Easton, Pennsylvania

“ This second Easton council determined upon a general peace and Tedyuskung promised to see that their white prisoners were all returned. He then went to Fort Allen, where he and his warriors had a drunken frolic. Conrad Weiser says of him at this time: “Though he is a drunkard and a very irregular man, yet he is a man that can think well, and I believe him to be sincere in what he said.” ”

“ But, in view of what we encountered later in our trip, I look back on the Pennsylvania roads as one of the high spots and pleasures, never to be undervalued.
From Easton we drove in the rain to Harrisburg. The scenery was beautiful. The Blue Ridge and the Alleghany Mountains loomed up in the haze like great cathedrals; but as long as the road was wide and comparatively smooth we enjoyed the ups and downs. Our engine told us that we were gradually ascending;9 the mist would be wafted off by a mountain breeze, and then a gorgeous panorama stretched before us as far as the eye could see. ”

“ Such was the situation when the great council was called at Easton, July, 1756, at which Tedyuskung appeared as the champion of the Delaware. Governor Morris opened the council with a speech, in which he warmly welcomed the chief. Tedyuskung replied: “The Delaware 273are no longer the slaves of the Six Nations. I, Tedyuskung, have been appointed King over the Five United Nations. What I do here will be approved by all. This is a good day. I wish the same good that possessed the good old man, William Penn, who was a friend of the Indian, may inspire the people of the Province at this time.” ”

“ At the following session the canals authorized were to be extended farther up the Susquehanna, the Juniata, and up the valley of the Kiskiminetas and the Conemaugh, another between Bristol and Easton and others of lesser importance.
In 1826 Governor Shulze was renominated and received within 1000 of all the votes cast for Governor. This was the nearest to a unanimous election ever known in Pennsylvania, and was an evidence of the confidence the people had in him, his fine character and intelligence. ”

“ The public money of Pennsylvania was sent to Easton, the Liberty Bell and church bells at Philadelphia were sent to Bethlehem and Allentown, the Market Street bridge was removed and the boats at the ferries of the Schuylkill brought to the city side.
Washington advanced to the Lancaster road, and Howe and Cornwallis left the vicinity of Chester and marched toward the road through what is now West Chester and by Goshen Meeting, and the Sign of the Boot Inn, which General Howe occupied and made his headquarters. ”

“ The greatest corporation in Pennsylvania is the railroad system which so gloriously carries the name of the Keystone State into every part of the Western Hemisphere.
235 Great Indian Council Opened at Harris’ Ferry, April 1, 1757
September 10, 1756, Governor Denny ordered a suspension of hostilities against the Indians on the east side of the Susquehanna. A month later Major Parsons wrote from Easton that nine Indian men and one Indian woman with four white prisoners had arrived at Easton. ”

“ Easton is upon the right bank of the Delaware, at its confluence with the Lehigh River, thirty-seven miles northwest from Somerville. Arriving there after dark, and departing the next morning before daylight, I had no opportunity to view it. It is said to be a place of much business, and inhabited by a well-educated, social, and highly moral population, and is in the midst of natural scenery singularly picturesque. It has but little Revolutionary history, and that relates chiefly to contests with the Indians. ”

“ Through William Penn’s liberal policy to early settlers, and later being the seat of government of the United States, many national institutions were originated here, and many more historical buildings are here than in any other city in America. It comprises the whole of Philadelphia County, and has a distinctive character of its own, reminiscent of the old Quaker life, which is given in this book in two Colonial Walks; the Revolutionary Period is given in automobile routes, framed on Washington’s itinerary ”

“ County seat, Lebanon, population 24,643, on the William Penn Highway; settled in 1750. Streets run north and south, east and west. Courthouse, at the corner of Eighth and Cumberland Streets, colonial, brick. United States post office, classic, with Doric columns. A historic inn, the St. Eitz, built in 1752, was occupied by George Washington. Hill Church, colonial, brick; in the yard is a monument to Rev. John Casper Stoever, first Lutheran minister in Lebanon County, in 1733. ”

“ When the United States were yet very young, in fact, before the Federal Constitution was even proposed, before Washington was elected president, when the small cluster of log huts, protected by a stockade called Fort Pitt, was all that constituted Pittsburgh, is the time this old newspaper began its long and honorable career. ”

“ Probably the first white man to cross the county was David Zeisberger, who passed down the Allegheny River to mouth of the Tionesta, Forest County, in 1767; his journal, now on file in the Moravian Library at Bethlehem, tells of the wild beauty of the county. Farming and stock raising are gaining, but the main industry is still lumbering, with second growth of hardwoods, maple, beech, and birch, which will in time be a great nucleus of wealth. ”

“ At Easton we take a day or two to drive about the open country and see the charming country estates, the houses standing on the shores of creeks and inlets, and having the double charm of the country and the sea, just as they do in Tidewater Virginia. ”

“ Philadelphia lost power as New York City gained it. Though the counties tributary to Philadelphia constituted the old center of population and political power, the significant fact of growth in Pennsylvania was the increasing importance of Pittsburgh at the gateway to the Ohio Valley. In the Great Valley beyond the Blue Ridge lived the descendants of those early Germans and Scotch- Irishmen who early occupied the broad and level fields of this fertile zone, the granary of Pennsylvania. ”

“ The attention of the Legislature having been called to the neglected and suffering condition of the insane poor of the State, in 1844, there was provision made for the establishment of an asylum to be located within ten miles of the seat of Government. The citizens of Harrisburg, with the aid of a liberal appropriation by Dauphin County, purchased a farm adjoining that city, and in 1848, the commissioners appointed by the State began the construction of the first building erected by the Commonwealth for the reception and care of the indigent insane. ”

“ Earliest settlers Scotch-Irish, later Germans. Chief industry agriculture, the land east is limestone and very fertile; west, slate lands prevail, abounding in pure streams and rich meadows; the Conococheague and Conodoquinet Creeks drain the central part of the county, they are crossed by many stone arch bridges of graceful architecture, the most notable is at Hiester’s Mill, three arches. ”

“ Is the center of one of the richest bituminous coal and natural gas districts in the world. Oil fields lie mainly in basins of Allegheny and Ohio Rivers. Staple manufactures are iron, steel and glass. The history of Allegheny County presents a greater variety of startling incidents than almost any other portion of the state. Mound builders were primeval inhabitants, site of ancient fortifications are on Chartier’s Creek, eight miles from Pittsburgh, county seat, second city in size in the state, on site of Shannopin’s Town, chief of about twenty families of Delawares ”

“ The two towns literally 224 hang upon the hillsides, Mount Parnassus looking down upon Phillipsburg, named after the old chief Phillip, who had the original village there, while Easton is compressed between the South Mountain and the long ridge of Chestnut Hill, rising seven hundred feet, where the Paxinosa Inn recalls the sturdy Paxanose, the last of the Shawnee kings who lived east of the Alleghenies. Through these towns and across the bridges spanning the Delaware roll constant processions of coal trains bringing the anthracite out from the Lehigh and Wyoming coal-fields to market. ”

“ Erie, county seat, population 93,372, on site of Presque Isle Fort, built by the Marquis Du Quesne in 1753; one of the chain of thirteen French forts extending from Quebec to Fort Du Quesne; is 35 feet above the lake, 573 feet above sea level. Surveyed by Andrew Ellicott, in 1795, first Surveyor General of the United States, three public parks of five acres each were in the original plan, along Sixth street, one mile apart. ”

“ Jacob Eisenhower, was a minister in the sect.
We, who live in Lancaster County, respect these plain folks most profoundly. They are our neighbors and we find them good neighbors. They have made a contribution to our agriculture, greater than their numbers warrant, to make our county the richest non-irrigated agricultural county in America. ”

“ The deadly disease swept away whole families. Eleven persons died in one house within a day.
Philadelphia with 50,000 population in 1792 was then not only the largest and busiest city of the Nation but its seat of government. The Congress moved from the city to Germantown; President George Washington and the members of his Cabinet and their families departed the city, and every person who could afford it followed their example. ”

“ The settlers flocked into this new region from two directions. The Scots from the Cumberland Valley and other settled posts of the Province made their way westward along the Forbes military road and planted their cabins along its course. These men were loyal Pennsylvanians, and they held their lands under the Provincial Government. Other Scots came from the South, principally from the Old Dominion; they crossed the mountains by the Braddock road and occupied the fertile lands along the Monongahela and Youghiogheny Rivers and Chartiers Creek. ”

“ The reason of this was, all the accounts of the country north and west of the rivers, Ohio, Allegheny, and the Connewango Creek, represented it as dangerous to go into the country. In the latter part of said year I received three hundred and ninety warrants, the property of the Penn Population company for land situated in the Triangle and entered the same year in my book of entries. In 1793 I made an attempt to go; went to the mouth of Buffalo Creek to inquire of the Indians there whether they would permit me to go into my district to make surveys. ”

“ The territory thus acquired included a part of the present Bradford, Tioga, Clinton, Center, Clearfield, Indiana, Armstrong, Allegheny and Beaver Counties, and all of the land within Crawford, Mercer, Lawrence, Butler, Venango, Clarion, Forest, Jefferson, Elk, Warren, McKean, Potter and Cameron Counties and all of Erie County, excepting the small portion of the Erie triangle which did not become a part of Erie County until 1792. ”

“ Now and then a respectable-looking negro would pass, turning out of the way, instead of jostling along.
"Truly," said Mr. Weston, "Pennsylvania Avenue is the great bazaar of America. Here are senators and members--three and four walking arm in arm. Here are gay young men, dressed in the latest style; here is the army and navy button; old people and young children with their nurses; foreigners and natives; people of every shade and hue. There is our President, walking unattended, as a republican president should walk. ”

“ Neither the city of Philadelphia nor any county shall be divided in forming a district.
Section 8 No person shall be a senator, who shall not have attained the age of twenty-five years, and have been a citizen and inhabitant of the State four years next before his election, and the last year thereof an inhabitant of the district for which he shall be chosen, unless he shall have been absent on the public business of the United States, or of this State. ”

“ Several years ago more than one thousand persons from every section of Pennsylvania, and not a few from Southern New York State, journeyed to a most out-of-the-way place up in the wilds of Potter County to do homage to the memory of a great man, and to view the scene of one of the saddest failures in the history of the settlement of our great Commonwealth. ”

“ Public spirit was more active in Pennsylvania than in New York. More roads and canals were building; a new turnpike ran from Philadelphia to Lancaster, and the great highway to Pittsburg was a more important artery of national life than was controlled by any other State. The exports of Pennsylvania amounted to $12,000,000, and the custom-house produced $1,350,000. The State contained six hundred thousand inhabitants—a population somewhat larger than that of New York. ”

“ The Church of England people formed a curious and decidedly hostile element in the early population of Pennsylvania. They established themselves in Philadelphia in the beginning and rapidly grew into a political party which, while it cannot be called very strong in numbers, was important in ability and influence. After Penn's death, his sons joined the Church of England, and the Churchmen in the province became still stronger. ”

“ R. Ellery, Esq., of New Orleans, in which he said: “You will certainly be greatly amused to converse with a man who has passed the whole winter in this city—who has had free intercourse [pg 204] with the officers of Govt. & members of Congress—who has discernment to see beyond the surface, and frankness and independence enough to speak his own sentiments.” Easton did not, however, go to New Orleans. He stopped for a short time at Vincennes and then located at St. Louis. He was appointed by Jefferson judge of the Territory of Louisiana and first postmaster of St. Louis. ”