Originally the "lower counties" of Pennsylvania, and thus one of three Quaker colonies founded by William Penn, Delaware has developed its own set of traditions and history.
Chester was an original county of Pennsylvania, one of the largest until Dauphin, Lancaster and Delaware counties were split off. Because the boundaries mainly did not follow rivers or other natural dividers, translating verbal boundaries into actual lines was highly contentious.
The Garden State really has two different states of mind. The state motto is Liberty and Prosperity. (www.Philadelphia-Reflections.com/topic/96.htm)
When the large meeting house at Fourth and Arch was built, many Quakers moved their houses to the area. At that time, "North of Market" implied the Quaker region of town.
After the Clinton Plan was dropped, and then after fifteen years of aftermath, public dissatisfaction with the health financing system is no better, probably worse. Here are some fresh ideas.
Grievances provoking the American Revolutionary War left many Philadelphians unprovoked. Loyalists often fled to Canada, especially Kingston, Ontario. Decades later the flow of dissidents reversed, Canadian anti-royalists taking refuge south of the border.
Millions of eye patients have been asked to read the passage from Franklin's autobiography, "I walked up Market Street, etc." which is commonly printed on eye-test cards. Here's your chance to do it.
In 1751, the Pennsylvania Hospital at 8th and Spruce was 'way out in the country. Now it is in the center of a city, but the area still remains dominated by medical institutions.
It's generally agreed, railroads failed to adjust their fixed capacity to changing demands. It's less certain Philadelphia was pulled down by that collapsing rail system.
.
.
Start in Philadelphia, take two days to tour around Delaware Bay. Down the New Jersey side to Cape May, ferry over to Lewes, tour up to Dover and New Castle, visit Winterthur, Longwood Gardens, Brandywine Battlefield and art museum, then back to Philadelphia. Try it!
Twenty-five German families made their way to the Harrisburg area by sailing up the Hudson, and then down the Susquehanna, years before other Germans got there by way of Philadelphia. The trip, re-traveled.
Mistaking Senate re-election of Harris Wofford to mean the country demanded reform of the medical system, newly-elected President Clinton announced he would create one. When stakeholders surmised he was making it up as he went along, they deserted him.
Bucks County once seemed destined to be the capital of Quaker America.
Ben Franklin called himself Poor Richard, and he also was invited to visit five kings. Was he rich, or poor?
The weather is a big business.
Moving your place of residence has many influences, but property taxes seem to have the biggest influence on business executives decision to move. By contrast, property prices have the biggest influence on the middle class.
We can't make people any younger, or stronger, or much healthier. But we certainly can replace some institutions for the elderly with a much more enjoyable -- and cheaper -- assisted living at home.
Lexington, Concord, and All That
|
| Captain Parker, minuteman |
American schoolchildren today, and maybe a majority of Americans even at that time, have found it bewildering that we declared independence fifteen months after the battles at Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill, well after George Washington besieged the British in Boston, or Benedict Arnold dragged the captured cannons of Ticonderoga over the mountains to save the day. Just who started our Revolution, and why; and for that matter, when, have been at issue for a long time.
|
| Adams and Jefferson |
John Adams and Thomas Jefferson exchanged hot correspondence for fifty years along these lines. Adams was miffed that Jefferson claimed all the credit for a defiant public resolution they both had a hand in writing, when real men in Boston had been getting shot and killed for Liberty years earlier, and Admiral Howe's fleet had even set sail for Staten Island long before that Declaration was printed. To which scolding, might well be added that Abraham Lincoln reached back to "all men are created equal" when he wanted to find Constitutional justification for what was only 3/5 true in 1787, and not true at all on Virginia plantations in 1776. And, of course, was a phrase not echoed in the Constitution. Yes, John Adams had a point, and Thomas Jefferson had other points. But weren't they both in Philadelphia at the same time, working on the same document? Jefferson and Adams were rather probably raking over the coals of the bitter 1800 election, where Jefferson turned Adams out of the White House, and Adams wouldn't even stay around for appearance sake to attend the inauguration of his successor. On another level, they were both likely thinking about the Constitution more than the Declaration of Independence, anyway. Jefferson never liked the Constitution, had been in France when it was written, and preferred to submerge its precedence to a level of temporary revisions to the Declaration of Independence, which stressed unalienable human rights rather than a strengthened central government. It seems unfortunately true that politicians were introducing what is now called "spin". To the extent debate was heated rather than analytical, it could easily become immaterial whether 1774 was before or after 1776.
|
| Samuel Adams |
New England eased into rebellion with the Crown without a great deal of documentation of serious grievances; they must mostly be supposed. The fact that resentments were wide-spread lends substance to the idea that subjects of a remote monarchy had grown a little presumptuous, just as unsupervised Governors dispatched to rule them may have strutted authority unwisely. Successive generations of native-born colonists can be expected to have decreasing allegiance to the mother country, particularly after the need for protection from the French subsided, but irritation at quartering British troops persisted. Mercantilism is not intended to be fair; when imposed on foreigners there is more danger of provoking war, when imposed on colonists, appeals to patriotism are mocked as self-serving. Unfortunately, Samuel Adams and John Hancock, the two main leaders of Massachusetts dissension, were not terribly clear about economics, and Hancock was definitely involved in some smuggling. Doctor Joseph Warren was more precise, but unfortunately died rather early. We assume competition in fishing off Newfoundland, and dominance in West Atlantic maritime trade seemed paramount to a region somewhat unsuited to agriculture. The English civil war left vivid memories of how quarrels could get out of hand. More than anything else, it would seem likely the British ministry decided to become more authoritarian, at a time when the colonists were drifting toward feeling more independent. They tested each other, and matters got out of hand.
|
| Williamburg |
The Old Dominion of Virginia had an established landed aristocracy, better able than in Massachusetts to say what the ruling class wanted, and what the state was going to do. Tobacco had started to wear out the Virginia soil, and people like Washington were anxious to acquire land in Ohio. This was blocked by a British prohibition of white men settling to the west of the Proclamation Line of 1763 along the Appalachian watershed, a separation intended to reduce friction with the Indians, concentrate English settlements along the seaboard for mercantile reasons, and direct further English immigration to Florida and Canada to hold back Catholic influences. The effect of the Proclamation on Virginians was varied, amounting at the least to feeling they might just as well have lost the French and Indian War. The southern colonies were not in competition with England on manufacturing, but as agricultural exporters, were in frequent conflict with English merchants and bankers. Power and wealth were concentrated in fewer hands in the South, so personalities played a larger role in pubic policy.
|
| Benjamin Franklin in the Cockpit |
The colonies were all growing rapidly, with a general sense that governance was getting cumbersome across a wide ocean. Benjamin Franklin was particularly ambitious for more level American versions of the United Kingdom, with Englishmen in the colonies of equal stature in Parliament and elsewhere. With skill, this could be the richest and most powerful nation on earth. As early as the Congress of Albany in 1754, Franklin was proposing a union of the colonies as a step toward full partnership with the British Isles in a transatlantic nation. He continued to pursue that sort of goal for twenty years. Variations of this idea were heard in Parliament. As a mechanism for riding the crest of the Industrial Revolution, this would have been a powerful arrangement for world domination, possibly but not necessarily including visions of world peace. In the Quaker colonies before 1774, Independence from England held little attraction, and merger with New England had less. After all, New England squabbles with Old England about Atlantic maritime trade brought attention to what most of it consisted of: rum and slaves. Philadelphia Quakers had rallied around John Woolman to see the evil of slavery, and had largely succeeded in abolishing it locally. And Philadelphia Quakers were well aware that Quaker Abraham Redwood of Newport, Rhode Island had devised the famous triangular trade of slaves, molasses and rum. Pressure had built up within Quakerism to expel Redwood when he refused to free his slaves, no matter that he was probably the largest philanthropist of the colonies. Before that, relations between the Puritans and Quakers had often been difficult. Quakers believed in freedom of religion for everybody; the Puritans hanged Quakers. The Congregationalists of Connecticut had actually invaded the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania, three different times, the last of which was when Washington's army was wintering in Valley Forge. Furthermore, if we must attribute everything to economics, there was no land hunger in Pennsylvania. The Penn family, almost exclusively devoted to selling land, owned thirty million acres; by the time of the Revolution, they had only sold five million. The Penn family got along just fine with the Monarchy. The grievances up in New England were not entirely clear. Perhaps the Puritans should learn how to settle their differences in a more peaceful, and effective, way.
|
| Admiral Howe's Fleet |
And then, Admiral Howe with a huge fleet of warships, and his brother General Howe with a huge army, appeared at the beaches of New Jersey. They had orders to impose disciplined governance on every one of the colonies, right away.
Quakerism and the Industrial Revolution
|
| Richard Arkwright |
The Industrial Revolution had a lot to do with manufacturing cotton cloth by religious dissenters in the neighborhood of Manchester, England in the Eighteenth Century. What needs more emphasis is the remarkable fact that Quakerism and the Industrial Revolution both originated about the same time, in about the same place. True, the industrializing transformation can be seen in England as early as 1650 and as late as 1880. The Industrial Revolution thus extended before Quakerism was even founded, as well as long after most Quakers had migrated to America. No Quaker names are much mentioned except perhaps for Barclay and Lloyd in banking and insurance, and Cadbury in candy. As far as local history in England's industrial midlands is concerned, the name mentioned most is Richard Arkwright, whose behavior, demeanor and beliefs were anything but Quaker.
It is instructive, however, to examine the nature of Arkwright's achievement.
|
| Karl Marx |
He seems to have invented nothing, stealing the patents and ideas of others freely, while disgustingly boasting about his rise from rags to riches. Some would say his skill was in organization, others would say he imposed an industrial dictatorship on a reluctant agricultural community. He grew rich by coercing orphans, convicts and others he obviously disdained into long, unpleasant, boring and unwelcome labor that largely benefited him, not them. In the course of his strivings he probably forced Communism to be invented. It is no accident that Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto while in Manchester visiting his friend Friedrich Engels, representing reasonably well the probable attitudes of Arkwright's employees. What Arkwright recognized and focused on was that enormous profits could flow from bringing piecework weaving into factories where machines could do most of the work. Until his time, clothing was mostly made by piecework at home, with middlemen bringing it all together. The trick was to make clothing cheaper by making a lot of it, and making a bigger profit from a lot of small profits. Since the main problem was that peasants intensely disliked indoor confinement around dangerous machines, the industrial revolution in the eyes of Arkwright and his ilk translated into devising ways to tame such semi-wild animals into submission. For their own good.
|
| Charles Babbage |
Distinctive among the numerous religious dissenters in the region, the Quakers taught that it was an enjoyable experience to sit indoors in quiet contemplation. Their children were taught to submit to it at an early age, and their elders frequently exclaimed that it was a blessing when everyone remained quiet, enjoying the silence. Out of the multitude of religious dissenters in the first half of the Seventeenth century, three main groups eventually emerged, the Quakers, the Presbyterians, and the Baptists. Only the Quakers taught that silence was productive and enjoyable; the Calvinist sects leaned toward the idea that sitting on hard English oak was good for the soul, training and discipline was what kept 'em in line.
|
| babbagemaq.jpg |
The Quaker idea of fun through day dreaming was peculiarly suitable for the other important feature of the Industrial Revolution that Arkwright and his type were too money-centered to perceive. If workers in a factory were accustomed to sit for hours, thinking about their situation, someone among them was bound to imagine some small improvement to make life more bearable. If such a person was encouraged by example to stand up and announce his insight, eventually the better insights would be adopted for the benefit of all. Two centuries later, the Japanese would call this process one of continuous quality improvement from within the Virtuous Circle. In other cultures, academics now win professional esteem by discovering "win-win behavior", which displaces the zero sum, or win/lose route to success. The novel insight here was that it has become demonstrably possible to prosper without diminishing the prosperity of others. In addition, it was particularly fortunate that many Quaker inhabitants of the Manchester region happened to be watch makers, or artisans of similar trades that easily evolved into the central facilitators of the new revolution -- becoming inventors, machine makers and engineers.
The power of this whole process was relentless, far from limited to cotton weaving. When Charles Babbage sufficiently contemplated the punched-cards carrying the simple instructions of the knitting machines, he made an intellectual leap to the underlying concept of the tabulating machine. Using what were later called IBM cards, he had the forerunner of the stored-program computer. There were plenty of Arkwrights getting rich in the meantime, and plenty of Marxists stirring up rebellion with the slogan that behind every great fortune is a great crime. But the quiet folk were steadily pushing ahead, relentlessly refining the industrial process through a belief in welcoming the suggestions of everyone.
Delaware County Travel Suggestions
The Ghost of William Penn: Gas Pains and Leisure Travel Suggestions
|
| Thomas Leiper Home |
Delco residents should gladly save gas and do their March Birthday saluting via short petrol trips to one, two, or three of the following: The mid 1600's Swede's Log Cabin, the Thomas Leiper Home ("Avondale"), and or the Delaware County Institute of Science. --- The cabin is at the end of Creek Road in Drexel Hill. Contact number: 610-237-8064 The "Institute" is within one hundred yards of the Media Court House. Contact: 610 566-5126 The Leiper Mansion is an easy find in Wallingford, follow signage. Contact: 610-566-6365"
"Readers may wonder how I chose the recommended three sites. In addition to being wonderful sites that ought to visited (and revisited), all are elite as 'portals.' My word use of "portals" comes with a second connotation: Yes, they are portals to the past. Each, too, however, claims a distinctive Delco doorway. Diversity shines well through them, each is telling of Delco." "The Drexel Hill Swedish log cabin holds claim to - an earliest settler form - rude doorway, of backwoods hard labor. Two: The Leiper doorway, by contrast, retains perennial honors – as "the most beautiful doorway in the county." Leiper wealth bought the custom made beauty. Three:The Delaware County Institute is unique for having a pair of entrance pocket doors; which in the way of two welcoming arms –greets all who enter with glad fond feeling. In the county they are unique."
|
| Delaware County Institute of Science |
Quaker sensible I start with the 1833-founded Delaware County Institute of Science. Quaker founder, bee-busy Dr. George Smith, (1804-1882) carved out time to be first county historian. The amazing good doctor was father of Abraham Lewis Smith, first president of the Delaware County Historical Society, founded in 1895." – "What is the connection?"
"This: Sixty-three years before the start of the Delco Historical Society, the Delco Institute was the county de facto repository for local artifacts and many records. ----- On-High forbid! I do not want persons to skip a visit to the Delco Historical Society (I urge everyone to make a visit in October, when I cut my birthday cake.)"
"Spring is a splendid time to become acquainted with items of natural history, which relate locally, and for the seeing of many highly engaging local historical artifacts - on view and touch exhibit. I am a Delco Institute of Science - Life Member. Lucky me - my member card has no expiration date. -- It is good to Governor! Even unto ghost realm!"
|
| Thomas Leiper |
"When down home I make a point to wing in. I like to Awe! over - new / old items. Staff members are always making discoveries. I mean, with ongoing research items take on enlightenment marks of newness, via new earned understanding, which of course, in turn gets broadcast. A long shelved stethoscope recently was researched and found to hold an 1840's local role in perfection. Truly, DCIS is a whip-up fun center of learning, unlike any site in Delaware County. – So Go! Visit it." "Be sure to March – Go-Visit -the Thomas Leiper Home, too. Thomas Leiper (1745-1825) joined the rich through sale of tobacco. Today tobacco companies sell their leaf product for pipe, for cigars, and for cigarettes, and increasing portions to purchasers who buy full blend tins for chewing. Early sales were sliced different."
"In the post War 1780's Thomas Leiper tobacco went up in smoke two ways, by pipe smokers, and by a few cigar smokers (chiefly wagon-teamsters who held the reigns with two hands and cut dust with a cigar clapped in the mouth). In addition, a great chunk of his leaf business comprised of tobacco ground for snuff. Persons took a pinch inhaled it to caused a "likable" (sic.) sneeze. CA-choo! Note: Before cigarette boxes appeared, snuffbox makers did a brisk business.
"Tom Lieper's beautiful home "Avondale," stands as it did in 1800. The property is remarkable for several support buildings. Enterprising Leiper conducted a quarry stone business and having easy access to the material he made sensible use of it in the raising of his Delaware County rural home. Tom Leiper built structures to last. And they did!"
"In shadow of Avondale are to be seen a stone money vault, which has to be seen to be believed, and a stone privy for (yes!) five. It is old saw, Tom L. knew five U.S. Presidents. It is joshed that each made use of his privy. -- They (you do the inferring) hold a unique memorial role in American history. The doorway is elegant; a close look at the leafy motif surrounding same - reveals they are sprite tobacco leafs. Advancing once more we switch from craftsmanship beautiful to primitive utility."
|
| Willam Penn |
"Lest you've forgotten, this is William Penn: My favorite place in Delco ranks in hard-put status. I do love Chester and Darby and so-on and so-forth, but for sheer heartfelt pleasing admiration the mid 1600's Swedish log cabin in Drexel Hill out does them all. I do not need a deep ponder for a reason. The first to arrive Swedes made possible the smooth settlement under Penn – Me. Yours truly gets the credit, but the Swedes took the 'grunt' out of grunt work for the latterly.-- Mine."
"If you visit the Swedish log cabin you will learn log architecture. Cabin rooms are "pens." The Darby Creek cabin is a two pen cabin, and lively received the bump addition for the settlement's follow up generation. About 1790 the pens received a bump up attic. For fifteen years there was no box stairway. A ceiling trap door in each pen was the means for to and fro access; by ladder." What astounds me me is little appreciated. First waves, including those under Me, went upstream along Darby Creek only as far as the head of the fast currents. At the head of fast flow settlers stopped. To go further placed oneself beyond water power and dreamt for saw and grain mills. ^ * * The astounding fact is that the (extant D.H.) cabin, which situates at the "Interior limits of Cradle Pennsylvania settlement" survived –- It is Astounding! To me and it should you, Go visit!
Post script to the above: "The low doorway you may need to bow before – before entering. I've got head knobs that prove the need of it. -- Listen or Ouch! " "The above portals to the past I chose, in part, to celebrate. March is the birthday month for Pennsylvania – it was founded in March 1681. Better times, a trip to Harrisburg (or Pennsbury) poised splendid; but these are lean times. – That said: Pardon me while I give a smile, with your parents. We found agreement In This: "Applied wisdom which fosters a savings is always a great - GOOD!" Look over my itinerary.
"I close with a hope that you start to make visits to the nearby Delaware County places I suggested. Your Governor thanks you for listening." William Penn
By: Thomas R. Smith, a.k.a., William Penn
Obadiah and Mary (Bloomfield) Ayers moved to Perth Amboy, NJ in 1730 and purchased the Long Ferry Tavern from Alexander Barnes. In 1750, Mary, while sitting at the window of this Tavern was shot dead by two of her husband's negro slaves, who were burned at the stake on the 5th of July of that year in a ravine just north of the town.
]
You would get the satisfaction of increased, and perhaps active readership; they would get a great source of interest in the local area.
stop play FT fraud hands cheaters room N 1 FU...
I have watched some players winning hand after hand defying the statiscal probabilities. After such a player leaves the room, I immediatley did a search on their ID and I was told that they are not in the database. This is impossible. It should say they are not sitting at a table. I made sure to type the ID exactly the way they had it. Nobody's account just disappears.
The strange part is that this is in the play money rooms. Why would someone cheat for play money? Are they testing something to be later used for real money? Are they full tilt employees? Are they just sickos?
Ever wonder why no one has even been arrested for all the fraud that caused the Global Depression? ... It's tilting back to a Lib Dem - Tory deal ~ link ~ Good! ...“The administration responded with all hands on deck from day one. ... in the Redflex Contract along with some garden variety payroll fraud, .
In a mean village in the backwater capital city of Perth Amboy, New Jersey, one of the oldest cities in the original 13 colonies, at one of the oldest inns in the country, the Long Ferry Tavern, there is a party going on. The Long Ferry Tavern was the two day rest stop between New York’s Battery ferry at Whitehall Slip and the overland stage route to Philadelphia. On this night a group of people are assembled for the purpose of finalizing a slave trading venture involving both New York and Perth Amboy.
It was in this tavern, removed from the everyday hustle and bustle of New York and Philadelphia that some of the most prominent and influential men in the young country gathered, shuttling between the two cities free to map out in secret and seclusion their most intimate plans and policies. Newspapers of the day advertised the Long Ferry Tavern as a place where “good entertainment for man and horse would be found at the house of Obadiah Ayers”.
The Long Ferry Tavern was built out of mortar and bricks in 1686. It was a sturdy structure. It withstood the fiercest hurricanes and the most frigid winters. It survived over 250 years. But New Jersey’s capitol offered intrigues born in the hearts and minds of men that would rattle the place to its foundations.
Perth Amboy was New Jersey’s main seaport and a duty-free slave importation center. Slave trading, both legal and illegal, took place in an attempt to rival New York City as the major center of slave commerce. The Royal African Company had representatives there to oversee the official operations. There were huge wooden barracks standing on pilings overlooking the Arthur Kill to house the slaves until they were sold. Because this market was patronized exclusively by whites, it was known as the “white market”. The underground slave trade was run by pirates and profiteers operating in a subterranean parallel which was coined coincidentally, the “black market”. That the town allowed this dual system to exist wasn’t strange to anyone. A steady supply of slaves would be assured and the buyers and sellers shuffled between both. Perth Amboy was wide open.
Bill Galetta excerpt from an upcoming book
Dr. Fisher's Blog and happy to
be able to read about
Philadelphia here in New York.
annburke@rcn.com
April 18,2010
Wish you were back. Take care and continue your good work.
Kimmer, volunteer for
genealogytrails.com/penn/philadelphia/index.html
Anita McKelvey
anitmckelvey@verizon.net
Why not contact them and suggest that they link to you and perhaps even recommend you to their visitors?
Ditto the local magazines and newspapers. One of their missions is to generate interest in the region and a recommendation from any of them would drive a great deal of traffic to your diary.
You would get the satisfaction of increased, and perhaps active readership; they would get a great source of interest in the local area.
I'm glad to see you're back on the air: rotating your articles and adding new content. A veritable encyclopedia on the Quaker Colonies and environs!