Katharine Pyle

“ Men and horses huddled together, trying to get some warmth from each other. The bitter wind whistled past their ears, and the sleet cut their faces.
On the Trenton side the troops were landed, and then began a seven miles tramp through the snow. The men struggled through the drifts, blinded by the sleet. Their hands were almost frozen to their muskets.
As they drew near the British encampment they were halted for a rest. They stood there in the snow, panting and leaning on their muskets. They could hear, through the snowy air, the ringing of the bells, and the shouts of the British soldiers. ”

“ In the lead came a vessel of eighteen guns, her sails spread wide to the light breeze, the flag of Holland floating from her masthead. Following her was a smaller yacht named the Walrus. Over the sides of these vessels leaned the sailors [7] and the colonists, blue eyed and fair haired, dressed in cloth suits and glittering buttons.
These immigrants gazed with wonder at the strange natives gathered on the shore—at their painted faces and feathers; and they saw with joy the beauty of this new land. ”

“ WAR had begun,—war between the United Colonies of America, with their small, poorly armed forces, and England, the richest and most powerful country in the world.
From all the thirteen colonies of America, regiments marched away to join General Washington and the little army he had already gathered together.
Delaware sent her regiment with the rest. It was under the command of Colonel John Haslet. [1] Men had come from all over the state to enlist in it. They carried whatever weapons they could get,—rifles, carbines, muskets or fowling pieces. ”

“ This was Lord Baltimore. In 1632, the King had given him a grant not only of Maryland, but of what is now Delaware, as well. The grant was given on the word of Lord Baltimore, that no Christian people had ever settled on the peninsula. But, as we know, about one year before that DeVries had landed at Zwannendael, had bought the land there and had started his little settlement. Probably Lord Baltimore knew nothing of this. Whether he knew or not, the King was very angry when he found what a mistake had been made, and that the Dutch had made a settlement in Delaware years before. ”

“ When the Indians were quite close to the settlers, their friendly look suddenly turned to one of ferocity and hate. Weapons were flourished, they burst into their terrible war cry and fell upon the defenseless colonists. So thorough was their work that, when it was ended, not one white man was left alive to tell the tale of the terrible massacre of Zwannendael. ”

“ They had driven many of the Dutch away, had torn down their buildings, and had kept them from trading with the Indians. Every little while news of fresh wrongs to the Dutch was brought from Delaware to Governor Stuyvesant; and every time a letter or messenger arrived, the Governor had a fresh fit of rage. He believed that the Dutch were the real owners of the river; and, if he could, he would have gathered his soldiers together and sailed down to New [36] Sweden, and have done his best to drive every Swede out of the country. ”

“ Some are big and some are little. One is almost square. One is shaped like a boot.
Delaware, has two boundaries, one on the west and one on the south, that are perfectly straight. On the east the boundary follows the line of the Delaware River and bay. The northern line of the State is an arc, or part of a circle. If you put a pin through the little dot on the map that is marked “New Castle,” and tie a thread to it and measure, you will find how perfect this arc of the circle is, and you will also find that New Castle is the centre of the circle. ”

“ 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 [52] troublesome at times, but the settlers had their block-houses or forts to retreat to and were generally able to protect themselves. ”

“ But that was long before the American colonies went to war with England, and in Revolutionary times it was not pirates that Lewes was afraid of, but English warships.
From Delaware Bay the Delaware River lies, wide and open, all the way to Philadelphia. An enemy’s ship that entered the bay could easily sail on up the bay and river, past New Castle, Wilmington and Chester,—and might bombard Philadelphia from the water-front. This was [78] what the Committee of Safety feared the British would do when the Revolutionary War began, so a guard was set at Henlopen light house. ”

“ 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.
[65]
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. ”

“ General Wayne was by this time a widower, and Mary Vining was no longer young. But though she was not young she was as beautiful, and witty and charming as ever.
She was almost forty when news came to her cousins in Dover that she was engaged to be married to General Wayne. At first they could not believe it. General Wayne was a brave soldier, he was handsome, generous and honest, but he had been brought up on a farm, and he had none of the elegance of the foreign officers, who had been her friends. ”

“ Often an Indian warrior would glide out from the thickets, and stand watching their work, and then glide away again, silent as a shadow. The savages seemed friendly, and indeed some of them went with the white men as guides, but there was no knowing when they would turn against the white men. At one time, word was brought to Mason and Dixon that the Indians meant to attack their camp, and twenty-six of their workmen left, and made their way back to safety. ”

“ The natives watched with wonder the strange work of these colonists, and the square houses with doors and windows which they made, and which were so different from the round wigwams woven of boughs and barks.
Beside separate cabins the settlers built themselves a general house to serve as defense in time of need. They called it Fort Uplandt; but DeVries placed such extraordinary confidence in the Indians that the so-called fort was only a house, larger and stronger than the cabins, and surrounded by a high fence. ”

“ 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 ”

“ There the Director-General made one effort to protect the Dutch rights. He tried to hold the fort, but even the townspeople were against him. He was soon forced to yield, and the English soldiers marched in and took possession. English soldiers filled the fort; English farmers tilled the ground; Englishmen made the laws and settled quarrels, and then, during the time when their government was being established, the great tract of land north of the Delaware Province was made over to William Penn, and a little later the Provinces on the Delaware were sold to him, too. ”

“ Rich cargoes of furs and tobacco were now sent back to Sweden. The Dutch were in despair. They saw all the Indian trade being taken out of their hands; but Sweden was too powerful both at home and abroad for them to dare to interfere with her, and from this time until Stuyvesant came out to be Governor of the New Netherlands the Swedes ruled supreme along the Delaware. ”

“ Haslet has well been called the father of the first Delaware regiment. He raised it before the Declaration of Independence was declared, and drilled it himself, taking the greatest pride in it. He was a native of Ireland, but at the time of the Revolutionary War was living at Dover, where his remains now lie.
[2] Haslet’s regiment, as will be hereafter seen, remained in the army only up to the battle of Princeton.
Patterson’s was a part of the “Flying Camp,” a body of men called out for temporary duty................... The regiment of Hall was the only Continental one we furnished. ”

“ All the chiefs and braves were gathered there, old and young. They ate and drank. Then Mattahoon spoke to them. He asked them whether it would not be better to kill all the Swedes. He said:
“The Swedes live here upon our land, they have many forts and houses, but they have no goods to sell us. We find nothing in their stores that we want. They have no cloth, red, blue, or brown. They have no kettles, no brass, no lead, no guns, no powder. But the English and [27] the Dutch have many things. Shall we kill all the Swedes or suffer them to remain?” ”

“ 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. ”

“ And so, in the massacre of Zwannendael, ended the first settlement ever made on Delaware soil.
Yet still the land had been possessed by the Dutch. It was not, any more, unclaimed land that belonged to any man that came along. When the King of England gave away all the land along that part of the coast to Lord Baltimore, only three years later, he could not give this land of Delaware, because it had already been settled by DeVries for Holland. Our state began when the Dutch colonists first stepped ashore on Paradise Point. ”

“ So ended the terrible battle of Camden. After it was over, many of the Americans hid themselves in the swamps and woods for a time. The few Delaware soldiers who were left joined the Virginia regiment. They fought with them through the rest of the war, and when peace was declared Virginia offered to each of them one hundred acres of ground if they would settle there. However, they preferred to return to their own state and people. ”

“ It was the battle in which the Delaware regiment proved themselves bravest, and the last in which they were to fight as a separate regiment.
Cornwallis had determined to attack our forces early in the morning of the fifteenth.
All that night the two armies lay opposite to each other, waiting for the daylight. The American forces had more men than the British, but many of them were raw recruits, and many were deserters. Cornwallis’s men were in good condition, and were almost all veteran fighters. ”

“ She never felt the least fear of the Frenchman. She would run to meet him, holding up her little bare dimpled arms for him to take her. Then Lafayette would swing her up on his shoulder, and march with her through the house. He called her “his little sweetheart.”
But one morning Lafayette and the other officers said good-bye, and went down to the ferry for the last time. His “little sweetheart” never saw him again. He had gone with Washington and his army to meet the British [143] further north, and to fight in the battle of Brandywine. ”

“ But one bright, clear Sunday morning in April, word was brought to Colonel Haslet that an American [79] schooner had anchored just off the shore below Cape Henlopen. The captain wished him to send men to help unload her. She carried supplies for the Americans.
Unluckily, news of the schooner reached the British, too, and at the same time that Haslet’s men started by land to help the captain unload, the British tender started by sea.
The Americans made all the haste they could, but they were obliged to cross a creek before they could reach the place where the schooner lay. ”

“ 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. [4]
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. ”

“ They set sail for the bay of Tripoli, in a ketch, (a sort of small merchant vessel) which they named “Intrepid.” Almost all the Americans [130] hid down in the lower part of the ketch. Only a few stayed on deck. Those on deck darkened their faces, and dressed themselves as Maltese sailors, with red fezzes and round jackets. The inside of the ketch was filled with powder and everything else necessary for blowing up the “Philadelphia,” if they could only get to her.
Boldly the little ketch with these brave men on board sailed into the enemy’s harbor. ”

“ He believed that if the natives were treated fairly and kindly there would be no trouble with them.
We do not know how the bargain was made between the Indians and the white men, whether by signs or whether through an interpreter sent down from the New Netherlands (New York) which had been settled some time before. But we are told in the old documents that this first tract of land, thirty-two miles along the bay and river from Cape Henlopen, was sold by the Indians for “certain parcels of cargoes,” probably kettles, cloth, beads and ornaments. ”

“ With these presents the savages were delighted; and they signed a paper with their marks, giving to the Swedes all the land from Cape Henlopen to Santican, or what is now called the Falls of Trenton. When the Dutch heard this, they were indignant for they claimed that all that land had already been sold to them.
Reorus Torkillus, the Swedish minister for the little settlement, did what he could to keep peace with both the Dutch and the Indians. He was an earnest, pious man, and his great hope was that he might convert the savages to Christianity. He regularly held Divine service in the fort. ”