," she continued, "remember them that's in bonds as bound with 'em, I disremember exackly how it goes, but no matter: I say your way a'n't right, and I'd say it seven times, if need be! There's no steadier nor better-doin' young fellow in these parts than Gilbert Potter. Ferris, down in Pennsbury, or Alf Barton, here, for that matter, a'n't to be put within a mile of him.
In the mean while his deputy, Markham, acting by his instructions, was providing him a new home by purchasing for him, of the Indians, a piece of land, the deed of which is dated July 15th, and endorsed with a confirmation, August 1st, and by commencing upon it the erection which was afterward known as Pennsbury Manor.
New-Garden, Marlborough, and Pennsbury, so far as heard from, gave their hearty consent; and the people would have been seriously disappointed the tide of sympathy might even have been checked had not Gilbert Barton and Martha Deane prepared to fulfil the parts assigned to them. Dr. Deane, of course, floated with the current.
Penn then made a visit to his manor of Pennsbury, up the Delaware. Under Markham's care, the grounds had been arranged, and a stately edifice of brick was in process of completion. The place had many natural beauties, and is said to have been arranged and decorated in consistency both with the office and the simple manners of the proprietor.
Here they came, in paint and feathers, "Connoondaghtoh, king of the Susquehannah Indians; Wopaththa, king of the Shawanese; Weewinjough, chief of the Ganawese; and Ahookassong, brother of the emperor of the five nations;" and many other humbler braves. John Richardson, a Yorkshire Quaker, visited Penn at Pennsbury and saw them.
Acquainted with affairs, and with a knowledge of the relations between government and human nature drawn from a wide experience, he knew the distinction, at which some of his Quaker brethren stumbled, between personal humility and the proper dignity of official station. In the intervals left him by the demands of church and state, he busied himself with the improvement of his place at Pennsbury.
Thus, after two years wherein peace and quietness prevailed over all misunderstanding and opposition, he set sail in 1701, and never saw Pennsylvania again. His house at Pennsbury fell into ruins, due in large part to the leakage of a leaden reservoir on the roof, and was taken down before the Revolution. The furniture was gradually dispersed.
Penn, with his stout faith in the king, could not see it. There were times, indeed, when he was perplexed and troubled. "The Lord keep us in this dark day!" he wrote to his steward at Pennsbury. "Be wise, close, respectful to superiors. The king has discharged all Friends by a general pardon, and is courteous, though as to the Church of England, things seem pinching.
He had also laid out the grounds and commenced the building, to which he had given the name of Pennsbury. Then turning to the chief, he said: "And our brother will bear witness that happily no dispute has taken place between the white men and the natives, while not a drop of blood of either has been shed."
Penn finally sent the boy to Pennsbury, hoping that the quiet, the absence of temptation, and the wholesome joys of a country life, might amend him. But William went from bad to worse, was arrested in Philadelphia in a tavern brawl, was formally excommunicated by the Quakers, and came home to England to give his father further pain.
Word Of The Day