Part 3

Only a few English, however, had come to Delaware to live. The people of Wilmington (once Christinaham, or Christina Harbor) and of New Castle, were principally Dutch and Swedes. They were simple farmer people, raising crops and cattle and chickens, and they were very willing to keep the laws that the English at New York made for them. The Indians were still troublesome at times, but the settlers had their block-houses or forts to retreat to and were generally able to protect themselves.

But now it had come to their ears that a new governor was coming out from England to rule over them, and they wondered anxiously what sort of man he would prove to be. Governor Printz had been coarse and violent; Governor Stuyvesant, hot-tempered, ambitious, and overbearing; and terrible tales had been told of the cruelty of Governor Kieft. There had been a long line of governors since Minuit’s time, both in Delaware and in New York; and few of them had seemed to care for the good of the poorer people. And now this new man was coming and, for all they knew, might be the worst of all.

The name of the new Governor was William Penn. The Duke of York had given Delaware to him, and King Charles the Second, had given him a great tract of land farther to the North, which he called Pennsylvania. More than this, the people did not know; but they often talked about the new governor and wondered what he would be like, and when he would come, as they sat around their fires in the early fall evenings.

Then they began to learn more about him; for his cousin, Captain William Markham, came out to America to act as Governor till Penn could come himself. They learned that Penn belonged to the Quakers—a strange, new religious sect; and that it was the rule that Quakers must dress very plainly and say “thee” and “thou” to people instead of “you” and take off their hats to nobody, not even the King himself. That seemed a strange thing indeed to the settlers, and they wondered how the King liked it.

Penn had bought the land from King Charles, and his brother the Duke for an absurd price—a price so small that the poorest farmer among them all might have bought it if he had had the chance.

For all of Pennsylvania, with its wooded hills and fertile valleys and well-stocked streams, he had paid only twelve shillings[12] and, at Michaelmas, was to pay the King five shillings more.

For Delaware, he had paid ten shillings to the Duke of York; and every Michaelmas he was to pay to the Duke, a rose. He was also to pay over one half of the profits he drew from the southern part of Delaware. Yes, any of the honest farmers might have bought the land at that price, but then, the great people most probably would not have sold it at all to anyone but their friend, William Penn.

Captain Markham was buying for Penn, from the Indians such rights as they had in the land, and was paying them well—better than they had ever been paid before—so perhaps the new governor was a generous, fair minded man after all.

So, in talk and wonderings, the days slipped by. September had passed, and October was almost gone, before the governor’s English ship, the _Welcome_, was sighted coming up the river from the bay. The news of its coming spread from house to house, and from farm to farm, and even back into the country to the villages of the Indians.

All work was laid aside, and the people of New Castle and the country round about gathered down at the shore to watch the approach of the vessel. Captain Markham himself was there, gorgeous in his English uniform, having come down to New Castle to meet his cousin.

Nearer and nearer came the ship, looming up bigger and bigger, stately and slow, its sails spread wide, and the English colors fluttering at its masthead. Then it came about, and the great anchor dropped into the water with a splash. Boats were lowered, and the people of the vessel clambered down into them and were rowed toward the shore. In the very first boat came William Penn himself.

He was a tall, noble looking man, with large, dark, kindly eyes, and hair that fell in loose locks to his shoulders. He was very simply dressed, as were all the men with him. The only way in which his dress differed from theirs was that he wore a light blue silken sash around his waist. He was worn and thin, and some of his companions looked even ill.

This was not to be wondered at, for he told his cousin that soon after they had set sail from England, smallpox had broken out on board the _Welcome_. Of the one hundred men who had started with him, almost one-third had died on the voyage. The colonists heard afterward of the goodness of William Penn to the sick. He himself had never had smallpox, but everyday during the voyage he went down to the bedsides of the sufferers. He gave them medicines, talked with them and cheered them, and ministered to the dying.

It had indeed been a terrible voyage. Fortunately, the ship had been well stocked with provisions of every kind, and many luxuries.[13] Still, these could ease but little the sufferings of the sick, shut up for two months in that rolling, tossing vessel. A blessed sight the shores and wooded hills of Delaware must have been to those sick and weary voyagers.

As Penn landed, Captain Markham came forward eagerly to greet him. It was a strange and varied crowd that had gathered there to meet their governor—Swedes, Dutch, Germans and Welsh, many of them dressed in their national costumes, and back of them the tall, red skinned Indian, Sachem Taminent, with his party of Leni Lenapes in their paint and feathers.

Penn was escorted by his cousin and the principal men of the village, to the house that had been made ready for him, there to eat and rest after his long journey.

The next day, October 28, 1682, the new governor went to the Courthouse to speak to the people. The room was thronged with those who crowded in to hear him. Before he began, however, two gentlemen, John Moll and Ephraim Herman, performed what is called “livery of seisin;” that is, they gave to Penn earth, water, a piece of turf, and a twig, in token that he was ruler there of land and water and of the fruits of tree and field.

After that, Penn spoke to the people with such kindness, that their simple hearts were filled with joy. He bade them remember that they were “but as little children in the wilderness,” and under the care of one Father. He told them that he wished to found a free and virtuous state in which the people should learn to rule themselves. He promised that every man in his provinces should “enjoy liberty of conscience,” and have a voice in the ruling of the colony.

The people listened to him in deep silence; and when he ended his speech, they had but one thing to beg of him, and that was that he would stay among them at New Castle and rule over them. This he told them he could not do; and then they begged him to join their territory to Pennsylvania, that the white settlers might have one country and one ruler. He promised to consider this, and then he bade them good-bye and returned to the ship.

The sails of the vessel were spread wide like great wings of peace, the wind filled them, and slowly the ship began to move. The colonists upon the shore still lingered there, gazing after her, and straining their eyes to see, as long as they could, the tall man that stood there in the stem with a light blue sash around his waist At last they could see him no longer, and then they turned and went back to their daily toil.

Penn did not forget them or his promise to them. At the first General Assembly held at Chester, it was declared that the two provinces were united, and that the laws that governed one should be for the other too.

In 1701, Penn visited New Castle again and was received with joy by its people.

A few years later he made the town a gift of one thousand acres of land lying to the north of it, to be used as a public commons by its people and to belong to them.

This tract of land still belongs to the town of New Castle, but since 1792 it has been rented out in farms, and is no longer a public commons.

William Penn did much to bring the Indians into truer friendship with the settlers. He treated them justly. He trusted them and went among them unarmed and unprotected. He walked with them, attended their meetings and ate of their hominy and roasted acorns. One time it happened the Indians were showing him how they could hop and jump, and after sitting watching them for a time, the Governor rose up and out-jumped them all.

Penn’s word was trusted by Indians and settlers alike, and they knew their interests were as safe in his hands as in their own.[14]

New Castle has just cause for pride in the fact that William Penn’s first landing in America was made upon her shore.

NOTES

[12] About two dollars and a half.

[13] In a list of creature comforts put on board a vessel leaving the Delaware, on behalf of a Quaker preacher, are enumerated:—32 fowls, 7 turkeys and 11 ducks, 2 hams, a barrel of China, oranges, a large keg of sweetmeats, ditto of rum, a pot of Tamarinds, a box of spices, ditto of dried herbs, 18 cocoanuts, a box of eggs, 6 balls of chocolate, 6 dried codfish, 5 shaddock, 6 bottles citron water, 4 bottles of Madeira, 5 dozen of good ale, 1 large keg of wine and 9 pints of brandy, as well as flour, sheep, and hogs.—_Dixon’s “William Penn.”_

[14] Among the articles used in trading with the natives was rum. The colonists at that time did not seem to see how dangerous it was to let them have it. Several years later, however, the Friends (Quakers) had a meeting with the natives, in order to put a stop to the sale of rum, brandy, and other liquors. There were eight Sachems present, and one of them made this speech.

“The strong liquor was first sold us by the Dutch, and they are blind, they had no eyes, they did not see it was for our hurt. The next people that came among us were the Swedes, and they too sold strong liquors to us; they were also blind, they had no eyes, they did not see it was hurtful to us to drink it, although we knew it was hurtful to us; but if people will sell it to us we are so in love with it that we cannot forbear. When we drink it, it makes us mad; we do not know what we do; we then abuse one another, we throw each other into the fire; seven score of our people have been killed by reason of drinking it. But now there is a people come to live among us that have eyes, they see it be for our hurt, and are willing to deny themselves the profit of it for our good. Now the cask must be sealed up, it must not leak by day or night, in light or in the dark, and we give you these four belts of wampum to be witnesses of this agreement.” One bargain made with the Indians, included the gift of one hundred jew’s-harps.

How Once Upon A Time Caesar Rodney Rode For Freedom.

YEARS passed, and the Counties on the Delaware,[15] under the wise laws of William Penn,[16] grew and prospered. Dover was laid out and settled; New Castle flourished; Lewes became a town. Instead of the rough buildings of the early settlers, handsome country houses and comfortable farms were to be seen.

The manners and customs of the people were still very plain and simple. Very few foreign articles were used in this part of the country. Clothes were woven, cut and sewed at home. Beef, pork, poultry, milk, butter, cheese, wheat and Indian corn were raised on the farms; the fruit trees yielded freely, and there was a great deal of wild game; the people lived not only comfortably but luxuriously.[17]

The Counties on the Delaware were very fertile, and very little labor was needed to make the land yield all that was required. The people had a great deal of leisure time for visiting and pleasure. They were always gathering together at one house or another, the younger people to dance or frolic, and the older men to amuse themselves with wrestling, running races, jumping, throwing the disc and other rustic and manly exercises.

On Christmas Eve there was a universal firing of guns, and all through the holidays the people traveled from house to house, feasting and eating Twelfth cake, and playing games.[18]

So for years, life slipped pleasantly by in these southern Counties, and then suddenly there came a change. There began to be talk of war with England. News was eagerly watched for. There was no mail at that time. Letters were carried by stage-coach, or by messengers riding on horseback from town to town. In the old days, the people had been content to send their servants for letters. Now, when a messenger, hot and dusty, came galloping into the town, a crowd would be waiting, and would gather round him.

And it was thrilling news that the dusty messengers carried in those days, the days of 1775. England was determined to tax her colonies, and the colonies were rising in rebellion. Boston had thrown whole cargoes of tea into her harbor rather than pay the tax on it.

Then the first shots of the Revolution were fired at Concord and Lexington. At the sound of those shots the Counties on Delaware awoke. Drums were beat, muskets were cleaned, ladies sewed flags for the troops to carry; men enlisted, and the militia drilled. But still it was hoped by many that things would settle back peaceably.

But worse and worse news came from the north. Boston harbor had been shut up by the English. The people were starving. War ships from England had brought over more troops (many of them hired Germans), and had quartered them on the town. All the country was hot with anger over these things. Food and clothing were sent to Boston. General Washington raised troops of a thousand men, at his own expense, and marched north to her relief.

General Caesar Rodney was one of the important men of Dover at that time. He was a tall, pale, strange looking man, with flashing eyes, and a face, as we are told, “no larger than a good sized apple.” He was a general in the militia, and was heart and soul for independence. He rode about the country, calling meetings, speaking to the people, and urging them to enlist, and urging them, too, to raise money to give to the government. He was at this time suffering from a painful disease, but he spared neither strength nor comfort in the cause of freedom.

Mr. George Read of New Castle, was a very important man in the colonies, too. He was a patriot, and belonged to the militia, but he was very anxious not to begin a war. He argued that England had spent a great deal of money on her American colonies, and that she had a right to try to get some of it back by taxing them. He agreed that the time might come when the colonies would have to be free, but he thought that time had not yet come. He hoped that when it did, the colonies might win their freedom peaceably, and not by battle and bloodshed. He was a calm, quiet, learned man, rather slow of speech, and different in many ways from his quick and fiery friend, Rodney.

A third man who was important in Colonial times was Mr. Thomas McKean. He was a lawyer in New Castle, and was a friend of both these men. Like Rodney, he was for freedom at any cost.

In 1776, when the Colonial Congress was called to meet in Philadelphia, these three men, Rodney, Read and McKean, were sent to it as delegates by the Counties on the Delaware.[19]

This meeting of Congress in the summer of 1776 was the most important meeting that had ever been held. From north and south the delegates came riding to it, from all the thirteen colonies; and they met in the Committee Room of the State House in Philadelphia.

Many serious questions were to be decided by these delegates this year. But the most serious of all the questions was whether the Colonies should declare themselves free and independent states. If they did this, it would mean war with England.

While the question was still being argued about in the committee room, Caesar Rodney was sent for to come back to the Counties on the Delaware. Riots and quarrels and disturbances had broken out there, and no one could quiet them as well as Caesar Rodney. He was very glad to go, for it seemed as though it might be a long time before the delegates would decide on anything, and he hoped to be able to raise some money for the government.

He started out early one morning on horseback, cantering easily along through the cool of the day. It was eighty miles from Philadelphia to Dover, and he broke it by stopping over night at New Castle, which was rather more than half way home. The road he took was the old King’s Highroad, which ran on down through the Counties on Delaware, through Wilmington and New Castle and Dover, as far as Lewes.

General Rodney found a great deal to do down in the Counties. The Whigs and Tories had come to blows. One Tory gentleman only just escaped being tarred and feathered, and carried on a rail. Caesar Rodney was the one who had to quiet all the troubles. Beside this he made speeches, raised moneys and helped get together fresh troops of militia.

But busy though he was, he managed to find some time for visiting about among his friends. Especially he found time to visit at the house of a young Quaker widow named Sarah Rowland. Mistress Rowland lived in Lewes. She was a Tory, but she was very beautiful and witty, and Caesar Rodney was said to be in love with her. He might often have been seen, between his busy times, cantering along the road that led to Lewes and to her house. Mistress Rowland, as a Quaker, believed all fighting to be wrong, but she was always friendly with the General. Perhaps she hoped in some way to be able to help the Tories by things the General told her, or by having him at her house. At any rate she always made him welcome.

Now, while General Rodney was still busy down in the Counties on the Delaware, with his work and pleasure, great things were happening in Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was finally drawn up and written out.

It was laid on the table before the Colonial Congress, and the delegates were given five days to make up their minds to agree, whether they would sign it or not. They considered and discussed it in secret behind closed doors.

One after another, the delegates from various colonies agreed to sign. At last, only the Counties on the Delaware were needed to carry the agreement. They could not sign the Declaration, for they had now only two delegates present at Congress. Of these, one (McKean) was for it, and one (Mr. Read) was against it, so it was a tie between them, and Rodney, whose vote could have decided the matter, was down in the Counties on Delaware, eighty miles away.

McKean was in despair. He sent message after message, down to Delaware, begging the General to return to Philadelphia and give his deciding vote, but no answer came. The fact was that General Rodney did not receive any of these messages McKean sent. He was visiting Mistress Rowland in Lewes at the time, and she managed to keep the letters back from him. She hoped that he might know nothing about the Declaration until it had been voted on and the whole matter decided. Even if all the other Colonies decided to sign, it would weaken the union very much if the Colonies on the Delaware did not sign.

On the third of July, McKean sent a last message down to Rodney, passionately begging him to come to Philadelphia. The vote of the delegates was to be taken July the fourth, and if the General was not there the vote of the Counties on Delaware could not be cast for the Declaration of Independence, and it might be lost.

On this same day, July the third, 1776, Caesar Rodney was chatting with Mistress Rowland in the parlor of her house at Lewes. It had seemed strange to him that he had not heard from McKean lately, but he felt sure that if anything important was happening at Philadelphia he would receive word at once. So he put his anxieties aside and laughed and talked with the widow.

Suddenly, the parlor door was thrown open and a maid-servant came into the room. She crossed over to where General Rodney was sitting. “There!” she cried. “I’m an honest girl and I won’t keep those back any longer!” and she threw a packet of letters into the General’s lap.

Rodney picked them up and looked at them. They were in Mr. McKean’s hand-writing. Hastily he ran through them. They were the letters Sarah Rowland had been keeping back,—the letters begging and imploring him to hasten north to Philadelphia.

Without a word, General Rodney started to his feet, and ran out to where his horse was standing before the house.[20] Sarah Rowland called to him, but he did not heed her. He sprang to the saddle and gathered up the reins, and a moment later he was galloping madly north toward Dover. It was a long ride, but a longer still was before him. The heat was stifling, and the dust rose in clouds as he thundered along the King’s Highroad.

At Dover, he stopped to change his horse, and here he was met by McKean’s last messenger, with a letter, urging him to haste, haste. Indeed, there was not an hour to waste. Philadelphia was eighty miles away, and the vote was to be taken the next morning.

On went Rodney on his fresh horse. Daylight was gone. The moon sailed slowly up the sky, and the trees were clumps of blackness on either hand as he rode.

At Chester, he again changed horses, but he did not stop for either rest or food. Soon, he was riding on again.

It was in the morning of July fourth, that the rider, exhausted and white with dust, drew rein before the State House door in Philadelphia. McKean was there watching for him.

“Am I in time?” called Rodney as he swung himself from his horse.

“In time, but no more,” answered McKean.

Side by side he and Rodney entered Independence Hall. There sat the delegates in a semi-circle. Rodney and McKean took their places. The Declaration of Independence lay on the table before them. It was being voted on. One after the other the colonies were called on and one after another they gave their votes for it. The Counties on Delaware were called on. Mr. McKean rose and voted for it. Mr. Read was, as usual against it.

Then Caesar Rodney rose in his place. His face looked white and worn under its dust, but he spoke in a clear, firm voice. “I vote for Independence.”

And so the day was won. From the belfry of Independence Hall, the bells pealed out over the Quaker City. Bonfires blazed out, people shouted for joy, and the thirteen American Colonies, strong in union, stood pledged together for liberty.

NOTES

[15] It was not until after the Declaration of Independence that these “Counties upon the Delaware” received the name of Delaware State, and not until 1792 that it was called the “State of Delaware.”

[16] Edmund Burke spoke of Penn’s Charter to his colonies of Pennsylvania and Delaware as “a noble charter of privileges, by which he made the people more free than any people on earth, and which by securing both civil and religious liberty caused the eyes of the oppressed from all parts of the world to look to his counties for relief.”

[17] This account of the life in Delaware before the Revolutionary War is taken from a letter from Thomas Rodney, a younger brother of Caesar Rodney.

[18] The land upon which Dover stands was bought from the Indians in 1697, for two match coats, twelve bottles of drink and four handfuls of powder.

[19] Rodney, Read and McKean were appointed Delegates in March, 1775.