XXXVII

THE DAVID RITTENHOUSE HOME, NEAR
PHILADELPHIA

THE HEADQUARTERS OF BENJAMIN FRANKLIN'S FRIEND
AND CO-LABORER

This was Barlow's way of telling of the achievement of David Rittenhouse, the colonial astronomer, in fashioning the marvellous orrery, the mechanical representation of the movements of the planetary system. Thomas Jefferson's prose description was a little more readable:

"A machine far surpassing in ingenuity of contrivance, accuracy and utility anything of the kind ever before constructed.... He has not indeed made a world, but he has by imitation approached more its Maker than any man who has lived from the creation to this day."

The father of the maker of the orrery was a paper manufacturer near Germantown, but when David was three years old he moved to a little farm in Norriton, nineteen miles from Philadelphia, where, in 1749, he built the stone house in which his son spent the rest of his life.

It was his purpose to make a farmer of David, and he might have succeeded if he had not invested in a few mathematical books. The twelve-year-old boy was fascinated by these volumes. Samuel W. Pennypacker has told the result:

"The handles of his plough, and even the fences around the fields, he covered with mathematical calculations.... At seventeen he made a wooden clock, and afterward one in metal. Having thus tested his ability in an art in which he had never received any instruction, he secured from his somewhat reluctant father money enough to buy in Philadelphia the necessary tools, and after holding a shop by the roadside, set up in business as a clock and mathematical instrument maker."

Dr. Benjamin Rush once said that "without library, friends, or society, and with but two or three books, he became, before he had reached his four-and-twentieth year, the rival of two of the greatest mathematicians of Europe."

The skilled astronomer was soon called upon to render a service to several of the Colonies. By means of astronomical instruments he did such accurate work in marking out the boundary between Delaware and Pennsylvania that Mason and Dixon later accepted his results, and he settled the dispute between New Jersey and New York as to the point where the forty-first degree of latitude touches the Hudson River. Perhaps, however, the achievement that won for him greatest fame was the observation, made in 1769, of the transit of Venus. The importance of the observation is evident from the facts that it provides the best means for calculating the distance between the heavenly bodies, which had never been satisfactorily made, and that the opportunity would not occur again for one hundred and five years. After months of preparation, which included the making of delicate instruments, Rittenhouse, one of a committee of three appointed by the American Philosophical Society, succeeded. In the words of Pennypacker, "The first approximately accurate results in the measurement of the spheres were given to the world, not by the schooled and salaried astronomers who watched from the magnificent royal observatories of Europe, but by unpaid amateurs and devotees to science in the youthful province of Pennsylvania."

Benjamin Franklin found in him a kindred spirit, and the Philadelphian was frequently a visitor at the Norriton farmhouse. On Sunday the two friends often went to the old Norriton Presbyterian Church, which had been built on the corner of the Rittenhouse farm, within sight of the house. This church, which probably dates from 1698, is still standing in good repair.

Some years after the successful observation of the transit of Venus brought fame to the American astronomer, he moved to Philadelphia. There, among other duties, he had charge of the State House clock.

At the beginning of the Revolution the Council of Safety asked that he should "prepare moulds for the casting of clock weights, and send them to some iron furnace, and order a sufficient number to be immediately made for the purpose of exchanging them with the inhabitants of this city for their leaden clock weights." The leaden weights were needed for bullets. Later he was sent to survey the shores of the Delaware, to choose the best points for fortifications.

When he became Engineer of the Council of Safety "he was called upon to arrange for casting cannon of iron and brass, to view the site for the erection of a Continental powder mill, to conduct experiments for rifling cannon and muskets, to fix upon a method of fastening a chain for the protection of the river, to superintend the manufacture of saltpeter, and to locate a magazine for military stores on the Wissahickon."

This was but the beginning of service to Pennsylvania during the Revolution. His activities were so valuable to the Colonies that a Tory poet published in the Pennsylvania Evening Post of December 2, 1777, a verse addressed "To David Rittenhouse," of which the first stanza read:

The following year Thomas Jefferson wrote to him:

"You should consider that the world has but one Rittenhouse, and never had one before.... Are those powers, then, which, being intended for the erudition of the world, are, like light and air, the world's common property, to be taken from their proper pursuit to do the commonplace drudgery of governing a single State?"

To the call of the nation Rittenhouse responded in April, 1792, when President Washington appointed him the first Director of the Mint.

His closing years were full of honors, but his strength was declining rapidly; he had spent himself so fully for his country that his power of resistance was small. Just before he died, on June 26, 1796, he said to a friend who had been writing to him, "You make the way to God easier."

XXXVIII

THE HEADQUARTERS AT VALLEY FORGE,
PENNSYLVANIA

WHERE WASHINGTON LIVED DURING THE
WINTER OF 1777-78

A few rods from the beautiful Schuylkill River, at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, twenty-four miles from Philadelphia, is the quaint stone house where Washington spent nearly six months of the most trying year of the Revolution.

While the British troops were occupying Philadelphia Congress was in session at York, Pennsylvania. Valley Forge was accordingly a strategic location, for from here it was comparatively simple to guard the roads leading out of Philadelphia, and to prevent both the exit of the British and the entrance of supplies designed for the enemy.

The eleven thousand men who marched to the site selected for the camp were miserably equipped for a winter in the open. Provisions were scarce, and clothing and shoes were even more scarce. But the men looked forward bravely to the months of exposure before them.

Washington did everything possible to provide for their comfort. Realizing that the soldiers needed something more than the tents in which they were living at first, he gave orders that huts should be built for them. The commanding officers of the regiments were instructed to divide their soldiers into parties of twelve, to see that each party had the necessary tools, and to superintend the building of a hut for each group of twelve soldiers, according to carefully stated dimensions. A reward was offered to the party in each regiment which should complete its hut in the quickest and best manner. Since valuable time would be lost in preparing boards for the roofs, he promised a second sword to the officer or soldier who should devise a material for this purpose cheaper and more quickly made than boards.

Some of the first huts were covered with leaves, but it was necessary to provide a more lasting covering. After a few weeks fairly acceptable quarters were provided for the men, in spite of the scarcity of tools. Colonel Pickering, on January 5, wrote to Mrs. Pickering, "The huts are very warm and comfortable, being very good log huts, pointed with clay, and the roof made tight with the same."

At first, Washington sought to encourage his soldiers by assuring them that he would accept no better quarters than could be given them; he would set the example by passing the winter in a hut. But officers and men alike urged that it would be unwise to risk his health in this way, and he consented to seek quarters in a near-by house. However, he refused to make himself comfortable until the men were provided for.

His headquarters were finally fixed in the two-story stone house of Isaac Potts. There he met his officers, received visitors, planned for the welfare of the army, and parried the attacks of those who could not understand the difficulties of the situation. Once he wrote to Congress: "Three days successively we have been destitute of bread. Two days we have been entirely without meat. The men must be supplied, or they cannot be commanded."

To the objections of those who thought that the army should not be inactive during the winter weather, he wrote:

"I can assure these gentlemen, that it is a much easier and less distressing thing to draw remonstrances in a comfortable room by a good fireside, than to occupy a cold, bleak hill, and sleep under frost and snow, without clothes or blankets. However, although they seem to have little pity for the naked and distressed soldiers, I feel superabundantly for them, and, from my soul, I pity those miseries which it is neither in my power to relieve or prevent."

The heavy hearts of Washington and his officers rejoiced when, on February 23, 1778, Baron Steuben and Peter S. Du Ponceau called at headquarters. Du Ponceau wrote later:

"I cannot describe the impression that the first sight of that great man made upon me. I could not keep my eyes from that imposing countenance—grave, yet not severe; affable, without familiarity.... I have never seen a picture that represents him to me as I saw him at Valley Forge.... I had frequent opportunities of seeing him, as it was my duty to accompany the Baron when he dined with him, which was sometimes twice or thrice in the same week. We visited him also in the evening, when Mrs. Washington was at head-quarters. We were in a manner domesticated in the family."

An order was sent from headquarters, dated March 28, that Baron Steuben be respected and obeyed as Inspector General. The need of his services is revealed by his description of the condition of the army when he arrived in camp:

"The arms at Valley Forge were in a horrible condition, covered with rust, half of them without bayonets, many from which a single shot could not be fired. The pouches were quite as bad as the arms. A great many of the men had tin boxes instead of pouches, others had cow-horns; and muskets, carbines, fowling-pieces, and rifles were to be seen in the same company.... The men were literally naked.... The officers who had coats, had them of every color and make. I saw officers, at a grand parade in Valley Forge, mounting guard in a sort of dressing-gown, made of an old blanket or woolen bed-cover...."

Mrs. Washington joined the circle at headquarters on February 10. She was not favorably impressed. "The General's apartment is very small," she wrote. "He has had a log cabin built to dine in, which has made our quarters much more tolerable than they were at first."

The most joyful day at Valley Forge was May 7, 1778, when a fête was held to celebrate the conclusion of the treaty of alliance between France and the United States. After religious service, the army was reviewed, and Washington dined in public with his officers. "When the General took his leave, there was a universal clap, with loud huzzas, which continued till he had proceeded a quarter of a mile."

On June 18 the glad tidings came to headquarters that the British were evacuating Philadelphia. Next day the camp was left behind. Washington did not see it again for nine years.

In 1879 the Isaac Potts house was bought by the Continental Memorial Association of Valley Forge. And in 1893 the Pennsylvania Legislature created the Valley Forge Park Commission, which has since acquired the entire encampment, has laid it out as a park, and has arranged for the erection of many monuments and markers and a number of memorial structures. But the house in which Washington lived must always be the central feature of the grounds.

Pennypacker's Mills is delightfully situated in the angle formed by the union of the two forks of the Perkiomen, the largest tributary of the Schuylkill. Hans Joest Heijt, who built the grist mill and house on the land in 1720, sold the property in 1730 to John Pauling. He was succeeded in 1757 by Peter Pannebecker. His son Samuel was the owner of the house by the creek when, on September 26, 1777, Washington reached the Mills.

The orderly book of the following days and letters written from the house shed light on the events of the stay here.

On the day he reached the Mills, Washington wrote to William Henry at Lancaster:

"You are hereby authorized to impress all the Blankets, Shoes, Stockings, and other Articles of Clothing that can be spared by the Inhabitants of the County of Lancaster, for the Use of the Continental Army, paying for the same at reasonable Rates or giving Certificates."

The entry in the orderly book on September 28 read:

"The Commander-in-Chief has the happiness again to congratulate the army on the success of the Americans to the Northward. On the 19th inst. an engagement took place between General Burgoyne's army and the left wing of ours, under General Gates. The battle began at 10 o'clock, and lasted till night—our troops fighting with the greatest bravery, not giving an inch of ground.... To celebrate this success the General orders that at 4 o'clock this afternoon all the troops be paraded and served with a gill of rum per man, and that at the same time there be discharges of 13 pieces of artillery from the park."

On the same day there was a council of war. It was found that there were in camp, fit for duty, 5,472 men. The whole army in all the camps then contained about eight thousand Continental troops and three thousand militia.

Next day Washington wrote:

"I shall move the Army four or five miles lower down to-day from whence we may reconnoitre and fix upon a proper situation, at such distance from the Enemy, as will entitle us to make an attack, should we see a proper opening, or stand upon the defensive till we obtain further reinforcements...."

Later in the day the army marched to Skippack, within about twenty-five miles of Philadelphia. The next stage in the advance was Methacton Hill, and from there the army began to move, on October 3, at seven o'clock in the evening, to the attack on the British at Germantown.

After the battle of Germantown Washington wrote to the President of Congress:

"In the midst of the most promising appearances, when everything gave the most flattering hopes of victory, the troops began suddenly to retreat, and entirely left the field, in spite of every effort that could be made to rally them."

The Commander's marvellous ability to handle men was shown by the entry made in his orderly book the next day, when he was back at Pennypacker's Mills. Instead of reprimanding the soldiers for their strange retreat, he "returned thanks to the generals and other officers and men concerned in the attack on the enemy's left wing, for their spirit and bravery, shown in drawing the enemy from field to field, and although ... they finally retreated, they nevertheless see that the enemy is not proof against a vigorous attack, and may be put to flight when boldly pursued."

The good results of this message were evident from the letter of a soldier written from the Mills on October 6. He said:

"Our excellent General Washington ... intends soon to try another bout with them. All our men are in good spirits and I think grow fonder of fighting the more they have of it."

To the joy of the soldiers the word was given on October 8 to march toward Philadelphia. In three short stages the army arrived, on October 21, at Whitpain, where Washington took up his headquarters in the house of James Morris, Dawesfield. From here messages were sent that tied his men still closer to him. On October 24 he issued a proclamation of full pardon to deserters who should return before a specified date, and next day he congratulated the troops on the victory at Red Bank.

The chief event of the stay at Dawesfield was the court-martial convened October 30, to try Brigadier-General Wayne, at his own request, on the charge that his negligence was responsible for the defeat at Paoli, September 20. The verdict was that "he did everything that could be expected from an active, brave, and vigilant officer, under the orders he then had."

The house was modernized in 1854, but it still retains many of the original features. Among these is the moat at the side of the house.

Washington followed the example of the owner of the house by welcoming guests, in spite of the handicaps mentioned in the orderly book on November 7:

"Since ... the middle of September last, he [the General] has been without his baggage, and on that account is unable to receive company in the manner he could wish. He nevertheless desires the Generals, Field Officers and Brigadier-Major of the day, to dine with him in the future, at three o'clock in the afternoon."

It was from Emlen House that Washington gave the first intimation that he knew of the infamous attempts to discredit and displace him which later became known as the "Conway Cabal." To General Conway himself he wrote saying that he had heard of Conway's letter to General Gates in which he had said, "Heaven has been determined to save your country, or a weak General and bad counsellors would have ruined it."

A few glimpses of the awful condition of privation that were to prevail that winter at Valley Forge were given on November 22:

"The Commander-in-Chief offers a reward of ten dollars to any person, who shall, by nine o'clock on Monday morning, produce the best substitute for shoes, made of raw hide."

The movement to Valley Forge was begun on December 1. The army went by way of "Sweeds" Ford (Norristown), where, as the quaint diary of Albigence Waldo says:

"A Bridge of Waggons made across the Schuylkill last night consisted of 36 waggons, with a bridge of Rails between each. Sun Set—We are order'd to march over the River. The Army were 'till Sun Rise crossing the River—some at the Waggon Bridge, & some at the Raft Bridge below. Cold and Uncomfortable."

XL

SWEETBRIER-ON-THE-SCHUYLKILL,
PHILADELPHIA

THE HOME OF THE FATHER OF THE FREE SCHOOLS
OF PENNSYLVANIA

When Samuel Breck was fifty-eight years and six months old—on January 17, 1830—he wrote:

"My residence has been ... for more than thirty years ... on an estate belonging to me, situated on the right bank of the Schuylkill, in the township of Blockley, county of Philadelphia, and two miles from the western part of the city. The mansion on this estate I built in 1797. It is a fine stone house, rough cast, fifty-three feet long, thirty-eight broad, and three stories high, having out-buildings of every kind suitable for elegance and comfort. The prospect consists of the river, animated by its great trade, carried on in boats of about thirty tons, drawn by horses; of a beautiful sloping lawn, terminating at that river, now nearly four hundred yards wide opposite the portico; of side-screen woods; of gardens, green-house, etc. Sweetbrier is the name of my villa."

Mr. Breck spent his boyhood in Boston, but his parents removed to Philadelphia in 1792 to escape what they felt was an unjust system of taxation. During the first years of their residence in the city of William Penn it had "a large society of elegant and fashionable and stylish people," Mr. Breck said in his diary. "Congress held its sessions in Philadelphia until the year 1800, and gave to the city the style and tone of a capital. All the distinguished emigrants from France took up their abode there."

Among the associates of the Brecks were some of the leaders of the new nation. Samuel Breck was frequently at the Robert Morris house, and later, during the four years' imprisonment of Mr. Morris, he "visited that great man in the Prune Street debtors' apartment, and saw him in his ugly whitewashed vault."

The diarist's comment was bitter: "In Rome or Greece a thousand statesmen would have honored his mighty services. In a monarchy ... he would have been appropriately pensioned; in America, Republican America, not a single voice was raised in Congress or elsewhere in aid of him or his family."

There is not a more striking passage in the diaries than that written on August 27, 1814, during the second war with England:

"I was in town to-day ... at half past twelve o'clock I went with an immense crowd to the post-office to hear the news from the South. The postmaster read it to us from a chamber window. It imported that the navy-yard had been burnt (valued at from six to eight millions of dollars) including the new frigate Essex, sloop-of-war Argus, some old frigates, a vast quantity of timber, from five to eight hundred large guns, and many manufactories of cordage, etc., by our people; that the President's House, Capitol, and other important buildings had been destroyed, and all this by a handful of men, say, six thousand!"

The diary told also of some interesting experiences at the mansion on the Schuylkill. In 1807 "a newly invented iron grate calculated for coal" was installed at Sweetbrier. After less than three weeks' trial Mr. Breck wrote, "By my experiment in coal fuel I find that one fireplace will burn from three to three and a half bushels per week in hard weather and about two and a half in moderate weather. This averages three bushels for twenty-five weeks, the period of burning fire in parlors." The coal cost forty-five cents a bushel, and Mr. Breck decided that wood was a cheaper fuel.

Even in those early days city families had their troubles with servants. "This is a crying evil, which most families feel very sensibly at present," was Mr. Breck's sorrowful statement. Fifteen years after this entry was written, a bitter complaint was made:

"In my family, consisting of nine or ten persons, the greatest abundance is provided; commonly seventy pounds of fresh butcher's meat, poultry and fish a week, and when I have company nearly twice as much; the best and kindest treatment is given to the servants; they are seldom visited by Mrs. Breck, and then always in a spirit of courtesy; their wages are the highest going, and uniformly paid to them when asked for; yet during the last twelve months we have had seven different cooks and five different waiters.... I pay, for instance, to my cook one dollar and fifty cents, and chambermaid one dollar and twenty-five cents per week; to my gardener eleven dollars per month; to the waiter ten dollars; to the farm servant ten dollars, etc., etc. Now, if they remain steady (with meat three times a day) for three or four years, they can lay by enough to purchase two or three hundred acres of new land."

On one occasion, learning that the ship John had arrived from Amsterdam, Mr. Breck visited it in search of men and women. He wrote:

"I saw the remains of a very fine cargo, consisting of healthy, good-looking men, women and children, and I purchased one German Swiss for Mrs. Ross and two French Swiss for myself.... I gave for the woman seventy-six dollars, which is her passage money, with a promise of twenty dollars at the end of three years, if she serves me faithfully, clothing and maintenance of course. The boy had paid twenty-six guilders towards his passage money, which I have agreed to give him at the end of three years; in addition to which I paid fifty-three dollars and sixty cents for his passage, and for two years he is to have six weeks' schooling each year."

It was like Mr. Breck to make the provision for schooling. He was an ardent friend of education in an age when too many were indifferent. In 1834, when the fortunes of a proposal for free schools in Pennsylvania were in doubt, he consented to become a member of the State Senate. There he bent every effort to secure the passage of a generous provision for common schools. On the first day of the session he moved successfully for the appointment of a Joint Committee on Education of the two Houses, "for the purpose of digesting a general system of education." Of this committee he was made chairman.

After seven weeks of unremitting labor the bill incorporating the committee's report, a bill drafted by Mr. Breck, was introduced. In six weeks more it became a law, four votes only having been cast against it. Wickersham, in his "History of Education in Pennsylvania," says that the passage of the bill was "the most important event connected with education in Pennsylvania—the first great victory for free schools."

At the close of the session the author of the bill retired to Sweetbrier, in accordance with his intention to decline any further public honors. He felt that his work for the State and the Nation was done.

About two hundred years ago, there lived in France a poor fisherman named Audubon, who had nineteen daughters and two sons. One of the sons was sent away to make his fortune when he was twelve years of age. His entire patrimony was a shirt, a suit of clothes, a cane, and a blessing. For five years he was a sailor before the mast. Then he bought a boat. He prospered and bought other vessels. After many years he had large wealth, and was trading to the distant quarters of the earth.

When he was an old man he paid a visit to America. In two widely separated places, attracted by the country, he bought land. One estate was on Perkiomen Creek, near Philadelphia; the other was in Louisiana. In Louisiana he spent much of his time; and there, on May 4, 1780,[2] his son, John James Audubon, was born.

Commodore Audubon wanted his son to be a seaman, and he took him to France that he might be educated for the navy. But the boy's tastes were in another direction altogether. One of the teachers provided for him was an artist, who gave him lessons in drawing that were intended as a part of his training for the profession the father had chosen for him. But the boy put it to a use of his own. On his holidays he used to take a lunch into the country, and would return loaded down with all kinds of natural history specimens. These he would preserve in a cabinet of his own devising, and drawings of many of them would be made and treasured.

Commodore Audubon was not pleased with his son's habits, and he thought he would give him something to do that would distract his mind. The estate in Pennsylvania needed a superintendent. So he sent the would-be naturalist to America, with instructions to look after the estate.

But the wild woods about Philadelphia offered so many opportunities for tramping and nature investigation that the estate was neglected. The house on the estate, Mill Grove, which is still standing, is near the mouth of the Perkiomen. Along this pleasing stream he could ramble for hours, with his gun or his fishing rod or his collecting instruments. Before long the attic room which he occupied was a treasure house of birds and animals and natural-history specimens. He was his own taxidermist. He would do his work seated at a window that looks toward the Valley Forge country, where Washington spent the winter of 1777-78 with his faithful soldiers. The marks of his work are still to be seen on the old boards beneath the window. These boards came from the sawmill on the estate which gave the house its name.

Here in this attic room the young naturalist dreamed of making careful, accurate drawings of all the birds of America. He knew that this would be a difficult matter, but he was not deterred by thought of hardship and poverty.

While he was dreaming of what he would do for the world, something was happening in London that was to have an effect on his life. An official named Bakewell refused to be silent about a matter that the king felt should be forgotten. Bakewell was a conscientious man, and he did not feel that silence would be proper. The king rebuked him, and he resigned his office. At once he made up his mind to leave England and make a home in America, taking with him his wife and daughter.

After many investigations, he found an estate near Philadelphia that pleased him—Fatlands, on the Schuylkill, near the Perkiomen, so named because every year the latter stream overflows and deposits rich sediment on the surrounding lands. The mansion house at Fatlands was built in 1774, and there Washington as well as the British commander had been entertained by the Quaker owner who felt that he could not show partiality. Here the English immigrant made his home.

Of course Audubon heard of the coming of the strangers to the house across the road, not half a mile from his own quarters. But he did not go to call on them. He was French and they were English; he felt sure they would be undesirable acquaintances, and that he had better keep to the woods and follow his own pursuits, without reference to others.

Then came a day when he was having a delightful stroll through the woods. He was carrying specimens of many kinds. A stranger, also a hunter, encountered him and made a remark about his burden that touched a responsive chord. Soon the two were on good terms. "You must come and see me," the stranger said. The invitation was accepted with alacrity. Then came the question, "Where do you live?" To his surprise, Audubon heard that this pleasing man was his new neighbor at Fatlands.

Deciding that an Englishman was not so bad, after all, he made it convenient to call very soon. Then when he saw Mary Bakewell, the daughter of the house, he was sure he liked the English. She showed great sympathy for his pursuits, and he liked to talk with her about them. Before long she decided to help him in his great life work, the American ornithology.

The marriage was postponed because of the death of Mrs. Bakewell, who pined away, homesick for her native England. But the time came when, on April 8, 1808, the two nature lovers became husband and wife. Then they began the long wanderings in the West and the South, the fruit of which was what has been called one of the most wonderful ornithological treatises ever made, Audubon's "Birds of America."

Mr. and Mrs. Audubon floated down the Ohio River, spent a season in Kentucky and Missouri, had narrow escapes from the Indians, and finally found their way to Louisiana. There for a time the wife supported herself by teaching at the home of a planter. Friends and acquaintances thought the husband was a madman to continue his quest of birds when his family was in straitened circumstances. But Mrs. Audubon believed in him, urged him to go to Europe and study painting in oils, that he might be better equipped for the preparation of his bird plates. She secured a good situation as teacher at Bayou Sara, and was soon enjoying an income of three thousand dollars a year.

Finally, with some of his own savings, as well as some of his wife's funds, he went to England, where he was well received. Plans were made to publish the bird plates, with descriptive matter, at one thousand dollars per set. He had to have one hundred advance subscribers. These he secured by personal solicitation.

At last the work was issued. Cuvier called it "the most magnificent work that art ever raised to ornithology."

Many years later, Audubon, after the death of his wife, returned to the scenes of his early life as a naturalist. "Here is where I met my dear Mary," he said, with glistening eyes, as he looked into one of the rooms of the old mansion.

Mill Grove was built in 1762. Five years after Audubon's marriage the estate was bought by Samuel Wetherill, the grandfather of the present owner, W. H. Wetherill.

Fatlands, which is one of the most beautiful old houses in the vicinity of Philadelphia, was built in 1774. During the Revolution it was occupied by a Quaker named Vaux, who entertained many officers of both armies. It is related that one day General Howe, the British commander, was entertained at breakfast, while Washington was in the house for tea the same evening.

The house was rebuilt in 1843, on the old foundations, according to the original plan.

His son Isaac, who was a captain in the French and Indian War, enlarged the mansion in 1765. While a wing was added in 1812, it presents much the same appearance to-day as it did at the time Anthony Wayne left it to go to war with General Washington, even to the crooked hood above the entrance door. The present owner, William Wayne, is as unwilling as were his ancestors to have this hood straightened.

On the front of the house is a tablet which reads:

The Home of General Anthony Wayne,
Born in this House, January 1, 1745.
Died at Erie, Pennsylvania, December 15, 1796.
A Leader of the American Revolution in
Pennsylvania and a soldier distinguished
for his
Services at Brandywine, Germantown,
Valley Forge,
Monmouth, Stony Point, and Yorktown.
Subdued the Indians of Ohio, 1794.
Commander-in-Chief of the
United States Army 1792-1796.
Marked by the Chester County Historical
Society.

To this record the statement might have been added that General Lafayette visited the home of his old commander when he was in the United States in 1824. Reverently the General bowed his head in Wayne's favorite sitting-room, to the right of the entrance hall, where nothing had been disturbed since the death of the patriot. The furnishings and ornaments of the room are the same to-day as then.

Anthony Wayne was a delegate to several of the conventions which took the preliminary steps leading to the Revolutionary War. In 1775 he was a member of the Committee of Safety, and in the same year he organized a regiment of "minute men" in Chester County.

His first active service was as colonel with troops sent to Canada in January, 1776, and from November, 1776, to April, 1777, as commander of twenty-five hundred men at Ticonderoga. "It was my business to prevent a junction of the enemy's armies and ... to keep at bay their whole Canadian force," he wrote in a private letter.

Here, in the midst of difficulties with soldiers who wanted to desert, he heard that the British were threatening Waynesborough. But, like a true soldier, he stuck to his work, and urged his wife to be brave. "Should you be necessitated to leave East-town, I doubt not but you'll meet with hospitality in the back parts of the Province," he wrote to her.

His fidelity and resourcefulness were recognized in February, 1777, by a commission as brigadier general. Washington, who was then in New Jersey, wrote to him a little later, saying that his presence with him was "materially needed," to guard the country between West Point and Philadelphia. And when the British fleet sailed out of New York Harbor, Washington sent him to Chester, to organize the militia of Pennsylvania. A few weeks later he was in charge of a division at Brandywine. Historians say that his steadfastness on the left prevented the advance of Knyphausen, and saved the right from entire destruction.

Less than a week later, within a mile of his own house, he was surprised by the enemy near Paoli, in consequence, it is said, of the act of an inn-keeper who betrayed Wayne's presence to the British. The result was the only defeat of his brilliant career. Eighty of his men were killed. The engagement has been called "the Paoli Massacre," because of the conduct of the victors. Wayne escaped. A squad of soldiers searched for him at Waynesborough. When they could not find him in the house, they thrust their bayonets into the great boxwood bush that is still to be seen in the rear of the mansion.

Because some said that the General was responsible for the defeat, he demanded a court-martial. The court-martial was held soon after, and he was acquitted with the highest honor, and was declared to be "an active, brave, and vigilant officer."

Washington's letters and orderly book are full of references to Wayne. He was a trusted commander, and his advice was followed many times. He it was who first proposed that the army should "hut" during the winter of 1776-77, some twenty miles from Philadelphia. He was always eager to do his Commander's bidding. On one occasion, when he was in Philadelphia, on his way to greet his family, he was met by a fast rider who handed him a despatch in which Washington said, "I request that you join the army as soon as you can."

During his long absence from Waynesborough his wife Polly and his children were continually in his thoughts. Once he wrote:

"I am not a little anxious about the education of our girl and boy. It is full time that Peggy should be put to dancing school. How does she improve in her writing and reading? Does Isaac take learning freely? Has he become fond of school?"

Just before the storming of Stony Point, he prepared for death, sending to a friend a letter which was not to be opened until the author was dead. The letter said:

"I know that your friendship will induce you to attend to the education of my little son and daughter. I fear that their mother will not survive this stroke. Do go to her."

On the way up the mount he was grievously wounded and fell senseless. Soon he roused himself and cried, "Lead me forward.... Let me die in the fort." Several hours later he was able to send word to Washington, "The fort and garrison are ours."

In this spirit he served through the war. And when the action was won he continued to fight for his country. On February 6, 1796, Claypool's Daily American Advertiser told of his return from his successful campaign against the Indians of Ohio:

"Four miles from the city, he was met by the entire Troop of Philadelphia Light Horse, and escorted by them to town. On his crossing the Schuylkill, a salute of fifteen guns was fired from the Centre-square, by a party of Artillery. He was ushered into the city by the ringing of bells and other demonstrations of joy."