Chapter IX: What Penn Found in America

During his stay in Pennsylvania William Penn wrote often to his family and friends in England. These letters give us a vivid picture of the new world of America, for they were written by a very keen observer and an unusually well-educated man. They show us the virgin country from which were to grow the homes of a new nation.

"I find the country wholesome," he wrote, "land, air, and water
good, divers good sorts of wood and fruits that grow wild, of which
plums, peaches and grapes are three; also cedar, chestnut and black
walnut and poplar, with five sorts of oak, black and white,
Spanish, red and swamp oak the most durable of all, the leaf like
the English willow.

"We have laid out a town a mile long, and two miles deep. On each
side of the town runs a navigable river, the least as broad as the
Thames at Woolwich, the other about a mile over. I think we have
near about eighty houses built, and about three hundred farmers
settled around the town. I fancy it already pleasanter than the
Weald of Kent, our being clearer, and the country not much closer;
a coach might be driven twenty miles end-ways. We have had fifty
sail of ships and small vessels, since the last summer in our
river, which shows a good beginning."

Penn was very proud of the natural riches of his new country.

"Here is a hickory-nut tree," he wrote, "mighty large, and more
tough than our ash, the finest white and flaming fire I have ever
seen. I have had better venison, bigger, more tender, and as fat as
in England. Turkeys of the wood, 8 had of forty and fifty pounds
weight. Fish in abundance hereaways yet as I hear of, but oysters,
that are monstrous for bigness, though there be a lesser sort."

The climate was a matter of the greatest interest to him.

"For the seasons of the year," he said, "having by God's goodness
now lived over the coldest and hottest that the oldest liver in the
province can remember, I can say something to an English
understanding.

"First of the fall, for then I came in. I found it from the 24th of
October to the beginning of December, as we have it usually in
England in September, or rather like an English mild spring. From
December to the beginning of the month called March, we had sharp
frosty weather; not foul, thick, black weather, as our northeast
winds bring with them in England, but a sky as clear as in the
summer, and the air dry, cold, piercing, and hungry; yet I remember
not that I wore more clothes than in England. The reason of this
cold is given from the great lakes, which are fed by the mountains
of Canada. The winter before was as mild, scarce any ice at all,
while this for a few days froze up our great river Delaware. From
that month to the month called June we enjoyed a sweet spring; no
gusts, but gentle showers and a fine sky. Yet this I observe, that
the winds here, as there, are more inconstant, spring and fall,
upon that turn of nature, than in summer or winter. From thence to
this present month, August, which endeth the summer, commonly
speaking, we have had extraordinary heats, yet mitigated sometimes
by cool breezes."

Penn found the Indians as yet unspoiled by traffic with the settlers, and his opinion of them must stand as one of the very best ever given. He wrote:

"They are generally tall, straight, well built, and of singular
proportion; they tread strong and clever, and mostly walk with a
lofty chin. Of complexion black, but by design, as the gypsies in
England. They grease themselves with bear's fat clarified; and
using no defense against sun and weather, their skins must needs be
swarthy. Their eye is little and black, not unlike a
straight-looked Jew. The thick lip and flat nose, so frequent with
the East Indians and blacks, are not common to them; for I have
seen as comely European-like faces among them, of both sexes, as on
your side the sea; and truly an Italian complexion hath not much
more of the white; and the noses of several of them have as much of
the Roman.

"Their language is lofty, yet narrow; but, like the Hebrew in
signification, full. Like short-hand in writing, one word serveth
in the place of three, and the rest are supplied by the
understanding of the hearer; imperfect in their tenses, wanting in
their moods, participles, adverbs, conjunctions, interjections. I
have made it my business to understand it, that I might not want an
interpreter on any occasion; and I must say that I know not a
language spoken in Europe, that hath words of more sweetness or
greatness, in accent and emphasis, than theirs; for instance,
Octocockon, Rancocas, Oricton, Shak, Marian, Poquesian, all which
are names of places, and have grandeur in them....

"Of their customs and manners there is much to be said. I will
begin with children. So soon as they are born they wash them in
water, and while very young, and in cold weather to choose, they
plunge them in the rivers to harden and embolden them. Having wrapt
them in a clout, they lay them on a straight thin board a little
more than the length and breadth of the child, and swaddle it fast
upon the board to make it straight; wherefore all Indians have flat
heads; and thus they carry them at their backs. The children will
go very young, at nine months commonly. They wear only a small
clout round their waist till they are big. If boys, they go
a-fishing till ripe for the woods, which is about fifteen. Then
they hunt; and, having given some proofs of their manhood by a good
return of skins, they may marry: else it is a shame to think of a
wife. The girls stay with their mothers, and help to hoe the
ground, plant corn, and carry burthens; and they do well to use
them to that, while young, which they must do when they are old;
for the wives are the true servants of the husbands: otherwise the
men are very affectionate to them....

"Their houses are mats or barks of trees, set on poles in the
fashion of an English barn, but out of the power of the winds, for
they are hardly higher than a man. They lie on reeds or grass. In
travel they lodge in the woods about a great fire, with the mantle
of duffils" [a coarse woolen cloth] "they wear by day wrapt about
them, and a few boughs stuck round them.

"Their diet is maize or Indian corn divers ways prepared, sometimes
roasted in the ashes, sometimes beaten and boiled with water, which
they call homine. They also make cakes not unpleasant to eat. They
have likewise several sorts of beans and peas that are good
nourishment: and the woods and rivers are their larder....

"But in liberality they excel. Nothing is too good for their
friend. Give them a fine gun, coat, or other thing, it may pass
twenty hands before it sticks: light of heart, strong affections,
but soon spent: the most merry creatures that live: they feast and
dance perpetually; they never have much, nor want much. Wealth
circulateth like the blood. All parts partake; and though none
shall want what another hath, yet exact observers of property. Some
kings have sold, others presented, me with several parcels of land.
The pay or presents I made them were not hoarded by the particular
owners; but the neighboring kings and their clans being present
when the goods were brought out, the parties chiefly concerned
consulted what, and to whom, they should give them. To every king,
then, by the hands of a person for that work appointed, is a
proportion sent, so sorted and folded, and with that gravity which
is admirable. Then that king subdivided it in like manner among his
dependents, they hardly leaving themselves an equal share with one
of their subjects: and be it on such occasions as festivals, or at
their common meals, the kings distribute, and to themselves last.
They care for little, because they want but little: and the reason
is, a little contents them. In this they are sufficiently revenged
on us. If they are ignorant of our pleasures, they are also free
from our pains. They are not disquieted with bills of lading and
exchange, nor perplexed with Chancery suits and Exchequer
reckonings. We sweat and toil to live. Their pleasure feeds them; I
mean their hunting, fishing, and fowling, and this table is spread
everywhere."

It would have been fortunate for settlers in other colonies if they had taken the same friendly view of the Indians that Penn did, and, finding the natives a different race from themselves, had made allowances for those differences.

As Penn was on good terms with the Indians so he was with the men of other races who had settled near his province. He liked the Dutch and the Swedes as well as the English. He wrote of those who had located in his territory:

"The first planters in these parts were the Dutch, and soon after
them the Swedes and Finns. The Dutch applied themselves to traffic,
the Swedes and Finns to husbandry. There were some disputes between
them for some years; the Dutch looking upon them as intruders upon
their purchase and possession, which was finally ended in the
surrender made by John Rizeing, the Swedish Governor, to Peter
Stuyvesant, Governor for the States of Holland, anno 1655.

"The Dutch inhabit mostly those parts of the province that lie upon
or near the Bay, the Swedes the Freshes[1] of the River Delaware.

"There is no need of giving any description of them, who are
better known there than here; but they are a plain, strong,
industrious people, yet have made no great progress in culture, or
propagation of fruit-trees; as if they desired rather to have
enough than plenty or traffic.... They kindly received me as well
as the English, who were few before the people connected with me
came among them. I must needs commend their respect to authority,
and kind behavior to the English. They do not degenerate from the
old friendship between both kingdoms. As they are people proper and
strong of body, so they have fine children, and almost every house
full: rare to find one of them without three or four boys and as
many girls; some six, seven, and eight sons. And I must do them
that right, I see few young men more sober and laborious."

It was in the summer of 1683 when Penn had written home that fifty vessels had arrived during the past year, that about eighty houses had been built in Philadelphia, and some three hundred farms were under cultivation in the near neighborhood. It is estimated that about three thousand settlers had now arrived. Penn himself made a long horseback trip into the country, meeting many Indians, living in their wigwams, learning something of their language, and continually gaining their good will and friendship. After this journey he wrote a long letter to the Free Society of Traders, in which he described the country in detail, and gave remarkably accurate accounts of the trees and flowers, the soil and climate, of his great province.

He loved an outdoor life, and was so delighted with his new domain that he planned, and later built, a country home for himself about twenty miles above Philadelphia, near where Bristol is now situated. This place he called Pennsbury. He did not have a chance to do more than plan it at this time, for the boundary disputes with Lord Baltimore had now been referred to the Privy Council in London, and Penn felt that he must go there himself to represent his claims, and also to see his family. So he left his colony on August 16, 1684, sailing in a small ship called a ketch, and reached England after a seven weeks' voyage.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The "Freshes" of the Delaware were the low-lying meadows along the river. The Swedes built their homes on the upland portions and pastured their cattle in the low lands. Their interest centered on the river which provided them with a seemingly inexhaustible supply of fish and game, and on the rich grass of the river meadows where no trees had to be cleared away to provide pasture-land.