This history is largely based on a combination of interviews with people who lived during the times described in the 20^th Century, and the historical reading I have done in an attempt to put people’s lives in perspective. In addition to finding out who our ancestors were, I wanted to know what environment they lived in. What influenced their thinking and their decisions? To that end I have collected and read the history books about the times referenced here. Therefore, I’ve tried to document my sources, although some information comes from what we all learned, or should have learned, in grade school and high school.

If you question specific information presented, I offer you this challenge: read at least 3 history books written by professional historians (rather than politicians or religious leaders with an axe to grind) on the subject you challenge. This does NOT include grade school or high school history books; which are too often influenced by local politicians and religious leaders who are terrified that our children might be scarred by the truth.

God forbid that our children learn the Christopher Columbus didn’t discover America. We don’t want our children to know that the Founding Fathers, who fought for freedom against British tyranny, were largely slave holders, and therefore had a limited view of what freedom actually meant. I could write a book just on the untruths in our grade school and high school history books, but other people have already done that.

Rather I challenge you to read college level material, that is, material that assumes you are adult enough to face the truth about our ancestors. They were not perfect any more than we are. Forgive them for this, and love them anyway. Forgive those who have fed you historical pabulum. Get ready to sink your teeth into steak.

Finally, it is common for cousins to grow up playing together, or with older cousins babysitting the younger cousins. Their aunts and uncles and their own parents, as all siblings do, visit one another to keep the family contact intact. When these cousins grow up, get married, and have children of their own, first cousins may know the names of their cousins’ children, i.e., their second cousins. By the time they and their cousins have become grandparents, however, these connections are for the most part lost. Most people do not know the grandchildren of their cousins.

Commonly, that also means most of those grandchildren do not even know each other exist, much less their names, birth dates, or where they live. They could easily work in an office together, or meet in a social setting and never realize they were related. In the case of siblings who move out of state, this is especially true. Families lose contact with one another all the time. There are many reasons for this. You will find some of them in this history. Two obvious reasons are distance, and time. Sometimes we get so caught up in day to day problems, and earning a living, that traveling great distances becomes prohibitive.

Perhaps with the advent of the web, and of email, some of this will change. But some people need something in common to talk about. Hopefully, this history will provide a starting point.

The things we do, the decisions we make, rarely occur in a vacuum. We are affected by the political, economic, religious, and geologic events that surround us. Such events may directly affect us or peripherally affect us. They may affect us in ways that are obvious, or in more subtle ways that we may not recognize. They may affect us immediately, or at a date so much later that we do not readily connect the effect to the original cause.

Beyond that, the same is true of our immediate family members. The things we do and decisions we make are affected by how we react to our parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, etc. The way we interpret our experiences also has to do with our age at that experience. How a ten-year-old interprets an experience may well be quite different from how his or her 15-year-old sibling, much less his parents or grandparents experience the same moment that they all shared. A five-year-old may be quite frightened of a grass snake, the ten-year-old fascinated by it, and the father of both may want the snake in his vegetable garden to eat the pest insects. Each person’s experience is based on a different level of knowledge and prior experiences.

In presenting a history of our ancestors, it is necessary to know the larger picture in which their decisions were made. What were the political, economic, and religious climates that led them to the New World? A well known economic example of cause and effect is the potato famine in Ireland, when a potato blight destroyed their food mainstay, and many thousands of Irish immigrated to America rather than starve to death in Ireland. They found in America jobs in the coal mines of Pennsylvania, jobs building railroads across the country, and jobs on farms. Many saved money and sent back to their native land for other family members.

But the Irish are only one of many peoples who came to America. Their reason is only one of many reasons people left their native land for America. But always, America was, and is seen as, the land of opportunity for those with the will to make the best of that opportunity. This history will attempt to provide some of that historical perspective, to help you better understand not only who, but why.

In addition, when people arrived on the American soil, they faced not only opportunities, but new problems along with many of the old problems they had hoped to leave behind. Religious freedom was not automatic in all the English colonies. The taxes were different, but still there were taxes. And not everyone was English. There were French in the north, Dutch in Manhattan, Swedes along the Delaware River, Spanish to the far south in Florida, and more nations of Native Americans than nations of Europeans. The people mistakenly called Indians had their own mix of politics, religious differences, economy, wars, and the like that needed to be learned and understood if the new arrivals were to survive.

Europeans saw themselves as people from different countries, speaking different languages, having different religious, political, and economic goals. Interestingly enough initially they recognized the American natives as also having those same differences. It has only been with the passage of time, and the need to lump all Native Americans together, that they came to be referred to generically as "Indians". This would be as incorrect as ignoring the differences between the English, Dutch, Swedes, Italians, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Germans, etc. and referring to them only as Europeans. However, as European governments sought settlements in the Americas, it became a matter of political, as well as religious, propaganda to ignore the differences between various American nations. Also by referring to these separate nations as "tribes", the concept was introduced that these peoples were somehow "simpler", and less intelligent

After all, Native Americans did not have gunpowder, nor did they have large sailing vessels. Their clothing in some cases were animal-skins. Their bows and arrows were reminders of a time when Europeans were still tribal, when England was still a bunch of unconsolidated kingdoms like all the other European regions, experiencing the Hundred Years War, and the Forty Years War, etc. As the Europeans with their new technology, their diseases for which the Native Americans had no immunity, gained control of large regions of the East Coast, it was easier to justify stealing native lands, and depleting their peoples by considering them to be merely ignorant savage Indians. Kings, and the religious leaders who supported their politics, could then claim that the Christian God intended "the heathens" be conquered and converted. As you will see, the Europeans were at least as savage, and in many ways more so.

However, Quakers and William Penn and his followers understood this, and tried hard to avoid the prejudices of other settlers. You will be given a great deal of information to help you understand the prejudices inflicted upon you by grade school and high school history books (as influenced by religious leaders, politicians, and other people needing to alter the facts). More misconceptions come from TV and movie producers, who are prone to creating drama in an hour and a half, by the "creative writing" of their story scripts.

Part of the source of this problem stems from the building blocks of knowledge assembled over time. It has simply taken a long time for historians to learn that Christopher Columbus was not the 1^st European to land on this continent, and in fact he never did. He landed on islands south of Florida, but never found the mainland. Vikings had a settlement in Nova Scotia, and Irish monks had also been here prior to Columbus. Historians now are looking at evidence that Egyptians, Phoenicians, and Africans all traded along the Americas coastlines well before the Vikings, in fact before Christ.

Columbus simply rediscovered the area at a time when European countries had consolidated to sufficiently large kingdoms that could spend the money to send ships across the Atlantic in search of new wealth. He never actually saw, nor set foot on, the continent. He believed he had found islands off the coast of India. The new wealth could be any trading goods (the shortcut to India was, after all, in search of spices) or resources. Wealth was needed to fund the various European wars. England had the Hundred Years War, and the Forty Years War, and many other wars to pay for.

Hence the colonialism which all European powers indulged in. Find a new land, conquer it; claim it in the name of your King. Use the wealth from its resources for your King and country. And as a Christian, by the way, it’ll be OK to enslave the population, so you can convert them to your religious sect and serve your King.

Many of your ideas about people today have their historical sources as rational-izations used to take people’s land, and either kill or enslave them. It becomes convenient to repeat the rationalizations of our ancestors, because we don’t want to appear to dishonor their memories. But as now, our ancestors did both good and bad things. To know both, and how to tell the difference, allows us to honor our ancestors as they deserve, i.e., with honesty.

In addition to other mentioned reasons for this history, there are medical issues to be known and faced. For the men in the Brown family, at least the last 3 or 4 generations are known to have had problems with prostate cancer. Prior to the early 1900’s medical science was on a par with witch doctors, and perhaps not that advanced. Not much was known about cancer, so medical science such as it was used catch phrases to describe any illness they didn’t know how to accurately categorize.

This writer’s father Stanley Alvin Brown; Grandfather David Chalkley Brown, several uncles (Jake and Gene), and at least one of grandfather’s brothers (Great uncle Kirk) were treated for and mostly died of prostate cancer. Any descendant of the Brown family with sons needs to be aware of this. One hundred years ago there were no cures. Twenty-five years ago there were few cures. Today, early detection and quick medical treatment offer some hope of surviving prostate cancer. Any descendents of the Brown side of the family need to seek regular testing after they pass the age of 40, to detect prostate problems as early as possible.

These are known health problems running in the Brown family. There are some 5000 diseases that medical science now knows to be transmitted genetically to some degree or another. For example approximately 15% of colon cancer patients find their family has a history of it. This is also true of prostate cancer, and our family history demonstrates this.

People of Mediterranean ancestry may inherit a form of hemolytic anemia, which can show up in their jaundiced babies. Native-Americans, Asian-Americans, and African-Americans often are lactose intolerant (Mediterranean and European peoples used cows for milk much earlier, and have developed a greater tolerance for cows’ milk. Oddly, goats milk is much closer to human milk, but is less popular). African-Americans have a 1 in 12 chance of carrying the gene for sickle-cell anemia, which protects the young from dying of malaria, but kills the middle-aged. Eastern European Jews, and French Canadians are high risk for Tay Sachs disease. These are only a few well-known examples of genetically transmitted out of the 5000 mentioned.

It is my hope that Brown family members will interview their parents and grandparents to add to this list of known Brown-family health risks. Doing so helps all family members to reduce their own vulnerability. Anyone descended from David Chalkley Brown should, after age 40, be taking the steps to be tested for prostate cancer risk.

Communicating to your family doctor about chronic family diseases will lead to controlling our lifestyle to reduce the risk. Certainly tobacco use, drug use, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart problems, and many other diseases are indicators of potential problems that, if a person wishes to take care of their health, can be controlled by a combination of family support, diet, medication, and other interventions.

A note about dates: the Gregorian calendar was adopted in England in 1752, prior to that the Julian calendar was used. The year is really 365.242 days long. By the 18^th Century (i.e., the 1700’s) even using the Gregorian calendar’s complex leap year rules, the English calendar was off by 11 days. Furthermore in 1751 Britain decided that New Year’s Day was no longer March 25^th, but would be, like the rest of the Christian world, on January 1^st. So 1751 would be 282 days long. The still existing 11 day discrepancy was officially corrected by an English royal decree that in 1752 Sept. 2 would be immediately followed by Sept. 14^th, making 1752 a mere 355 days long.

Just to add to the complication, for the first half of the First Millenium, few European countries agreed on when the New Year began. It could be anything from March to September. The first scholar to calculate when Christ was born, Dionysius Exiguus. used March 25 to start his calculations. From this, the Julian calendar was developed.

When viewing English dates in this history, it is important to note that some historians copied dates as they found them, in the "Old Style", i.e., Julian style where March is the 1^st month. In some cases genealogists or historians after 1752 may have made an effort to "translate" the dates to the Gregorian calendar in order to make more sense to their readers. It is impossible to know which dates are "corrected" with any certainty, therefore dates here will be shown as found in the source cited. However, the reader will understand that dates for the same person may seem to conflict prior to 1752.

Nevertheless, when viewing the dates on cemetery stones, or gravestones, dated before 1752, an inscription of 1^st mo. 4^th day 1751 could mean March 4^th, 1752 rather than January 4^th. You must take this into account when comparing gravestone dates with other written material you may encounter during your research.

It was mentioned earlier that Columbus rediscovered America at a time when European Kingdoms were sufficiently consolidated to amass enough power and money to take advantage of the discovery. Actually several things occurred to enable this. Columbus simply took advantage of his times.

Mediterranean sailors had long known the world was round, regardless of what a bunch of religious leaders claimed the Bible said. Any sailor who had ever climbed to a crowsnest, or to the upper spars of a mast while far from land could see the curve of the earth. Combined with the round shape of the moon and the sun, and the fact that as you sailed towards that curve, the curve didn’t change, there was only one conclusion to draw.

However, arguing with Christian fanatics who insisted the Bible be taken literally could lead to death at their hands. Religious leaders of the period were prone to killing those who disagreed with their interpretation of the Bible. And sailing was already a dangerous business.

Another problem was time. The division of time into defined, countable units is fundamental to many human functions. Farmers needed calendars to predict planting and growing seasons. Sailors needed to know how long they had been sailing in a given direction. But early clocks were notoriously inaccurate, often off by hours.

The Greeks in the 8^th century BC were using the stars to indicate agricultural growing seasons: "When the Pleiads, Atlas' daughters, start to rise begin your harvest; plow when they go down" (Hesiod 71). Eventually this led to the invention of the astrolabe. This device allowed sailors, out on the sea away from landmarks, who were familiar with the positions of the stars during various seasons, to determine where they were, based on the stars they could see. However, it didn’t work if the skies were cloudy. Furthermore it wasn’t really a timepiece.

By the 1300s mechanical clocks had appeared that sounded a bell on the hour. However, they didn’t provide the minutes, therefore you may suppose they were not very accurate. By the 1400s, clocks using coiled springs that unwound at a controlled speed, could drive hour and minute hands on a clock.

For sailing purposes, this was a huge advance. Knowing how many knots your ship was traveling, factored by a much more exact idea of how many hours and minutes on a given course, gave a ship’s captain a huge improvement in his ability to navigate out of sight of land. This could shorten sailing distances, and times.

Sailing close to land was risky for a variety of reasons. Sailing far from land also had problems, if you couldn’t accurately tell where your ship was. But a ship’s captain with an astrolabe and a clock that could reasonably tell hours and minutes was less likely to lose his ship.

Several millennia prior to Columbus, the Phoenicians, Greeks, Egyptians, and Africans had been sailing the Mediterranean Sea. Within "the Med", the fastest route from one port to another was usually straight. However the Phoenicians had sailed to the British Isles for tin. And every port along the Med, as well as the coasts of Africa had ships sailing eastward to the spice routes. Almost certainly daring ship captains explored many water routes looking for trade opportunities.

The discovery in the past decade of Egyptian mummies buried with tobacco and cocaine residues suggests that one or more of those sea cultures had at some ancient time been trading with the Americas, where tobacco and cocaine originated. Every school child has noted the similarity between Egyptian pyramids and those of South America. If the Vikings were processing iron ore in Nova Scotia, and leaving artifacts in Minnesota, well before Columbus arrived, it makes sense that other explorers may have preceded them.

While the Christian conservatives of the day may have officially suppressed such information because it didn’t conform to their religious interpretations, it seems likely that people in the sailing industries of the time discussed the lands to the far west of Europe. Certainly they would have shared sailing stories and legends. And, of course, there was the legend of Atlantis to provide a reason for earlier explorers to search westward.

Columbus would have known the stories, and he had the tools to pursue the route westward to the riches of the spice trade. He thought the world was smaller in diameter, and was certain a western route to India would be faster than the eastern route being used. He discovered the islands off the southern tip of North America by accident. We called Native Americans "Indians" because he thought he had reached India. By the time Europeans knew better, the word had lost its original meaning of "people of India".

In 1714, the British Parliament offered a reward to anyone who could invent a clock accurate enough for use in navigation at sea. Thousands of sailors had died because they were unable to find their exact position at sea. Exact time was required to calculate longitude. Unfortunately pendulum clocks did not work well at sea, because natural ship rolling jarred the pendulums around. For every minute lost by a clock, there was a navigational error of 15 miles.

British sailors died because they were lost or smashed against rocks when they were unable to figure out their exact position. Ships taking passengers or freight between England and the Americas all shared this risk. Navigation was more an art than an accurate process. Sailing in bad weather, defined as "can’t see clearly for any great distance", was highly dangerous. But no less dangerous than staying out to sea in a bad storm. Therefore arriving safely and on time were not necessarily synonymous.

In 1761, after 4 attempts, a British citizen named John Harrison succeeded inventing a small clock accurate enough to use for navigation at sea. He was able to reduce the size to what we now call a pocket watch. It lost only 5 seconds in 6 and ½ week span of time. Sailing became even more accurate.

Wrist watches would appear during World War I, because pulling out and putting back pocket watches during synchronized trench attacks wasn’t very synchronized. It was far more efficient to attach the watch to the wrist with leather or cloth straps, and remove the cover so infantry officers could quickly and easily tell time and watch their clock’s second and minute hands for the exact time to launch a scheduled attack. They soon became more popular than pocket watches.

This is an account of the Browne/Brown family who settled a tract of land, which in 1701 was claimed as part of Pennsylvania, but later established by the courts to be largely in Maryland. This tract was known as the Nottingham Lots, and was granted by William Penn to Quakers for a purpose described later in this history. The brothers Browne who came to own 3 of those lots, and their descendants, are the subjects of this history and its associated Family Tree.

The English name Browne or Americanized Brown comes from the Old English name Brun. ^I1 Later spelling includes Brune. (Domesday Book, London 1783-1816; cites Domesday of 1086). In olden time, people had a "given" or first name, which had meaning within the language. (Every parent with a baby book will find the original meaning of the name they wish to give their child, as well as the name’s cultural source).

In addition people had a surname which helped describe more about them, such as where they were from, or what they did for a living, or some physical characteristic. This was common throughout Eastern and Western Europe. Smith was a smithy, Shoemaker made shoes, Taylor made clothes, London was from London, Long was tall, and so forth.

Brun described "the brown skinned people" and is thought to be associated with either the Roman merchants who came to settle and trade in the British Isles or the Roman soldiers garrisoned to protect them. Julius Caesar had, in defeating the Germanic tribes along the Rhine in Europe, made punitive raids across the Straits of Dover into Britain in the 1^st century BC. Roman legions had been conquering Western Europe, Africa, and western Asia. It should be noted, however, that the Phoenicians were trading British tin well before the Romans, and for that matter so had the Greeks.

Rome began to colonize South Britain and by the 1^st century AD had a military presence so strong that a local tribal leader, Queen Boadicea organized an insurrection there, slaughtering a Roman town whose citizens were retired Roman soldiers (61 AD) In response, Rome launched a massive campaign squashing the rebellion and killing her and her daughters. By 84 AD. Rome had annexed North Britain, but in 117 AD. the Roman Emperor Hadrian built Hadrian’s Wall across Britain, so he could abandon North Britain to the "barbarians", i.e., Celts (Scottish tribes – the "C" is sounded as a "K"). (The Outline of History, H.G. Wells).

Whenever military units are stationed in another country for an extended time, some soldiers will meet local women, and nature will take its course. Roman merchants considered themselves to be patricians. While it is less likely their children would have intermarried with the island natives, that did happen for political or economic reasons which were quite acceptable in those days (and as my brother-in-law Jim Giffing has pointed out has been the norm prior to the Romantic Ages).

The concept of romantic marriage, i.e., marriage for love is a relatively recent idea. Roman cities such as Bath were built by the military units garrisoned locally. Frequently, soldiers were encouraged to retire and live locally. It was cheaper than shipping them back to Rome, and provided for a local militia with experience as military bases were cut back or closed.

The Roman population in England in the year 200 AD was significant. In Roman London the population was around 20,000. The London amphitheater of the time seated between 6,000 and 7,000 people. While not all Londoners were Romans, the fact of the amphitheater clearly indicates the pervasive Roman influence both economically and culturally. It is thought by some archaeologists that women gladiators fought in the arena. (Nick Bateman, Hedley Swain; Museum of London Archaeology, Discover Magazine Dec. 2001). This would be in keeping with the local tribal culture of the times. Women could be leaders and warriors, as we saw with Queen Boadicea.

It seems most likely the name Brun refers to these brown skinned soldiers who stayed in Britain, or to the Roman merchants and farmers they protected. Certainly the Northern Celts, and other northern Europeans tended to be fair skinned with lighter colored, straight hair.

The Romans certainly traveled, and traded throughout the British Isles, wherever the natives were willing to trade. Although the "barbarians" to the north (the Irish tribes known as Scot, who would eventually consider themselves separate from the Irish) warred regularly with the Romans, the southern Irish were willing to conduct commerce with the Romans.

According to English sources, the origin of the name Browne is Irish and the family coat of arms contains a gold shield with a black two headed eagle. The crest is a black griffin's head. The family motto is "Fortiter et fideliter", meaning strength and fidelity. The name is officially mentioned in a political way by the Earl of Pembroke, in 1172, when he lands in county Galway, Ireland with the warrior leader Strongbow, during the various wars of consolidation of the kingdoms of both Ireland and England. However, it is clearly an ancient name in the British Isles, going back well before that time.

While I won’t go into the history of the English/Irish wars here, it is sufficient to note that from a political viewpoint, regardless of birthright, those who supported English rulers were considered to be English, and those who supported Irish rulers to be Irish. Thus a movement of English into Ireland, and Irish into England was in part motivated by the winners’ (of various conflicts) persecution of the losers, as well as the winners’ rewards of land and title to their supporters. James and William Browne considered themselves to be of Irish-Scotch ancestry, yet our history of the family starts in England.

Throughout history Browns have tended to tan easily and have black, curly or wavy hair. If we go back a little further in history, we find that southern Italy was settled prior to the Roman Empire by Greek traders (also given to tans, and black wavy hair) who settled along the Italian coastline. The Mediterranean Sea offered a perfect location for the development of the shipping industry, and it is known that the Phoenicians were trading for British tin well before either the Greeks or the Romans. It is likely those Greek sailors and merchants had intermarried with local southern Roman families for the same political and economic reasons. Throughout history sailors, traders, merchants and soldiers have married and raised families in the city-states, and later in the towns in which circumstances placed them.

Whenever you hear someone speak of the "purity of race", knowing your world history means knowing that there is no such thing. Nor, from a biological viewpoint, should there be. In the few circumstances where genetic pools have been deliberately limited, such as the Pennsylvania Dutch of Lancaster PA, genetic defects have been magnified to the point where large percentages of the population in that limited genetic pool have inherited genetic disease caused by the in-breeding of the population. Dr. Holmes Morton has identified at least 80 genetic disorders among those people.

In Geauga County Ohio, the Amish represent about 12 % of the population, but represent close to half the cases of severe mental and/or physical retardation. Anyone who has studied biology, and in particular genetics, understands that a limited gene pool brings out inherited genetic disorders, because marrying relatives increases the risk that both parents will pass to their child any defective genes carried by both.

You can take your pick of which brown skinned people our name derives from, but it is likely part of our genetic makeup to travel, to explore, to make new beginnings. This same trait tends to minimize the risk mentioned above. Any so-called "pure race" would actually kill itself off via genetic diseases in a few hundred years. We Browns, mongrels if you will, just keep on going.

The Teutonic people on the north coast of Europe, in ancient times, bent bone and other materials into fishhooks. Their word for this was "angul" from the Teutonic word meaning "to bend". Later the word was applied to a valley in the Teutonic lands that was shaped like a fishhook. People from that area were known as Anguls.

Between 400 and 500 AD, these Anguls began to invade the British Isles nearest northern Europe, i.e., the southern coast of Britain. They called the land they conquered from the Picts and Celts Angul Land, meaning the land of the Anguls. Eventually, this became shortened to England.

Meanwhile Celts, and possibly Picts, from the southern part of the Isle were also moving south across the sea to parts of northern Europe, we now call Brittany France. These people, who called themselves the "Tatooed People (in the Celtic language, Pritani) would mix with Frankish peoples there, who give France its name. The distance between the northern coast of Europe and the southern coast of the Isles is not great, and no doubt fisherman moved quite freely between the two coasts. (The correct pronunciation of the word "Celt" is that the "C" sounds like a "K", i.e., Kelt).

Eventually some of these Bretons moved back to the Island, and added their language and culture to the population. From these people come the other name of the Island, Britain. Later, as the Britains conquered the Kelts to the north and west, the Kings of the Welsh, Ireland, and Scotland would commit allegiance to the British King, and all would be a part of Great Britain.

The Scots were originally an Irish tribe of Celts called Scot. However, as the various Viking traders and settlers, and later invaders, landed along the northern and northeastern coasts of the Island, this mix of peoples and cultures blended to form a new tribe and culture of peoples. They kept the name Scot, but no longer considered themselves Irish Kelts. It is in this way that the mixing of peoples all over the world creates new national cultures, and politics.

When you review the historic movement of peoples from ancient times to the present, it becomes clear that the history of mankind is one of movement of peoples and tribes. Whether farming or trading settlements or outright invasions, there is no tribe or nation that does not owe its current bloodline and identity to that history of movement.

These centuries will be covered in a general way. Most people, other than the wealthy royalty and wealthy businessmen (primarily traders), lived rurally. There were far more farmers than town folk. Towns were where people went to trade, for the most part.

Towns and cities existed either inside or alongside fortifications. Towns tended to be away from water based transportation. Cities tended to be sea-ports or on large rivers, and grew much larger than towns because they could handle quantities of shipping.

The New Testament was written some 2000 years ago, also at a time when people would not have understood any references to what we consider modern science. The Romans and the Jews considered Christians to be a sub-sect of the Jews for the next two hundred years or so. This is why the New Testament follows the Old Testament, and we call the combination the Judeo-Christian bible. The Bible, as we know it, was not compiled until about three hundred years after Christ died.

The Bible, as we know it, was developed by Jewish followers of Christ. They were considered by the Romans who governed the area, as a Jewish sect. The Old Testament is entirely taken directly from Jewish teachings. This is why it is both a history of the Jewish peoples, and their legends, oral history, and religious and political rulings. Historians have found many of these stories and legends to be adopted directly from the stories and legends of other cultures with which the Tribe of Judah came in contract during their migrations.

The New Testament, of course, came from the selected writings and teachings of Christ’s twelve disciples. The four gospels were not even written until several decades after Christ died. The epistles were written during the years immediately after Christ died, by followers who were proselytizing their new beliefs. Early followers of Christ were not called Christians, but Nazarenes. In the following three hundred years, the population of followers of this new sect grew substantially. However, so did the various interpretations of the sect’s teachings.

In 312 Constantine the Great took reign as co-Emperor of Rome along with Maxentius. The teachings of Jesus Christ had spread into Persia and Central Asia. In 312, Constantine, not yet a Christian, decided to use the followers of Christ to consolidate his office. He put the Christian symbol on his troops banners and shields and fougnt Maxentius for Rome. He won. Then he claimed he had won because the Christian God was on his side. Recognizing their opportunity to end their years of being persecuted, the Christians supported his exclusive claim to the office.

However welcome the Christian support was, Constantine quickly realized the political nature of the differing versions of this 300 year old religion. To maintain his new office, he needed to reconcile all the various sects’ teachings. In 325, he called all the sect leaders to a "diet" or meeting in Nicea, near Constantinople (a city he was building).

Not yet a Christian, he nevertheless presided. It is not necessary to discuss what was debated, and by whom. Suffice to say that end result was known as the Nicean Creed, supported by the Emperor. This Creed would define Christian teaching, including altars, a priest-hood with levels of leadership, and defined rituals.

It is well to note, that at no time was a Pope involved in Nicean Diet. In a bold political move, Constantine had ended variations in sect teachings, and adopted the concepts of priesthood and rituals already familiar to most people under Roman rule. He had guided the Christians in writing a Bible that could be used as an unchanging source of orthodoxy for all Christians, regardless of their cultural heritage. By the time Constantine died in 337, he had converted to the new religion.

He had claimed the Christian God guided his victory in 312. After 325 the Christians could claim the support of the Roman Emperors. Over the next 800 years, the Latin speaking Western Church, and the original Greek speaking "Orthodox" Church largely grew in membership. The Orthodox Church, operating out of Constantinople, maintained ecclesiastical leadership via bishops known as Patriarchs. The Western Church concentrated its power in one Patriarch, known as the Bishop of Rome, or the Pope.

By virtue of the history of Peter, the first Bishop of Rome, acknowledged leader of the Christians, this Bishopric was considered the leader of the others. He would eventually take the title Pontifex Maximus, previously held by Roman Emperors. However, in 1054 the Latin and Greek speaking branches of the Christian Church would separate over the issue of teaching the concept of the Trinity of God. During these centuries other smaller Christian sects reappear, splitting from Rome over similar religious points, and beliefs. Among these were the Abbyssinian, Egyptian, and Nestorian Christian churches.

Without going into the history of every passage in the Bible, it can be seen that the Nicean Diet of 325 had created the basic tools of any religious faith. It had created a Creed, an organization or priesthood, meaningful symbolic rituals to be performed, and a single authorized document about that faith.

The Bible documented the history of its readers from Judaism, to a sect eventually called Christianity. Remember most of the first converts were Jews by faith and culture. It provided a transition from an angry and terrifying God who punished His people, to a loving Father who forgave his children their transgressions, and asked them to love one another, especially when it was difficult to do so.

For the known world of Europe, North Africa, and the Middle-East, where Roman soldiers, and before them, the Greeks and a host of others, had invaded and conquered for centuries, this was powerful stuff. Don’t make war with one another, conquer through love. It was also practical. It was a lot cheaper and easier to trade with other nations, especially Christian nations, than to fight wars with them. And for barbarians who chose to invade, a united Christian Empire could, if needed, supply men and material to battle barbarian "heathens" or non-believers.

However, people will only kill, or die, for their faith if their leadership deliberately restrict any discussion of the meaning of the word "faith". Given the definition (go ahead, take a moment to look it up), no-one will ever know for sure if their faith is the one designed by God, until they meet Him face to face. Therefore leaders of any faith must carefully control any discussion in that area, to ensure total obedience to leadership commands to die, or to kill, in the name of the faith.

Fortunately the Bible has sufficient passages between the Old Testament and the New Testament to "prove" either directly or indirectly whatever any religious leader wants to prove. This is also true in the Koran, by the way. Hence all the different sects of Christianity and of Islam.

Both have liberal sects, tolerant of other religions and well aware of the definition of the word "faith". Both have moderate sects, generally also tolerant of others. Both have conservative sects, and ultra conservative sects whose leaders think nothing of killing "non-believers", or even ordering their followers to commit suicide. Islamic suicide bombers come to mind. As does Jim Jones, who ordered his Christian followers to take cyanide poisoned drinks in Ghana, and David Koresh (his alias) who set fire to his compound in Waco, rather than go to jail for all the underage girls he had raped, as part of his religious beliefs.

All such religious leaders must find ways to rationalize their orders, especially since both Christianity and Islam recognize the Ten Commandments. Apparently, religious leaders receive word directly from God, when ordering the breaking of the commandment "Thou shalt not kill". Or so they claim. No-one ever seems to ask the question "If God can talk to you about this in private, why can’t he talk to both of us about it at His altar?" Apparently for these people, it is sufficient to quote some passage from their Bible, or Koran. Jim Jones, David Koresh, and many other Christian religious leaders became very wealthy because "God wanted" their followers money. Many Islamic religious leaders are even more wealthy, using similar arguments.

Once Rome had converted to Christianity, the power of Rome could be used to spread God’s Spell, the Gospel. Just as the followers of Islam would do later, Christians with political and economic power used their power to help those who converted and hinder, or even prosecute, those who did not. Government contracts went to favored bidders. Leaders of other religions, weakened by lost civic membership, might choose to convert, or find themselves burnt at the stake as an example to other non-converts.

This combination of politics and religion was very powerful stuff. Soon families were sending sons and daughters to become priests, monks, nuns, etc. to ensure they stayed politically connected not only with royalty, but with the Church. Many a Bishop and Cardinal came from highly placed families.

However, because each culture new to Christianity brought with it, local customs, ideas and philosophies, the Church quickly figured out how to adapt local celebrations to Christianity. For example, All Saints Day was intended to replace the Wica celebration which we now call Halloween (Holy Evening). In the Wica religion, the spirits of the departed went to Heaven on that one night each year.

The problem with tying to local religious beliefs was that local citizens and religious leaders, having been raised in certain beliefs, might also interpret the Bible base on those life experiences and knowledge. However, the consolidation of wealth and power for both royalty and Christianity required a certain amount of conservative thinking. Pope Innocent III began the first crusades, not against Islam (which didn’t yet exist) but against local Christian leaders whose biblical interpretations were not those of orthodox Rome. In time, this intolerance to religious teachings would expand to intolerance towards any subject, even those having nothing to do with religion.

Perhaps the most famous of these, but clearly not the only example, was the discussion in which religious leaders taught that the Sun, and indeed the Universe, revolved around the Earth. As most readers know by now, this is not only incorrect, but has nothing to do with the matter of morals, or Christ’s teachings. Nevertheless, as you long ago learned in High School history, the Church tended use its political power to kill people who disagreed. Other "important" debates that took lives were disagreements over how many angels could stand on the head of a pin.

About 610 AD, a 40 year old man named Muhammad began to claim to be a new prophet of God, and for many years his was a small religious sect with mostly friends and family as followers. The town he lived in, Mecca, was famous for being polytheistic, that is, tolerant of many religious beliefs. Politically well connected, coming from a wealthy family, he suffered no religious prosecution because of Mecca’s reputation. After 10 years of preaching, he had developed a small following, when the city of Medina invited him to rule there, in the name of his new religion. Medina, being an important town, on a main caravan route, offered considerable power, and opportunity to grow the new religion. Although it had its ups and downs, the new religion took root throughout the middle-east, in some cases by argument, and in other cases by sword, just as the Christian Church had previously done.

By 632 Muhammed was the leader of all of Arabia, when he died. His successor, Abu Bekr, began the task of conquering the Middle East in the name of Islam. His armies gave cities 3 choices: pay tribute, join Islam, or die. Christian Arabs and local Jews were among the converted. (Outline of History – H.G. Wells). Over the next 125 years war, armies conquering nations, would be the same tool for the spread of Islam as it was for Christianity. Since Muhammed had preached that all men were equal, Islam had many converts where Christian policies involved the extremely poor working for the extremely rich.

This growth created additional religious problems for the orthodox Christian Church. Muhammad’s unorthodox teachings were, in the process of gathering political and economic power, removing it from Rome’s grasp. Since Europeans were already used to crusades from Innocent III’s times, it was fairly easy to convince them to go fight this new threat to Christian political and economic power, and religious beliefs.

The concept of public debate, and public choice, simply wasn’t an option considered by Christian religious or political leaders of the day. Since the two reinforced each other’s power, choice was not an option. In time the Christian Church would send children (The Children’s Crusades) by the tens of thousands to fight in the religious wars. Those who didn’t die of starvation were enslaved, often by local Christians before they reached any battlefields.

By the 660’s Islam had split into at least 2 main sects. The Shiites believed a man named Ali, nephew and adopted son of Muhammed had hereditary claims to lead Islam. The Sunnites supported a man named Othman, who had succeeded Bekr. As would later happen to the Christian Church, sects would eventually appear, based on local beliefs, local tribal affiliations, and so forth. When not fighting Christians, they often fought, and killed, each other.

Nevertheless where the cities had a history of trade, and therefore tolerance for other races and religions, Islamic government hired its employees based on their skills and knowledge. Many Christians, Jews, and Pagans provided citizens with services paid for by Islamic leadership. As wealth pored into the new Islamic Empire a large, wealthy ruling class poured money into the arts, architecture, charities, exploration, history literature, mathematics, music, medicine, poetry, philosophy, and sciences. As a result, the Arab world developed great Universities, whose teachings also influenced European Universities.

Ibn Rusd of Cordoba had by 1198 had developed an extension of Aristotlean philosophy that carefully distinguished between religious faith and scientific truths. The Physician Ibnsina, prior to his death in 1037 developed medical techniques, medicines, and complex surgical techniques far in advance of Christian physicians (who were bleed-ing their patients). Arab doctors studied hygiene, physiology, and anesthetics, at a time when the Christian Church used faith healing. (If you died, you must not have had sufficient faith).

By the twelfth century Muhammad Ibn Musa introduced the previously unknown concept of zero to mathematics. He also introduced decimals, defining their positional values. Arabs also developed spherical trigonometry, inventing the sine, tangent, and cotangent. In Chemistry, they discovered a long list of previously unknown substances, and figured out uses for them. Their study of physics produced the pendulum, and a knowledge of optics.

Somewhere along the line, they imported the manufacture of paper from the Chinese, and eventually passed its knowledge to Europe. They needed paper for all the scientific treatises they were writing , not only in the fields already mentioned, but in farming, horticulture, manufacturing techniques, and metal-smithing. For a period of time before conservative religious leaders began, like the Christian conservative leaders, limiting their thinking, followers of Islam contributed a great deal to the cumulative knowledge in their known world. Because of their control over parts of Spain, some of this knowledge found its way into the Christian business world, unless Christian religious leaders strictly forbade it.

As Christian religious teachings became locked in detailed dogma (how many angels can stand on a pin?) a new tool was developed circa 1200 AD to control religious thought. Designed to prevent heresy, defined as anything where you disagree with Church teachings on any subject at all, the Inquisition was designed to terrorize those who might disagree. The tools were fire, including burning at the stake in front of the rest of a town’s inhabitants, and instruments of torture. Those who did not recant their personal religious interpretations in favor of the "official" religious line usually died horribly painful deaths.

Although the torture and murder of those who disagreed with any particular religious teaching of the Church clearly break at least one commandment, and obviously go against Christ’s teaching of love, it would continue for the next couple of hundred years. Apparently the use of force was OK if reasoned arguments did not prevail, as long as it was officially sanctioned by some church leader in the name of God.

Heretics, pagans (non-believers), Jews, Arabs, little pockets of unconverted people still following their ancient tribal religions, now became the target of the Inquisition leaders. Although some learned people, by virtue of family connections and therefore political clout avoided prosecution and death, poor people did not. Access to Inquisition leadership could mean opportunities to prosecute one’s political or economic competitors. Later it would mean accusing those you didn’t like, on any pretext. Inquisition prisoners had little or no rights. They could not face their accusers, nor hear or see the evidence against them. The poor could not afford a lawyer. Even the wealthy could find themselves trapped, if they made enemies. "How many angels do you think fit on the head of a pin? Ten? Wrong, you heretic! You are condemned to death!". "You say the world is round, sailor? The Bible proves it is flat, you heretic! You are condemned by your own words!"

There are enough opposing quotations between the Old Testament and the New Testament that many tens of thousands of people died because they didn’t know which answer a particular Inquisitor wanted. Compare "An eye for an eye" versus "Thou shalt not kill", and many other examples, with which anyone who reads the Bible is familiar. The religious leaders of the day forgot the meaning of the word "faith". This deadly abuse of religious power, as well as those later in the new colonies, would be on the minds of America’s Founding Fathers when they wrote the Declaration of Independence.

In 1348 the plague, traveling via merchant ship from one port to another reached England. It was called the Black Death, and wiped out somewhere between ¼ and ½ of the English population. The nursery rhyme "Ring around the Rosey" is a rhyme about the plague. Infected people would get red circular sores ("Ring around the rosey..."). These sores would smell very bad, so common folks would hide flowers in their clothing, so that they would cover the smell of the sores ("...a pocket full of posies". People who died from the plague would be burned so as to reduce the possible spread of the disease ("...ashes, ashes, we all fall down!")

May in northern Europe was when the ground thawed. You could plow to prepare for planting your crops, and you could bury those who had died during the winter, when the ground was frozen too hard to dig a grave. It was thought disrespectful to celebrate marriage in the same month your family was burying its dead, so most people got married in June. Because they took their yearly bath in May, by June they were starting to smell, so brides carried a bouquet of flowers to hide the body odor.

Baths consisted of a big tub filled with hot water. The man of the house had the privilege of the nice clean water, then, all the other sons and men, then, the women and, finally, the children -- last of all the babies. So if you had a large family, the water could be so dirty you could actually hide an infant in it -- hence the saying, "Don't throw the baby out with the bath water."

People took a bath only once a year because the medical profession believed that dirt kept your skin safe from germs. They didn’t have the concept of germs exactly, but knew that disease (literally dis-ease) could be spread through the air. However at the end of a couple of weeks without a bath people smelled pretty bad, and looked pretty dirty. So Europeans invented makeup to cover the dirt, perfume to hide the stink, and wigs to cover incredibly greasy hair.

People in the country were more likely to swim in the local streams, creeks, and ponds, but they were "only farmers" and were not expected to dress like city folk, or like people of the Royal Court. The Royal Physician was usually an upper class person who didn’t have the training the country doctors had. Nevertheless his ideas about medicine were considered law.

Houses had thatched roofs--thick straw, piled high, with wood beams, underneath. Often these houses had a loft. It was the only place for animals to get warm yet be out of the way, so, the dogs, cats lived in the loft. When it rained heavily, the thatch might let enough water in to wet the loft. The animals trying to find a dry spot could slip and fall off the loft-- hence the saying "It's raining cats and dogs." There was no ceiling and therefore nothing to stop things from falling into the house. This posed a real problem in the bedroom, where bugs from the thatch and animal droppings from the loft could really mess up your nice clean bed.

A bed with big posts and a sheet hung over the top, afforded some protection. That's how canopy beds came into existence. I have photos of the several hundred year old stone homes in Nottingham England, typical of the homes during the period when James and William Browne came to America. They still have thatched roofs. The people who did the roofing were called thatchers.

The floor was often dirt. Only the wealthy had something other than dirt, hence the saying "dirt poor." The poor had plenty of dirt, but not much money. The wealthy had slate floors that would get slippery in the winter, when wet, so, they spread thresh on the floor to help keep their footing. As the winter wore on, they kept adding more thresh until when you opened the door it was stacked so high that it would start sliding outside. A piece of wood was placed in the entryway to hold it in --hence, a "thresh hold", which is the piece of wood you sometimes still see on the floor, under the door. It also serves to keep rain and snow out of the house.

In America the European settlers of the 1600’s built wood houses or log houses many of which also had dirt floors. Glass was very expensive to have shipped from Europe, so many settlers used oil cloth in place of windows. Cloth was oiled, then secured to the window frame. The oil kept rain out, while the thin white translucent cloth let some daylight in. The poor would tamp the dirt floors, then use a stick to draw designs in the dirt floor wherever people were least likely to walk. It was an inexpensive way to decorate.

However a wood house with a dirt floor and glassless windows (closed via shutters or oilcloth) had could be dangerous. There are cases of people being killed inside their house of lightening strikes. The lightening would enter an open door or unsealed window, and the dirt floor would act as a "ground".

Most of the doctors in early England supported capital punishment. English law forbade the dissection of human cadavers, with the exception of those executed for murder. This exception existed because early English executions were often quite brutal. Drawing and quartering, for example, were legal butchery. Physicians often got their education in pathology either by claiming those bodies, or by hiring grave robbers (which was, by the way, a criminal offense).

Europeans cooked in the kitchen with a big kettle that always hung over the fire. Every day, they lit the fire and added things to the pot. They ate mostly vegetables and did not get much meat. They would eat the stew for dinner, leaving leftovers in the pot to get cold overnight and, then, start over the next day. Sometimes, the stew had food in it, that had been there for quite a while--hence the rhyme, "peas porridge hot, peas porridge cold, peas porridge in the pot nine days old." Sometimes they could obtain pork, which made them feel quite special. When visitors came over, they would hang up their bacon to show off. It was a sign of wealth that a man "could bring home the bacon." They would cut off a little to share with guests and would all sit around and "chew the fat."

In Europe peasants were not allowed to hunt in the game preserves of the wealthy and the royal. In America European settlers found plentiful game if you were willing to hunt and fish. So many farmers used hunting and fishing to add meat to their family’s diet. Bear, deer, squirrel, rabbit, wild turkey, quail, pigeons, and in the northeast, timber buffalo were available. Also fish, clams (including fresh water clams taken in such quantities that they can no longer easily be found), oysters, crawfish (even in the north) were readily available.

Those with money had plates made of pewter. Food with a high acid content caused some of the lead to leach onto the food, causing lead poisoning and death. This happened most often with tomatoes, so, for the next 400 years or so, tomatoes were considered poisonous. Since tomato plants are members of the poisonous nightshade family, it was thought that was the cause of the problem.

Most people did not have pewter plates, but had trenchers, a piece of wood with the middle scooped out like a bowl. Sometimes, trenchers were made from stale hard bread, so old and hard that it could be used for quite some time. Trenchers were not washed, and, a lot of times, worms and mold got into the wood and old bread. After eating off wormy moldy trenchers, one would get "trench mouth." People who ate off trenchers were called "trenchermen" which meant someone who could eat heartily even if the trencher was getting a bit disgusting.

Bread was divided, according to status. Workers got the burnt bottom of the loaf, the family got the middle. Guests got the top, or, "upper crust.", which was often softened with butter.

Lead cups were used to drink ale or whiskey. The combination of alcohol (acidic) and lead (poisonous) would sometimes knock users out for a couple of days. Family would take them for dead and prepare them for burial. They were laid out on the kitchen table for a couple of days and the family would gather around and eat and drink and wait and see if they would wake up, creating the custom of holding a "wake."

England is old, and compared to America, small, so when the English started out running out of places to bury people, they would dig up coffins and removed the bones to a "bone-house" or ossuary, and reuse the grave. When reopening these coffins, one out of 25 coffins were found to have scratch marks inside the lid. (See lead cups, above.) Europeans realized they had been burying people alive in spite of the wakes. So, they tried tying a string on the wrist of the body being buried, leading it through the coffin and up through the ground to a bell. Someone would have to sit out in the graveyard all night (the "graveyard shift") to listen for the bell. Hopefully, someone could be "saved by the bell", but, if not, was considered a "dead ringer."

Prior to the introduction the printing press, books were difficult to acquire. Only the very wealthy and the church could afford to pay for the laborious hand copying of books. In the case of the Church, Monks in Monasteries were often utilized for this task. Therefore, the poor and the middle class people depended on those people to share what was in the books, including the Bible, since only those associated with either the church or with royalty could read, write, and do math. Many a European royal hired someone to read to them, and write for them. Emperors, kings, and other royals were usually wealthy enough to afford this. Churchmen needed those skills to study the bible for the purposes of teaching believers (Christians) and converting "heathens" (anyone not already of the Christian faith).

We tend to forget that prior to the Holy Roman Empire invading their lands, most European tribes had other religious beliefs (which the Christian church considered to be "pagan"). In England for example most native peoples followed a form of religion where even the trees had spirits. This is quite similar to the belief held by the natives in America, several hundred years later, when America was rediscovered by Europeans.

As part of the conversion process, the Christian church usually would adopt the local people’s favorite religious days. For example Hollowed Evening (Holy Evening) was overlaid with All Souls Day. The Christian day of praying for all souls to go to heaven overlaying the day, in the Celtic Wiccan belief, when all souls were released from Earth to go to their gods. This became Hollow E’en, we now celebrate as Halloween.

Once the local political leaders were converted, the church would have sufficient power to prosecute or otherwise make life miserable for those who did not convert. Druid church leaders, known as "wicas", who tried to retain their religious beliefs were branded as "witches" and persecuted. Modern man realizes these were the same sort of religious leaders as Egyptian priests in that they knew some math, engineering, and astronomy (Pyramids versus Stonehenge). They also knew some basic observable scientific cause and effect. They had calendars, and knew some alchemy by which they could induce chemical reactions, but could not explain them ("magic"). Like most native priests and doctors, they often knew the curative effects of local plants.

While they could not explain, as modern man can, how alchemy and magic worked, they knew that it worked. Along with a little sleight of hand, alchemy and magic were powerful tools in the hands of many pre-Christian religious leaders. People feared that which they did not understand, and often considered things they did not understand to fall under one of 2 categories: magic or miracles.

Unfortunately, early Christian leaders believed that any magic not of their own doing was the "devil’s work", and any magic of Christian origin was a "miracle". So those who’s religious activities did not comply with Christian definitions (as interpreted from "the source of all knowledge", the bible) often found themselves jailed or worse. Even Christians who pursued engineering and scientific knowledge not specified in the bible were threatened. Most famous of these were Copernicus and Galileo.

Oddly enough there are still some Christian sects that hate science and logic, even today. In any case, at that time, the bible was considered by some religious leaders to be the only source of any information, including science. Even the poorest, least literate people, the serfs, were expected to attend church services where God’s Spell, the Gospel could be read to them. As in Galileo’s case, observing facts and thinking logically could result in severe punishment by religious leaders. The Dark Ages were a direct result of this conservative mentality.

The Age of Printing might be a fitting name for this century. Books had been expensive, and laboriously hand written prior to the invention of the printing press. So only the Church, and the wealthy owned them. To this day, there are monasteries with collections of hand-written books that haven’t been opened and read in the hundreds of years since copied, or translated by the Monks who wrote them.

Mechanical printing allowed the quick reproduction of information dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of times. Initially this meant everyone could have their own inexpensive copy of the Bible.

But there were other kinds of information that could also be shared, that did not come from the Bible. Farmers needed to share consistent agricultural and husbandry items. Businessmen could publish prices. Explorers could write of their adventures, as would Marco Polo.

Furthermore during the Islamic Age of Enlightenment, when conservatism did not hold sway over people’s lives, Islamic books had made their way to Europe through the Mediterranean trade routes. The non-religious books on farming, trade skills, medicine, and commerce had valuable information. Algebra, and spherical geometry, for example, were important to businessmen, engineers, ship builders, and so on.

The ready availability of information shared through (relatively inexpensive) books, created a demand for more information. While this demand was slowly building, eventually it would bring reading and writing to at least the middle class and the wealthy of Europe. Initially a religious tool, over time it would become a tool anyone could use to their benefit.

In Haarlem, Holland a man named Coster was printing from movable type before 1446. Gutenburg was printing at Mainz at that time. There were printers in Italy by 1465, and Caxton was printing in Westminster England by 1477. Initially books were still hard to come by. Moreover, good paper was difficult to get in Europe until near the end of the 15^th century. It took nearly another century for good quality paper to be mass-produced cheaply enough for the economical printing of books to take place. However, by the 1600’s professionally printed books had become common, and most people were learning to read so that they could read their copy of the Bible. (Guttenburng’s bible was printed only in Latin, by the way)

Most European nations were coming out of the Dark Ages to some degree or another, and with the various European Wars, the need to colonize the newly discovered Americas to take advantage of the untapped wealth, required a new kind of commerce. Various European Kings were claiming lands, and sending people to tap that wealth, for the resulting commerce could be taxed in the King’s name. This required bookkeeping.

And that required business people very different than the old time town artisans and traders, i.e., it required educated people. The intellectual demands became more vigorous, and both the Bible, and books on all kinds of other subjects, became available. As a result, during this same time, dialects were becoming replaced with a standard of language in many European countries: Italy, Spain, France, Germany and England all developed literary languages which became far more exact and vigorous than the local dialects. While some dialects, slang, and regional accents remained, the idea of "high" English for literary, legal, and political purposes came into being. High German, for example, is literary and scientific German. Local dialects still existed, as they do today. (Even in America, we have a Bostonian accent versus a Georgian accent, or a Texan accent but you will notice that most national TV news commentators have a "mid-western" accent, because that is considered to represent "high" english.)

With the consolidation of language, came a consolidation of kingdoms into increasingly larger political and economic regions. Various European kings and princes sought political advantage against the Emperor of Europe, as well as against other kings and princes, the Roman Pope became a part of the politics, having been the source of Emperors from the beginnings of the Holy Roman Empire. European citizenry with access to the Bible and to other books began to think for themselves and to seek truth, both political and religious.

This time became known as the Reformation Period. Protestantism meant the protest against the politics of the time including Papal politics. The bulk of the new Bible students could find passages in the Bible to "prove" whatever ideas their own logic and conscience might wish in support of their new views and interpretations on politics, religion, and life. It should be noted that within the Christian Church a similar reformation was taking place, where a conspicuous and popular awakening of thought, inquiry, and discussion also began to occur.

The conservative religious leaders of the historical Christian church had been involved in murder in God’s name. The European Inquisition had legalized the "trial" and murder of anyone who disagreed with the local Cardinal, Bishop, or Priest’s interpretation of the Bible. In some cases the trial consisted entirely of the arrest and torture of suspected individuals until they either confessed or died. The logic was that if they died without confessing, or while professing their faith in Jesus, they were probably innocent. The fact that they had been horribly murdered was OK, because it was in the name of religion.

There were many examples known to the founders of this country. In 1474 in Basel Switzerland, a "black rooster" supposedly laid an egg. The religious leaders tried the "rooster", found it guilty, and burned it at the stake. The evidence was that it was black, and had been found sitting on the egg. Black cats, and evidently black roosters, were thought to be signs of the devil.

Galileo Galilei (1564 to 1642) proved Copernicus’ analysis of the movement of the Moon around the Earth, and the Earth around the Sun was correct. The conservative Church leaders decided that the Bible said otherwise, and tried Galilei, threatening him with death if he did not recant his views. He was forced to kneel in front of a court of Cardinals and state he was wrong. He lived his last 17 years under house arrest, with a death sentence if he ever again stated his scientific views on the subject.

Moreover, the European Inquisition had accomplished little other than slowing down the development of science (particularly medical science), and the killing of hundreds of thousands of European citizens for usually bizarre reasons. In one town in Germany for example, a woman was killed after being accused of witchery. Soon anyone with a grudge was using the local government and church to kill any woman they disliked, or wanted to get even with. In that town, all the women were eventually killed as witches, only stopping when the Mayor’s own wife was accused and he brought the murders to a halt.

However, for students of history, there are many more similar stories of the abuse of conservative religious leaders of the time. Throughout Europe families, villages, and small towns were wiped out "in the name of God". The poor and uneducated were the most easily victimized, but as the story of Galileo shows, no-one was entirely safe from the various Inquisitions. Abuse of power was rampant.

In 1492, Cristobal Columbo, an Italian ship captain, convinced the King and Queen of Spain that he could find a faster route to the Spice Trades. Spice trade with the lands west of Africa, and with Asian countries was creating enormous wealth. The Spanish royals had spent most of their wealth trying to regain control of all of Spain from the Islamic Arabs. Acquiring a fast route to the Spice Islands potentially meant acquiring great wealth.

The Spanish called him Christopher Columbus. He didn’t find spices, or India, but he did find enough gold, and more than enough islanders to enslave, to indicate potential wealth. Spain would send more explorers. As word spread of a route west to lands of great wealth in timber, slaves, and potentially gold, other European nations would send their own explorers.

It could be called the Age of Exploration, or the Age of Separation of Church and State, or the End of the Holy Roman Empire. It was all of that and more. Further explorations would prove the world was indeed round. The question would arise, that if the Church leaders were wrong about that, what else were they wrong about?

And so also it became the end of the Inquisition. Independent Kings didn’t need it to squash political players. Without royal support, Christian church leaders would be hard pressed to legally murder those who disagreed with their biblical interpretations.

Kings, and other religious dissidents, could now publish their own views about what the Bible meant. And they did.

This century saw the end of the Holy Roman Empire, and the beginnings of the separation of governments from the Christian Church of the time. Because that church had claimed that kings received their power directly from God, via Christian Church leaders who were the Word of God on earth; those kings who disagreed with Rome were founding their own religions.

The Holy Roman Empire was on its way out, as various European Kings attempted to buy their election to the position with "vast amounts of bribery". (The Outline of History, H.G. Wells). Knights in shining armor were on their way out; armor could be pierced by musket balls. Arrow and sword stopping armor didn’t help a knight to close for combat with a musketeer 25 yards away. The days of European bows and arrows was coming to a close.

In 1517 a German monk/priest named Martin Luther had denounced the "worldly splendor" of the Roman Papacy, as well as the selling of indulgences as a Christian Church fundraiser. Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, a Hapsburg (German) had to choose between Rome and Luther. However a significant number of powerful German Princes sided with Luther. As Kings and Princes chose sides, war broke out, primarily in Italy and France.

After 10 years of war, Europe was left impoverished by its costs. By then German Protestant Princes had broken away from the Roman religious leadership. Although Rome denounced them, the fracturing of the Christian Church into various sects, with various belief systems, had begun. Wars were breaking out based not only on political alliances, not only on alliances against non-Christians, but also based on which Christian sect controlled a particular political area.

The English King, Henry VIII, had come into office in 1509 at the age of 18. He began his career by writing a book condemning heresy, for which the Pope awarded him his title. But by 1530, he wanted to divorce his first wife to marry Anne Boleyn, something the Pope would not allow. So he joined the Protestant movement, and protested the anti-divorce ruling by founding the Church of England. This allowed him to oppose Charles V in support of the French King Francis I. He also appropriated the vast wealth of the churches in England.

Suddenly many European Kings were declaring their Divine Right to Rule through local Bishops or Cardinals who in many cases held their offices due to political, that is wealthy family, ties anyway. In many countries, refusing to change allegiance was tantamount to treason, therefore punishable by (at the worst) death. These Kings were declaring for religious freedom for their States, but not necessarily for the citizens therein. But the question was being asked, if for Kings, why not for citizens? That the Kings were taking Church wealth for their own had the added bonus, for the royals, of weakening the Church’s influence and power.

Meanwhile wars were being fought for or against various claims to the office of Emperor. War on the sea had consisted of armed merchant ships of various sizes attacking each other. Henry VIII commissioned the construction of the first modern warship since Roman galley times. The battleship Mary Rose was designed stem to stern as a true warship. Thus began the rise of modern navies, and the race to build bigger, stronger warships.

In the 1500’s a Bohemian named Count Schlick was minting silver coins which he called Joachimstalers, the name of the valley (Joachimstal) where the ore was mined. Over time people shortened the word to "taler", which the Danes and Swedes called "daler", and the Dutch called "daalder". When the English took over New Amsterdam and renamed it New York, and New Sweden became Wilmington, the Dutch and Swedish settlers who stayed in those settlements continued to use the silver coin. Since silver and gold coins were the money of the day, the English settlers, who understood that silver and gold coins held more value than paper money, also used the "dollars".

This might be called the Age of Religious Revolt, Political Revolt, or American Colonization, for it was all of those things. Perhaps it could be called the Age of Exploration, because in addition to exploring "the New World", people were exploring information, facts, ideas, and the process of thinking for themselves.

If Kings were encouraging questioning the Church’s rulings, the Church was encouraging questioning the rulings of Kings and Queens who were doing so. Businessmen and farmers alike were beginning to realize that both their political and their religious leaders could be wrong about very important matters. Matters that affected peoples’ lives.

Reactions against religious excesses were involved in triggering the Reformation. People who lost friends and family during such abuses of conservative religious thinking were apt to welcome reform that led away from murderous religious fanatics. Some of the religious rulings that were taken quite seriously, would be considered silly by today’s standards of education, but at the time people were prosecuted, jailed, and even executed because of extreme conservative thinking.

For example, the eating fork was introduced into England in the early 1600’s. Because it was 3 tined, religious leaders thought it an invention of the devil, and said so in the pulpit. For several decades the English continued to eat with a knife, rather than a fork, until someone invented a 4 tined fork which didn’t look so much like the devil’s pitchfork. Farmer’s pitchforks carried 4 or more tines, and were not denounced.

In 1603 James, King of Scotland, also became King of England taking the name James I. The English parliament had, by virtue of the Magna Carta (King John 1199-1216), two assemblies: elected shire representatives called the House of Commons, and one of episcopal and patrician members called the House of Lords. The Magna Carta created fundamental rights for citizens, making England a legal state rather than a regal state. The power of the King of England was restricted with regards to controlling the lives and property of his citizens, save with the consent of that citizen’s equals.

In 1640 Archbishop James Ussher of Armagh Ireland, used biblical genealogy to "establish the date God created the Earth", and by extension the Universe. He counted the ages of Adam and his descendants, as translated into English from the Latin translation, which came from the Greek translation of the original Aramaic text. (The Jews of Christ’s time didn’t speak Hebrew, they spoke Aramaic).

However he failed to take into account the changes common to every language throughout its history, when he announced that the Earth was created on October 23, 4004 BC. Between the changes in the meanings of words within a single language, and efforts to translate those kinds of potential errors across at least four languages, the best Historical Language experts of today are still discovering corrections.

For example, archaeologists only recently discovered that camel caravans were passed through tunnels in the walls of Jerusalem known as an "Eye of the Needle" because they were so narrow. It allowed one camel at a time to be searched for contraband, weapons, and for tax purposes. Thus what was thought by Christians to be an interesting parable, turned out to have specific meaning the listeners of Christ’s time.

Since science was limited to alchemy (chemistry) and often considered to be "magic" unless practiced by religious leaders, the Archbishop’s opinion would stand for several hundred years. This would create a religious debate between those who believe the Bible must be taken literally on all subjects, and those who believe it has meaning only in the context of moral guidance.

Because the first Bible (the Old Testament) in its original language was written at a time when most people were uneducated, and knowledge of science didn’t exist, i.e. some 3,500 years ago, this writer takes the latter view. It is appropriate to note that the Old Testament came from the Jews, and that Jesus was a Jew.

Regarding taking individual passages of the bible (much less the Koran) literally, one passage states that the Earth is the center of the Universe, a common belief thousands of years ago. When Copernicius, and Galileo showed evidence that it was not, conservative Church leaders prosecuted them for blasphemy. We all know how that turned out. Church leaders should lead moral discussions, and stay out of science and politics. All too often they do not, with disastrous results.

James son, Charles I during his reign triggered a civil war in 1640. His Parliament fought back when he attempted a series of political moves that included trying to arrest 5 members of Parliament who opposed him. In August 1642 Charles I set up his standard at Nottingham, England. He was unable win the battle for London, to arrest the Parliament; but neither could they take the king’s forces. Oliver Cromwell would change that.

A Parliamentary commander, Oliver Cromwell seems to have been an excellent military organizer, and he quickly rose to General. He soon captured Charles I, who chose to insist that his rule was more important than his citizens’ rights. Charles was tried as a tyrant, traitor, and murderer, and in January of 1649 he was beheaded. England was without a king, and the kings of other countries were openly hostile to English envoys. Cromwell became the new leader of England, suppressing both Irish and Scottish uprisings. The Dutch took the opportunity to go after English shipping trade, so Cromwell went after the pirate fleets from Algiers, Tuscany and Malta and in the process established England as a sea power to be feared.

The English, like all the European nations that had any sea power at the time, wanted to take advantage of the vast resources in America. In the early 1600’s they had founded Jamestown Virginia, as part of their claim to land between the French in the north and the Spanish in the south. While the Dutch and Swedes had settlements in Manhattan New York and Wilmington Delaware respectively, the English were confident that new Navy they were building would take care of that problem.

By 1621, the English settlement at Plymouth Rock (officially called Northern Virginia) in New England was doing very well under the tutelage of the Wampanoag Natives in the area. The English settlers had learned from them how to farm the local crops, find the local fruits, and hunt the local game. Only about half the immigrants had survived the first winter, largely due to some illness after they arrived. (As an interesting exercise in real history, ask yourself who taught Squanto, the Wampanoag, the English he used to talk with and help the Plymouth settlers. He already spoke it when they met him. There are several books on the subject of Squanto. He had, in fact, lived in Europe for many years before meeting the settlers at Plymouth).

The Jamestown settlement was faring even worse. However, that spring the Natives began teaching the northern settlers how to survive off the land. Remember that in England, many farmers farmed for royal landowners, and hunting was not permitted on royal lands. Furthermore the crops the settlers were used to, were not the crops the Wampanoags were raising. Were it not for Squanto’s people, the Plymouth settlement would have died.

At the end of 1621, after a successful spring and summer, during which the Natives had shared their food, and their hunting and farming skills with the new settlers, the colonists decided to give thanks to their hosts by returning the favor. At this first thanksgiving, the Plymouth settlers shared with their hosts, wild turkey, venison, clams, lobster, and other meats. From their gardens came maize, beans, onions, carrots, pumpkins, squash, and other American vegetables. For desert there were grapes, plums, currants, acorn, chestnuts, walnuts, and other native fruits and nuts.

(By the way, this is a good time to point out that the English were late-comers to America. The Spanish had settlements in Florida, California, Central and South America in the early 1500s. The French were settling Canada, and the Dutch and Swedes were settling along the East Coast well before the English attempted their first settlements.)

However there would be no national Thanksgiving holiday until President George Washington proclaimed, with congressional resolution, a National Holiday in 1789.

It is important to note that William Penn’s father was an Admiral in the English Navy, and was instrumental in accomplishing this process. Admiral William Penn was by age 29 a very rich vice-admiral of the navy. When Oliver Cromwell died in 1658, Admiral Penn declared for Charles II. As a commissioner of the navy, in addition to shares of the distribution of war spoils, he received 500 Pounds a year salary. As Admiral of Ireland he received an additional 400 Pounds a year. He had in part earned all this by convincing the Navy to also declare for Charles II.

Naval officers who successfully waged war in the name of their king, could earn significant wealth. During the times discussed here, naval officers who successfully captured either warships or cargo ships earned a part of the value of the ship and its contents. A captured warship could be repaired, renamed, and re-used by the navy. Cargo ships likewise, with the additional benefit that the cargo could be used by the English crew if food or drink, saving the king the cost of supplies, and goods could be sold at high profit. The only cost was the repairs on one’s own ship due to battle, and the cost of loss of life during the battle. In Admiral Horatio Nelson’s letter to the Lord Earl Spencer regarding a battle where he captured 3 ships for the British Admiralty in September 1798, he estimated the total value 60,000 Pounds. Of this the breakdown he worked out as follows:

Navy Rank	Estimated Value in Pounds
Commander-in-chief	3,750
Junior Admirals	625
Captains	1,000
Lieutenants	75
Warrant Officers	50
Petty Officers	11
Seamen and Marines	2.5

(Life before the Mast, Carroll & Graf, edited by Jon E. Lewis)

From this it can be seen that a successful naval officer could earn quite a lot of wealth if he survived the carnage. Make no mistake, in naval battles during the sailing vessel heyday casualties were high. William Dawson of the HMS St. Fiorenzo in 1808 described a battle with the French ship La Piedmontais which carried 366 sailors and 200 Lascars (working the sails). In the action the French suffered 48 killed, and 112 wounded. In one battle 28% of the French were casualties. Later in the same letter, Dawson lists his own ship’s casualties over a 3 day battle: 13 killed, 25 wounded.

For this reason the King made it legal for the Admiralty to "press" men into the Navy. If you lived along the coastline, or on a river, you might find yourself kidnapped by Marines, and placed aboard ship to learn to sail and fight for the Admiralty. If your hands had the stain of the tar caulking used on shipping vessels, you were a "Jack Tar", meaning you were already skilled as a sailor, and all the more desirable to his majesty’s Navy. One of the complaints of colonists during the Revolutionary War was being pressed into his majesty’s wars. Even after Americans won their independence, British ships that captured American ships up to and during the War of 1812 continued to press Americans onto British Warships. This was one of several problems that brought about the War of 1812.

In 1660 Charles II, son of Charles I was brought back to England and crowned. In 1667 the Dutch sailed up the Thames River and punished England by burning the English fleet in the Medway. In 1685 Charles II was succeeded by his brother James II, whose politics initiated a second Parliamentary revolt. Parliament replaced him with William Prince of Orange and his wife Mary. (The Outline of History, H.G. Wells).

William Penn, the son of Admiral Penn, was well educated and by age 15 entered into the University of Oxford. He studied Greek and Latin writers, and was fluent in French, German, Dutch and Italian. He would later learn 2 or 3 Native American dialects as well. He certainly knew John Wilmot, Christopher Wren, and John Locke. He studied on the continent as well. He spent some time with his father aboard the Admiral’s ship (Royal Charles) at age 20. He had also spent time in jail for his religious beliefs, for he had opposed the state sponsored religion (which tended to change according to which King and/or Queen was running the country) and refused to renounce his Quaker faith. (Pennsylvania, Province and State, 1609-1700, Bolles)

The American Plantations were the lands claimed along the Atlantic coast by England and extended to the west as far as the English could imagine. Settlements were established by several other countries also, for example the Dutch in New York, and along the Zuydt (South) River, the Swedes along the South River (the Delaware), the Spanish in Florida, and the French in Canada. English regions were settled in "Patents" and "Proprieties" granted by the King to individuals, generally in return for various favors to the Crown, and slowly developed the defined, and often disputed, boundaries of the Colonies. Many people were sent to the American Plantations simply to get them out of England for various reasons, among them to escape political, or religious, persecution. Many incentives were provided to induce others, usually people with skills, to emmigrate from the Old World to the new, to firmly establish the claims to the lands.

New Englanders claimed all the Atlantic Coast from New England to Virginia as part of New England. When researching family history, ships records may record landings at "New England" towns that later became part of other colonies. Remember that not all the colonies were established at the same time. Also, as wars were won, the English secured land originally claimed by other European kings.

As a result of the persecution of Quakers in England, William Penn developed a plan to found a colony in America. His first effort was in what is now New Jersey. King James I had granted the land between the Atlantic and the Delaware River to Lord Berkeley, and Sir George Carteret. However Berkeley later decided to sell his share of the venture for 1000 Pounds to John Fenwicke in trust for Edward Byllinge, both Quakers. Byllinge soon sold his interest in New Jersey to William Penn and 2 other men. Penn quickly had members of the Religious Society of Friends settling in West New Jersey, at Burlington and other locations. It was during this time (1677) that our James Browne arrived and helped found and lay out the town of Burlington, originally called Bridlington. Penn’s success in this effort led him to desire to found a colony in which he would be the sole proprietor.

By 1681 King James’ treasury was empty from the various internal and external wars. He owed Admiral William Penn sixteen thousand Pounds, and a peerage. The Admiral had commanded the English fleet in the battle against the Dutch. His victory had allowed England to claim the Dutch colonies in the Americas, including New Amsterdam, which was renamed New York.

The king offered instead a charter for a colony on English soil in America. The charter was documented and signed on March 4^th, 1681. Penn had drawn up the charter so as to avoid the problems that had occurred with the New England Charters. Within 4 weeks of the king signing the charters, Penn’s cousin Colonel William Markham was sent to take possession of the land. By the autumn of 1681 Penn had sent three shiploads of colonists he had recruited to the new land. The vessels John and Sarah reached the Delaware River first. However, the Bristol Factor was driven by storms to the West Indian Islands and did not arrive until the following spring. The ships arrived at Upland, which was later named Chester PA. Penn had purchased from the Duke of York land that is now the State of Delaware, but was then known as the Lower Counties (New Castle, Kent, and Sussex).

The colonists began planning and building a "great town". And William Penn began negotiating through his representatives in the colony with the natives of the area for land and for trade. He also completed and published his framework for his government by 1682. His constitution focused on elected representatives of the people, and on religious freedom.

Meanwhile at Bristol England a company was organized with the name of the Free Traders’ Society of Pennsylvania, with a lawyer Nicholas Moore as chairman.

All of these experiences, as well as time spent in prison for his religious beliefs, were in the mix when Penn accepted the land grant which Charles II called Pennsylvania, after William’s father Admiral Penn and the huge tract of woods being given (Sylvania), for his Great Experiment. (Pennsylvania, State and Province 1609 - 1790, Bolles)

All men were to have religious freedom, as long as it did not interfere with anyone else’s. It is important to understand this history so we can understand why James and William Browne made their choices. Their decisions were based on it.

It is necessary to understand that English Quakers had been visiting the colonies well before Penn established his colony. Most often these Quakers were preachers intent on proselytizing in the existing colonies. Various colonies had been founded as bases for specific religions, for example the Puritans in New England, and the Catholics in Maryland.

These colonies had laws that restricted religious freedom to the faith in that particular colony. In 1656 for example 2 Quaker woman preachers were arrested and shipped to Barbados, and their pamphlets burned by the hangman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. In Maryland law decreed arresting and whipping Quakers. In Boston Quakers had their ears cut off, and four (Mary Dyer, William Robinson, Marmaduke Stephenson and William Leddra) were hanged because they continued to preach there after being banished and returning. Religious freedom did not exist in most colonies.

Rhode Island and East Jersey permitted freedom of religion. Eventually Maryland ceased enforcing its anti-Quaker laws due to the significant population of Quakers settling along the shores of the Chesapeake. (Philadelphia Quakers, 1681-1981, Schiffer Publications Inc.)

Having given you some idea of the religious, political, and economic background of England coming into the 1600’s, you can begin to get an idea of what daily life was like for our ancestors. They faced many problems. Who was king today? What religion was he publicly backing? What religion did he privately back? How much taxes would he take? To what use would he put them, war, or his own coffers? With the Reformation in full tilt, what preachers made the most sense? What would happen to his followers? Could there be freedom of thought, political or religious? Or might you end up in jail?

John Browne, of Bedfordshire and Northampton England was a Justice of the Peace of the County of Northampton. He had 3 sons, William, who died about 1664; Richard about 1622; and Thomas about 1663. (History of Luton and its Hamlets, Wm. Austin). Because of this entry, there seems to be some confusion as to whether this ancestor’s name was Richard or William. According to his descendant, the noted writer Henry Armitt Brown, Richard was the father of William and James Brown (who both emmigrated from England in the late 1600’s). Based on H.A. Brown’s own research., and the burial records, it is likely that the writer William Austin mixed up the death dates of William and Richard.

In 1786, an entry in the Nottingham Meeting record for births and burials added to this confusion by mentioning "the father of William Brown senior, in England; whose name is believed to have also been William and whose sons William and James came over in early times". This record was certified by George Churchman. Being nearly 100 years after James and William came over, time likely clouded the accuracy of the account, which must have been given by a grandchild of William, who certainly wouldn’t have met the great grandfather Richard.. H.A. Brown’s research seems a more accurate resource.

Richard Browne of Poddington, Bedfordshire, England became a member of the Religious Society of Friends, after meeting William Dewesbury who was a well known Quaker minister of the times. He had, during the religious and political upheavals of the times, been a Baptist, and later a Puritan, before becoming a Quaker. Richard Browne had 2 sons and 6 daughters. Both sons, James and William, emmigrated from England to America. Richard died 28^th of 9^th month 1662, and was interred in Friends burying ground at Wellingboro, County Northampton. His entry is the first record of births or deaths for Bedford and Northampton Counties, England for the Quaker records. He is stated as having been of Puddington, near Williamsborough, Nottinghamshire, England according to an account read into the church records at East Nottingham Brick Meetinghouse on the 28^th of the Fourth month of 1776. (The Browns of Nottingham and Related Families, Mary Williams Smith 1969). I’ve also seen Puddington spelled as Poddington. Remember, people of the time were not well educated, dictionaries did not yet exist, and folks spelled words how they thought they sounded. And how they sounded could be a matter of what local accent, the speaker had.

It seems appropriate here to take a moment to mention again the religious, political, and economic upheaval in England during the 1600’s. In the 1500’s political leaders sought to separate themselves from the political power of the Christian church. Away from Rome, it had been common for sons and daughters to be told by their parents that they must become priests or nuns. This was often for the same family purposes as sons and daughters being told whom they would marry. Such assignments had to do with securing family wealth and power. Furthermore kings sought the approval of local bishops, much less of the Pope in their quest to acquire the land and power from other kings. This frequently involved pre-arranged marriages, or political bribery of one sort or another. The history of the consolidation of France, Spain, Italy, and England from numerous kingships into countries ruled by one king, and of those kingdoms paying homage to one Emperor demonstrate the politics quite well. Even in WWI the protagonists, the King of England and the Emperor of Germany were cousins by blood, sharing the same Grandmother.

By the 1500’s some individual kings or emperors had amassed enough power that they could take stands against papal rulings that did not favor them. Various kings who wanted to be designated Emperor of a particular country within Europe, but were not so designated, simply created their own alliances or went to war. Since kings claimed a throne through Divine Right, i.e., power given by God, and the Pope claimed to be God’s voice on earth, there was bound to be a conflict of politics and religion. For the average citizen in each country, the question became "Who is right? The king or the pope?" The king might create an alliance with a local Bishop, and found his own religion.

Some local religious leaders, in trying to make sense of these conflicting claims, founded new religions that were neither Rome based, nor King based. The period from the early 1500’s through to the American colonies establishing freedom of religion is a period people seeking a religious path which made moral sense to them. During this time the term "seekers" often referred to the idea of people seeking "religious truth".

One of the ideas that set the early Quakers aside from the other Christian sects being founded during this period of religious upheaval, was the idea of democracy in religion. They quickly decided that they did not want a minister or priest telling them what the Bible meant. They knew how easily that turned into politics and war. The history of England during the same time is one of Kings and Queens lasting only a few years before being overthrown, and often… beheaded by the new political leaders. James I, Charles, James II, William and Mary, the list is long, of short lived "royals". Protestant or Catholic; whoever was in charge, persecuted those that were not in political and religious favor.

Quakers allowed anyone at Sunday Meeting, young or old, male or female, who felt they had a message to share, to do so. There would be typically 15 minutes of silence at the beginning of the meeting, to pray to God for his guidance. After that, people could share what they felt in their hearts and souls about God’s Truth. How did Jesus’ message of love actually translate into treating one’s fellow men and women in a Christian way? In bringing up questions of that sort, Quakers were still Seekers of Truth. All shared their search for an answer that would earn the Meeting’s approval.

Quakers quickly realized that women must be treated as men’s equals, both legally and intellectually. Children were not to be held as property, nor women. In this regard, it was quite common for Quaker women to "preach" in the sense of proselytizing converts among both other Christian sects, and in Indian villages. The Puritans feared this freedom so much that they passed laws in Puritan colonies to imprison Quaker preachers, burn their books, cut off their ears and run a hot poker through their tongues. In fact the first American Quaker martyrs were people hung by Puritans for preaching Quaker beliefs in New England. The Quakers are still around, but the Puritans are not. Interestingly, the Quakers who moved westward past the Mississippi River do now use ministers.

This concept of universal freedom was unique thinking at the time and scared many colonial politicians. In 1770, nine of the thirteen colonies had state supported churches, i.e., had one specific legally recognized religion. Only Pennsylvania (including the Lower 3 Counties now called Delaware), New Jersey, and Rhode Island did not have a state church. In the other nine, if you didn’t belong to the state church, you weren’t free to hold a political office. Also Quakers understood that things in life change, so in both their Meetings, and the three colonies where they held the majority, rules were expected to be flexible, and to change as they became outmoded. This was very scary stuff for the other colonies to cope with. Quakers were vilified and persecuted in the other colonies.

One must also be aware that William Penn, as proprietor of Pennsylvania, ensured that his colony had laws providing for freedom of speech, and freedom of religion. He actively sought people from many countries, and with many religious backgrounds to settle Pennsylvania. He called it his "Grand Experiment" to prove that all men could be brothers, regardless of their religious differences, under the law. Initially, few other colonies offered freedom of religion. Understanding this political and religious climate will help us to understand Richard Browne’s decisions and his sons’.

It can easily be seen that Quaker ideas of religious and political freedom heavily influenced the ideals for the type of government we have today. These ideals of freedom are certainly one of the main reasons so many of our ancestors immigrated to this country

Richard Browne’s wife was Mary. His death entry states: Richard Browne of Boarsworth died ye 28 day of ye 9^th mo. 1662 and was buried at Wellingsborough, County of Northampton. In the same book are listed: Daniel Browne, County of Bedford ye son of Richard and Mary d. Puddington 9 mo 11, 1719. Joseph Browne son of Richard and Mary d. at Puddington 3 mo 9, 1731. (Friends Records in England, according to the writer Henry Armitt Brown of Philadelphia). See the Family Tree for the rest of their children.

When Richard’s grandson, William Browne, visited England in 1752 with his brother-in-law John Churchman as Quaker ministers, William found descendants of Richard Browne living in Luton, Bedfordshire, England. (The Browns of Nottingham and Related Families, Mary Williams Smith 1969).

A story, repeated by William Browne to his own children about Richard Browne, concerns an incident after Richard chose to become a Quaker. Richard paid his landlord rent to a steward every 6 months. He trusted both the steward and the landlord and never asked for a receipt. The landlord, angry that Richard had refused on a particular year to raise and feed some hunting hounds for him, came and demanded a rent already paid. When Richard could not produce a receipt to prove it paid, the man asked him to swear an oath that it had been paid, knowing that Quakers did not believe in swearing oaths. Richard paid the rent a second time, but the landlord turned him off the farm anyway.

Quakers were viewed as being "different" than Baptists and Puritans; so it took some time for Richard to find another farm to settle on. During the 1600s, people who did not belong to the State sponsored faith were often given a bad time by those in power. William Penn obtained the grant from King Charles II for the province of Pennsylvania. He quickly proposed that Friends leave England and settle in America. Penn intended that in his colony, all would be free to practice the religion of their choice, as long as it did not impinge on anyone else’s faith. Many Quakers were concerned that it would seem as though they were fleeing religious persecution in England, which would imply that their faith in their religious choice was not strong.

William Dewsbury traveled around to various Quaker Meetings in England, including the one in Northamptonshire where the Browne family resided. Dewsbury argued that "The Lord is about to plant the wilderness of America with a choice vine of noble seed which shall grow and flourish… Under his blessing arising into a state of prosperity". Many members of the Religious Society of Friends believed this prophesied the spreading of Truth in America, and agreed to immigrate to the new colony. (The Browns of Nottingham, East Nottingham Monthly Meeting records, 1786)

Depending on the time of year, which affected the weather ships were likely to encounter, there were two primary routes to take to get to the Americas. There was the Northern Route and the Southern Route. Both could be highly dangerous if sailed too early or too late in the season. On the other hand, your ship might also lose the wind, that is to say the wind would fail. In such cases the ship would be subject to the ocean currents. A good captain and his navigator had to know the currents.

The northern route sailed west towards Iceland and Greenland, then along the Canadian coast and south towards the Hudson Bay, Delaware Bay, etc. The southern route started going to the western cape of England towards the Irish Channel, then south to the Canary Islands, and west to the islands of the Caribbean, then north along the eastern coast of North America.

In either case bad weather was to be feared. North Atlantic winter storms would send ships fleeing back to the nearest land for shelter, or risk sinking. Hurricanes coming out of the Gulf of Mexico sank not only Spanish bullion ships, but many English vessels which now line the coast from Georgia to Maine. Passengers depended on highly skilled ships’ captains and crews for their safe arrival to the colonies.

Beyond the weather, there were other issues. A 350 ton brig might carry 250 to 300 passengers as well as the ship’s crew. A voyage could take 2 to 3 months, depending on whether bad weather sent the ship hurrying to nearest land for shelter, or otherwise off course. The ship had to carry enough water, and food that wouldn’t spoil. If the passengers were lucky the ship might have a doctor on board. On a small ship, any contagious illness would quickly spread.

There were no cabins, nor privacy on ship. There was no outhouse. If a passenger needed to attend to a "nature call" there was a place at the front (or head) of the ship. This was called "going to the head".

Prior to the invention of iron stoves, passengers ate dried (jerked) meat and dried vegetables and fruits, nuts, and dried biscuits. If any of those foods became wormy, the choice was to starve, or to consider the worms as protein. If the ship was large enough to afford to carry firewood for cooking, that could be done using a large pan filled with sand. A small fire was lit well away from the edge of the pan, and buckets of water nearby to squelch any embers that might pop onto the deck.

On at least one of William Penn’s trips across, the passengers came ill with smallpox. Penn is said to have personally ministered to the health of his fellow Quaker passengers. Nevertheless it was said that the ship lost almost a passenger a day before arriving at their destination. That could amount to 60 to 90 passengers in a 2 to 3 month trip carrying 300 passengers.

In order to know how fast the ship was sailing, the captain would have the crew tie a long piece of thick twine to a board. The crew would throw the board off the stern of the ship. When the board, called a "log", hit the water, the twine was paid out, while the captain operated an hourglass that was designed to run out of sand in 28 seconds.

When the time was up, the crew would pull the twine and log back to the ship, counting the number of knots in the twine as they retrieved it. As the ship sailed through the water, the board had rotated, causing the twine to knot up. The faster the ship sailed, the more knots there were. The ship was said to be sailing that many "knots" per hour. The ship’s speed, as measured by the twine and log, was recorded several times per day in the ship’s "log book". This soon came to be known as the ship’s log. And after a while, anything the ship’s captain thought important was "logged in"

For new crewmembers of sailing vessels, there was anywhere from 1 to 4 or more masts plus the ship’s prow, from which sails could be unfurled. Furled or unfurled the sails were controlled and operated via ropes. A new sailor had to "learn the ropes".

As sailors began extending their sailing range from a few days, or weeks port to port, they discovered that sailing for months at a time over great oceans, the men began to get sick with rickets and scurvy. Both were caused by vitamin deficiencies, but doctors didn’t know about vitamins yet. It was discovered that men who ate citrus fruits quickly recovered, so the British navy began carrying limes on their ship, to prevent these illness-es. Their sailors became known as "Limey’s".

The Kent carried colonists to West New Jersey with Gregory Marlow as master, and loaded in London for New Jersey from 19 March to 31 March 1677. There followed loadings for other ports, but the ship sailed before May. The Kent sailed first to New York, arriving sometime between the 4th and the 16th of August.

After a short stay there, the Kent sailed across the bay to Perth Amboy, then headed south to the Delaware, landing first at the mouth of Raccoon Creek to disembark 230 passengers of the total of 270. She then moved on to Chygoes Island, now Burlington. Some histories describe a landing at Raccoon Creek after an early June stop at New Castle, arriving at Burlington on 23 June. However, the arrival time in New York is known from the minutes of the New York government, with which the Commissioners (aboard the Kent) met during their stay there.

It should be noted that many passengers said to have been aboard were from Yorkshire, Northamptonshire, and other northern counties. They probably loaded at some northern port, perhaps Hull or Liverpool, before the Kent arrived at London, which is why they are not listed in the London loading documents. (The Kent, by Donna Speer Ristenbatt)

Richard Browne’s son James was among the first Quakers to come to America, on the ship "Kent", where he helped lay out the town of now known as Burlington NJ in the latter part of 8^th mo. 1677. Many of these settlers were from Bridlington in Yorkshire England, and that name was originally used, but in a short time Burlington became common usage. (Philadelphia Quakers, 1681-1981, Schiffer Publications Inc.)

Sailing up the South River, as the English called the Delaware River in those early days, must have been an astonishing experience. We know from various historical records that the water was so clear that you could see to the bottom of the river and the schools of fish so thick that when you passed over one, you could not see the bottom.

There are also accounts of ducks and geese swimming in flocks so thick that when your boat moved through such flocks, you could not see the river water. And when you disturbed such flocks so that they flew away, it was like a great cloud had suddenly blocked the sun. The noise of their wings flapping, and of their duck calls and goose calls were so loud that people had to cover their ears as though from thunder.

In the woods overhanging the riverbanks would have been flocks of birds also as thick as clouds. Flocks of Passenger pigeons and Carolina parakeets thrived throughout the eastern colonies until the early 1900’s. The Carolina parakeet had green wings, and red and yellow heads. However such great flocks of pigeons and parakeets could cover an orchard or a field of grain, and farmers considered them to be pests. By the early 1900’s both species had been wiped out by hunters, and are now extinct. (A Gap in Nature: Discovering the World’s Extinct Animals; Flannery and Schouten; 2001)

At night any settlers near waterways (and most were) would have heard the sound of frogs calling in great numbers. Children would have contributed to their parents’ larder by catching frogs for a meal of frog legs. And, of course, there was fishing, fresh water clams, fresh water crayfish, oysters, as well as crabbing along the large rivers and their tributaries. Ponds and lakes could also be fished.

In the woods and fields young men learned to hunt rabbit, dear, bear, elk, and in the early days of the eastern colonies there were woods buffalo, an eastern bison. Duck and geese could be caught one of two methods: drifting a small boat through a flock and reaching out from under a tarp to wring the neck of unsuspecting birds; or by drifting a boat through a flock and firing a shotgun into the flock. The latter method was often used by professional hunters who intended to take large quantities of birds for salting and for shipping elsewhere. For this purpose a special kind of shotgun called a blunderbuss was designed. It was of higher caliber, so as to kill the most number of birds in one shooting, before the birds all flew away.

Hunters looking to put meat on their own table would also have water dogs or retrievers that could swim out to a dead duck or goose and bring it back to the hunter without ruining the meat. In the fields, colonists could hunt quail, pheasant, wild turkey, geese, and other birds. Retrievers were useful here as well. Many a family kept pointers or setters as hunting dogs.

In this regard, it should be noted that dogs and cats were not kept as pets as we now think of pets. A family had dogs for specific functions. Farmers with flocks of sheep, goats, or chickens kept guard dogs to protect their flocks from raccoon, fox, shoat, bear and other meat eaters. Farmers who also hunted kept dogs appropriate to the kind of hunting they did. Men who lived close to waterways kept water dogs. Men who lived farther from rivers and streams kept dogs that helped them hunt such as hounds, or dogs that could find downed birds such as retrievers. Farmers kept cats in the barns to keep mice and rats out of the granaries, and away from the horse feed or cattle feed. We think today of cattle to refer to cows, but a couple of hundred years ago the word referred to any herd of animals including goats and sheep. The first settlers didn’t raise cows, but like their English brethren, raised "mutton".

At Bridlington (Burlington) New Jersey, James Browne and other young men in the party assisted a surveyor named Richard Noble, who had arrived 2 years before. In 1679 it was there that James married Honour Clayton in "the primitive meeting house made of a sail taken from the Kent, it being the first marriage recorded in the state of NJ". In other words they were married in a tent; incidentally it was the first marriage recorded at Burlington. In 1678 her sister Prudence Clayton married Henry Reynolds, who later helped found Rising Sun (now in MD).

"The town thus laid out was divided into twenty properties – ten in the eastern part for the Yorkshire men, and ten in the western for the London proprietors. All hands went at once to work to prepare for the winter. Marshall, a carpenter, directed the building, and the forests began to resound with the blows of his axe. A clearing was made on the south side of the main street, near Broad, and a tent pitched there as a temporary meeting-house." While building the town, the settlers lived "in caves dug in the banks and faced with boards, or shanties of the most primitive description. They were not built of logs, as is commonly believed. It is to the Swede that we owe the "block-house" … and the "log-cabin". Two years later, 2 Dutch travelers noted the Burlington houses as "made of nothing but clap-boards", plastered with clay between the boards to stop the wind and rain.

The town was named after a village in old Yorkshire, England. The ship Kent is said to have landed at Raccoon Creek, on August 16, and they laid out the town on Chygoe’s Island in 1677. In letters written back to England, one settler wrote "I have seen orchards laden with fruit to admiration. Their very limbs torn to pieces with the weight, and most delicious to the taste and lovely to behold." And another "I have know this summer forty bushels of bold wheat from one bushel sown. We have from the time called May til Michalemas great store of very good wild fruits – strawberries, cranberries, and whortleberries, very wholesome". (The Settlement of Burlington, Henry Armitt Brown, 1878).

The first meetinghouse was an hexagonal structure built in 1682. An addition was built on in 1696. It is interesting to note that a local sachem or chief, Ockanickon, who died in 1677 is among those buried in the cemetery at the Meeting. It says something about the relationship of Quakers to the natives, that he is interred there.

Honour and Prudence Clayton’s father was William Clayton who became a Justice at Upland PA (now part of Chester, PA) in 1681, and a member of William Penn’s Council, therefore not without influence with Penn. (Upland had originally been a Swedish settlement). James Browne settled initially in the Marcus Hook PA area (Delaware County) until he bought land in the Chichester area, where he would help found the Chichester Meeting. In addition to being a Quaker minister, he was by trade a weaver but like most people of the time also farmed to a large extent. Weavers often grew the flax they needed for weaving textiles on their farms.

It may be appropriate to take a moment to straighten out a common misconception about Quaker clothing. Today it is generally believed that Quakers dressed as the Pennsylvania Dutch still do in Lancaster County PA, i.e., in black or gray clothing. In the late 1600’s this was not at all true. Although it was undecorated but neat, Quakers wore the bright colored clothing of the day: green, blue, and red. Their scarlet colored cloak was known as the "cardinal", and was quite common among Quakers. Their men wore the wide-brimmed hat called the Cavalier, and the women’s Quaker bonnet was from Paris, and considered most fashionable. Generally clothing colors were somewhat muted and the design basic, that is, little or no jewelry, ornaments or badges. However Quakers used the finest silk, the best quality broadcloth, and other expensive cloths for their clothing. It should also be noted that the clothing of various European countries was quite distinctive, and the clothing of the Europeans settling in America during this early time allowed all viewers to immediately deduce the wearers’ mother country by the wearer’s style of dress. (Five Centuries of American Costume, R. Turner Wilcox, 1963)

Another misunderstanding comes from the use by Quakers of the words "thee" and "thou". Over the years, people have come to associate these words with "ancient" translations of the Bible. However prior to the 1600’s, both thee and thou were used when speaking to one person. The word "you" was used when speaking to two or more people. Using the word "you" to speak to one person was a form of flattery, as if to say "thou are as important as several other persons combined". Since Quakers held that all persons were equal in God’s eyes, they felt that such flattery was the same as lying. So they continued to use the singular pronouns when speaking to individuals. Movies about Quakers don’t particularly make this clear. (Contributions of the Quakers, Elizabeth Janet Gray – 1947)

As mentioned before, log cabins were a Swedish construction. The English initially built the same framed, clapboard houses as existed in England. However, the great forests of England had been decimated for ship building when its government had set about building a Royal Navy capable of competing with the French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Dutch on the high seas. So the English had learned to construct houses using minimal wood resources.

In America the British settlers discovered millions of acres of old forest. While the woods close to waterways could be harvested and shipped back to Europe for great profits, the costs of hauling wood tens of miles overland made for lessening profits. The Scandinavian log cabin offered an excellent solution to the problem of clearing land for farming. Log cabins solved several problems, actually.

Using an axe and a saw, a couple of men could quickly cut down and notch the ends of trees of a given diameter. With an axe or adz, they would square the log into four sides, and start the first layer of the four walls of a cabin. A couple of logs and some rope provided a lever for lifting the heavy logs into place as the walls became higher.

Chimneys could be built of logs, covered with mud, or of stone if it was easily available. Roofs could be of slate, or wood shingles (hemlock, pine, and cedar were common) depending on which resource was at hand. Sometimes clapboard roofs were used. Generally the floors consisted of the dirt where the building was being put up, but some builders took the time to split trees and lay them round side down in the dirt. Structures went up faster if this step was skipped. Dirt floors had the advantage of not catching fire from sparking fireplace embers.

The logs were chinked with mud to fill in uneven spaces, and seal out the weather. Windows might be anything from sliding wood panels over holes in the wall, to oil cloth coverings, and for those with money, glass. Glass was expensive because it had to be shipped in from Europe, and was subject to breakage. Doors might be one piece or split (known as Dutch doors). In the Dutch door, the upper half when opened let in fresh air, while the closed lower half kept out the chickens, ducks, goats and pigs.

At night when the doors were closed and barred, thick wooden shutters were also closed to keep out the wildlife, such as raccoons, possums, squirrels, skunks, and so on. William Penn’s pamphlets that he used in Europe to draw immigrants to Pennsylvania included instructions for building log cabins. The idea that timber was so abundant in his colony certainly helped influence the decision of many of his listeners.

The log cabins were weather tight, and with walls 8 to 18 inches thick, quite warm. They were not likely to be chewed through by rodents. The biggest problem was getting light into them. Oil-cloth windows, while translucent, were not transparent. Larger window openings defeated the idea of keeping out critters and weather. Until whale oil became commonly available for oil lamps, the light from the large fireplaces, and the light from candles had to suffice.

Candles might be of wax, or of animal fat. Animal fat smelled bad, but was readily available on a farm. Bees wax was relatively harder to get, and expensive. But it had no odor. Candle holders came with and without reflectors. Until glass, and therefore mirrors were more common, metal reflectors were used. They had to be cleaned of soot from the candle, to maximize brightness.

Initially in the colonies cabins were one-room affairs. Penn’s suggested design allowed for a partition on the ground floor to make two rooms. It included construction of a loft, with access by ladder, or by pegs driven into the wall logs. The loft often included a rail so people sleeping there wouldn’t roll off, or walk off the loft in the middle of the night and break their necks. Usually children slept upstairs, and parents downstairs so the parents could tend the chimney fire in the winter.

Creative settlers soon had several variations in design. A three-room first floor often had a central fireplace. Fireplaces might be gabled, or in a corner. A common structure was the "double den" design, of two large rooms separated by a roofed over section that separated them, but was not walled in. A variation on this was a "saddle bag" design of two rooms with a narrow, walled walk way between them.

Generally these pioneers could maneuver a log of between twenty four and thirty feet, depending on its diameter, to place it. If a pioneer wanted a building to protect his livestock from the foraging of the new land’s meat eaters, one of these double building designs would suit. An advantage of a walled in walkway was that it would funnel the sounds of distressed livestock into the owners living quarters, allowing for a fast response. (The Log Cabin in America – C.A. Weslager)

Six years after helping found Burlington, in 1683 James Browne acquired land on Chichester Creek. Other Quakers may have stayed in Burlington NJ, but James and Honour Brown had moved west across the Delaware River to the Upland/Chichester area most likely in (or before) 1681 when her father was Justice in Upland.

The following year, James bought 60 Acres of land from Walter Martin of Chichester for 60 Pounds. James was to pay 7 pence quit rent yearly to William Penn. In 1862, after his brother William arrived from England, Browne gave 2 acres of land for a Quaker meeting house and burial ground for Chichester Meeting.

Situated in Upper Chichester Township, Delaware County, PA, the building is about ¾ of a mile northeast of Boothwyn (famous for its farmers market). The property is located on Route 452, west of Media PA.

The "1^st meeting for record and business" was recorded on 17 1^st month 1684, although religious services had been held at various Quaker homes, as was the custom until a meeting-house was built, some 2 years earlier. According to the minutes of a monthly meeting held at Chichester 11 day, 11 month 1688, the members proposed and agreed to build the meeting-house on land granted by James Browne. This was to include a fenced in burial ground that still exists. The subscription list appears in part below:

A meeting-house was built of logs, as was the early custom, in 1688, and lasted until December 4, 1768 when it was destroyed by fire and was replaced the following year. The Meeting and the burial grounds still existed and could be visited when this writer last went there in 1980. In visiting the building I found it amazing that such wooden structures lasted at all. Originally heated by fire places, it required only a small burning ember to land on the wooden floor unnoticed to set the stage for potential disaster. Perhaps in the earliest years of colonial settlement dirt floors minimized the potential for this type of disaster.

The deed for the Chichester Meeting property granted by James Brown is dated the 4^th day of the 10^th month of 1688. It states in part: "in consideration of 1 shilling and sixpence conveyed two acres to William Clayton Sr., Phillip Roman, Robert Pyle, Jacob Chandler, Joseph Bushell, and John Kingsman in behalf of and for the only used of the people of God called Quakers, provided always and at all times, that if anyone or more of the above said purchasers or anyone or more than shall be lawfully chosen to succeed hereafter, shall fall from the belief of the truth as held forth by the people of God called Quakers as aforesaid either in a profane and scandalous life or in doctrine and continue therein it shall and may be lawful in such case for the aforesaid people of the town and county aforesaid by their order and consent in their monthly meeting and always and at all times to remove and put out any such one or more of the said purchases or any other that shall succeed. And always and at all times hereafter to nominate and choose and put one or more in his or their room as they shall see fit." (The Immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pennsylvania, 1682 – 1750, Albert Cook Myers)

Many generations of Friends are buried in that cemetery. In the early years Friends did not believe in tombstones, therefore one must depend on the Meeting records for the names of those interred. Should you happen to visit the Chichester Meeting-house, you will note bullet holes in some of the wood. During the Revolution, the British General Cornwallis camped at Aston PA. His army sent foraging parties out from September 13^th through 15^th of 1777 from Village Green, and one of these expeditions halted at the Meeting-house. Fully aware of the religious nature of the building (the cemetery is just next to it) the troops shot repeatedly at the closed doors. The marks of the bullet holes were easily seen in the front door in 1980, when this writer last visited.

The property is now part of Concord Monthly Meeting, which held 2 meetings there each year. On the 1^st day of May and of November, in the afternoon, worshippers and visitors may gather. However membership has dwindled, and no minutes are kept. The record book is used as a register of visitors now. The groundskeeper house is on the side of the building opposite the cemetery. And built into its gable is a stone dated 1769 and the initials R.D. in honor of Richard Dutton, who played a major part in replacing the building after the 1768 fire.

James’ brother, William, arrived in America in 1682, 1 year after James and Honour moved to Chichester. William came to America 5 years later than James, in part because William’s 1^st wife, Dorothy, "could not give it up cheerfully". When they did cross the Atlantic, she died on board during the trip. His son, Joseph, who had been born in England on 4, 12, 1682, survived the trip. The ship William and Joseph traveled on was the Bristol Factor, with Roger Drew, master, for Pennsylvania and Virginia (meaning those were its 2 ports of call.) This seems to be the same Bristol Factor which had set sail in 1681 with the ships John and the Sarah but which had been blown off course. Did his wife die during the duress of the storm or of illness aboard the ship?

Did William name his son Joseph in honor of his father Richard’s brother Joseph? It seems likely. Joseph would have been only 4 or 5 months old when the family left England for America. That same year, in September, William Penn left England on the ship Welcome. There were about 100 Friends on board. (Philadelphia Quakers, 1681-1981, Schiffer Publications Inc.)

Shortly into Penn’s Atlantic crossing small pox appeared on board. By the time the ship was half way across what was on average a 9 week voyage, nearly every adult and child, male and female, was sick. For 2 weeks almost every day some poor soul died of the disease. Penn comforted the sick, administered what medicines were available in those days, and tried to comfort the dying.

Some people survived. Those who had ever worked around milk cows and had gotten "cow pox", a less deadly form of pox, had sufficient resistance to survive. Although common knowledge among farmers, few city doctors knew, much less understood, the phenomena. (The Alarming History of Medicine, Richard Gordon, St. Martin’s Press). By the end of the trip 30 passengers had died of small pox. (Contributions of the Quakers – Elizabeth Janet Gray, 1947).

A bit of ship board levity: One day a passenger aboard ship was talking to one of the sailors. The passenger asked the sailor, "Why do you have a peg leg?" The sailor answered, "A few years back when I was first sailing the seas, a big shark noticed me swimming one day and bit off me leg." "Well, then how did you get the hook?" the passenger asked, pointing to the place where the sailor 's left hand used to be. The man responded, "Well, me crew and myself were engaged in a rough battle one day with pirates, and me hand was cut off by a dirty coward's sword." The passenger looked at the hook for a moment. "Well now I have to ask how you got the eye patch." The sailor snarled, "I looked at a gull flying overhead in the harbor one day and it dropped a piece of squid right in me eye." The passenger was puzzled by this last explanation. "How
would that make you get an eye patch?" The sailor responded, "First day with me hook."

On October 27, 1682, the Welcome anchored at the port of New Castle on the Delaware River at the town of Newcastle, in the "Lower Counties" (New Castle, Sussex, and Kent). There he established his jurisdiction over them, before sailing on. Eventually the lower 3 counties would become known as Delaware. From New Castle, Penn sailed with his party of settlers to Upland, Pennsylvania. October would have been the end of "Indian Summer" and quite colorful after 8 or 9 weeks on the Atlantic, unless an early freeze hit the area.

Penn and his entourage moved up along the Delaware River to the mouth of the Schuylkill River. Four miles further was the Coaquannock and nearby Dock Creek where he then landed again. His surveyor had informed him that the best site for his provincial capital, to be named Philadelphia, was at the junction of the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers. Both were navigable, free of swamps, and had plenty of clay for brick making. Nearby were good stone and marble quarries.

Additionally, the woods were thick in girth and so tall that a man on horseback could easily ride under them. Due to the tall trees and thick branches high up on the tree trunk, there was very little undergrowth. It is now known that the local natives knew how and when to set fire to underbrush, to encourage this type of growth. They did this to minimize major fires during the dry season.

Penn purchased the land from 3 Swedish brothers named Svenson. He also drew up the city’s design to cover 12 square miles, with the city divided into 4 sections. The city center was to have a 10 acre public square and each section was to have an 8 acre public square.

In 1682, William Penn met with the sachems or kings of 3 Pennsylvania tribes, the Lenni Len’api, the Mingoes, and the Shawnee at an old Indian meeting place called Shackamaxon. He and they came without weapons. Together they negotiated a peace treaty that would last 70 years. In Pennsylvania the Native Americans often shared meat and sleeping quarters during that time. Quaker families traveling to Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia thought nothing of leaving their children in the care of neighboring Indians.

The Quaker settlers commonly treated local Natives as they would like to be treated. This included kindness, and not cheating them. In New York and New Jersey non-Quakers often invented reasons to attack and destroy entire Indian towns, usually because the land was more desirable. The Scotch-Irish non-Quakers did not hesitate to take by force what they wanted, regardless of treaties.

By 1683 William Penn was actively purchasing land from the native Lenni Len’api peoples, who took their name from the name they gave the river by which they lived; i.e. they called the Delaware River the Len’api. That summer he visited the "interior" and wrote an account of his travels which he sent to the Free Society of Traders in England. In the account he described the land, the natural resources, and said of the natives that they were "tall, straight, well built, and of singular proportion. They tread strong and clever…. " Penn began learning the local dialects.

White men who had different Christian ideals than Quakers dealt with the "Indians" as they were called (they were not from India), poorly. Penn noted that with the Bible in one hand, a rifle or shotgun in the other, and a bottle of whisky for trade, the natives were "the worse for the Christians, who have propagated their vices, and yielded them tradition for ill, and not for good things."

Penn’s first purchase of land from the Native Americans, notably the Lenni Len’api was quite large. He divided it into the 3 counties, Bucks, Chester, and Phila-delpia. Later purchases expanded his claims so that when Lancaster County was created in 1729, it formed a large triangle with its base on the Maryland line and the town now called Pottsville, at its apex. It was so large an area that later population growth caused several other counties to be split off of it.

The new proprietor conducted some governmental business, then visited Lord Baltimore to seek agreement on the boundaries between the two colonies at Pennsylvania’s western end. Lord Baltimore had already conveyed land in the disputed area to people whom he had recruited to come to America, and had no desire to go back on his word. Penn saw this as an infringement on the King’s land grant, and devised a plan to block further intrusion into his colony. The plan would be implemented in 1701. Meanwhile he returned to Chester, PA and began "casting the country into townships " .(Pennsylvania, State and Province 1609 - 1790, Bolles)

William Penn also set about meeting various Leni Lena’pi leaders (referred to in history books as "sachams" which may be their own word for a leader. Penn and his followers negotiated various land purchases. At least one such purchase is recorded as being sold at "four pence and acre" with an additional "quit-rent of one shilling for every hundred acres". Penn visited the natives in their towns and settlements and is said to have learned the several dialects of the Lenni Len’api peoples who populated his colony.

We know from Dutch records of 1661 that the Passagonke branch and the Picthanomicta branch of the Lenni Lenape were governed by king Pinna. The Passagonke lived on the Delaware north of Chester, probably where Philadelphia now stands. In the 1970’s archaeologists found the remains of fishing weirs in creek mouths feeding into the Delaware near Claymont DE..

Archaeologists also found campsites along the Christiana River just outside of Newport DE. Many of those artifacts were for years on display at the Newport Historical Museum. Along the Delaware were also the Minquas and other small Indian towns. Further south were the Susquehannaughs, and the Conestogas. The various Lenni Len’api frequently had to defend themselves from raids out of the north, Canada and New York, by the Sinigos (Senecas), one of the Five Nations of the north.

The Five Nations contained a large population of warriors. In one recorded assault on a Susquehannock fort in 1682 on the Susquehanna River near Conestoga Creek, over 800 Five Nations warriors were repulsed. (History of Cecil County Maryland – George Johnson) No wonder the Lenni Len’api eagerly sought alliances with William Penn. Whether or not they knew his Quaker stance on war, he was English and any treaty with him was also an alliance with the English.

Penn was still young, quite athletic, and very smart. By accounts, he was very popular with the natives whose towns he visited. He did not hesitate to participate in their athletic events, including running, wrestling, and so forth. Big, strong and quick, he won his share of events. The Lenni Len’api appreciated such a man, who also treated them the same way he would like to be treated.

As a result William Penn also got to sit on their governmental meetings. He was surprised to learn that women had political rights equal to men, and their judgement was valued. Many eastern tribes had matriarchal societies, therefore women had a significant participation in the decision making process. He began to incorporate his experiences into his theories of new way of government in which all people would be equal His writings indicate he was trying to learn how to improve upon the governments of the past.

In 1684 Penn returned to England on the brig Endeavor to deal with numerous problems at his ancestral home. His wife had become quite ill, and Quakers were being persecuted once again. King Charles II had imprisoned some 15,000 people for their religious beliefs. At least 4,000 had died in jail. However, Charles died 5 months after Penn’s return, and James II, his brother, became king. Penn had gone to school with James II, and they were close friends, Penn acting as his advisor. James II freed religious prisoners among which were 1200 Friends, thanks to Penn’s intercession. Penn remained in England arguing for religious freedom, but traveled throughout Europe telling people about his American province and the freedom he espoused.

Within 4 years, by 1688, James’ reign was overthrown, William and Mary taking the throne, and Penn was arrested 3 times, but each time proved his only offense was being James’ friend. His first wife died. While he was coping with those problems, his province was having its own political problems. Governing by commission was failing in Pennsylvania. Penn would experiment with several other forms of government before finding one that satisfied both him and the colonists. However the Lower Counties made it clear they preferred a government separate from the upper counties. Penn consented to the separation, and New Castle, Kent, and Sussex counties gained their own government, and eventually would be known as Delaware after Lord De La Warre.

By 1696 Penn suggested a union of the colonies, in which 2 representatives from each colony would meet in New York to solve problems of common interest such as regulating commerce, supporting "the union and safety of these provinces against the public enemies (such as criminals and pirates). His ideas would only be implemented in 1787, during the development of the Constitution. (Quaker ideals and ideas concerning freedom were published and discussed throughout the colonies).

Besides Penn, Quakers of influence included Rhode Island Governor Stephen Hopkins (who oddly enough was disowned by his Meeting for refusing to free a Negro slave he owned); John Dickinson (who wrote "Letters From a Farmer" for the Pennsylvania Chronicle, about taxation); Thomas Paine (who had been raised a Quaker, and whose father and wife were Quakers), and Ben Franklin who had lived among Quakers all his life, and was influenced by them.

Among these Quaker ideas, you will immediately recognize:

• Religious freedom, including in particular separation of Church and State
• The right of Congress to convene and adjourn by law with regular sessions
• Two representatives from each colony (and later each state)
• The method of electing 1/3 of the Senate every 2 years
• The use of affirmations as an alternative to swearing oaths to God
• The right of Congress to regulate commerce
• The right of Congress to keep democracy flexible via amendments.

(Towards a Democratic Constituion – Elizabeth J. Gray)

By 1699 Pennsylvania had a European population of 14,000. About half were Quakers.

William Penn had to return to his province, in 1699, to straighten out the latest political mess there. Pirates and buccaneers were using the waterways and coastline of the Lower Counties as a base for plundering any ships that they could capture. In some cases European governments were commissioning these raiders. Penn needed a government that would vigorously act to suppress the piracy. (Pennsylvania, State and Province 1609 - 1790, Bolles)

There were other issues as well, which William Penn needed to settle. The original Frame of Government for Pennsylvania had been revised several times since 1681 as various parts of it were tested in daily living and found to be less than hoped for. By 1701, Penn and his Quaker friends had discussed new solutions to the problems of the colony. Penn still wanted a charter that would allow his ideals of freedom of religion and other freedoms.

After months of discussion with the Assembly and the Executive Council, the Charter of Liberties and Privileges was adopted on October 28, 1701 (Philadelphia Quakers 1681 –1981, Wilson). It is interesting to note that during the same period in 1701 James and William Browne were exploring the "far west" in preparation for the new settlement which would initially be known as the Nottingham Lots of Pennsylvania.

Although Penn and his Quaker followers seem to have emphasized honest and fair treaties and land purchases with the native people, it is difficult in hindsight to say how successful they were. Historians, linguistic experts, and the sociologists who study such things now agree that the native peoples did not have a concept of land ownership. They thought in terms of occupying and using land, but did not believe you could own land.

A now famous quote by one tribal leader goes something like this: " You cannot own the land, you can only use it until you die. Then you are buried, and the land owns you. You live your allotted time on the land, and when you die, the land continues to be there long after you are gone. Therefore it is foolish to say you own the land." The concept of land ownership was incongruous to their lives. How exactly did the Lenni Len’api people understand these transactions?

Nevertheless by 1701 the native Lenni Len’api (by then known as the Delaware and the Susquehanna after the rivers they built their towns near) were so happy with William Penn’s Indian policy that they sought to bring the Potomac tribes under Penn’s protection as well. The natives agreed not to sell their skins and furs outside of Pennsylvania, and in return were granted protection from "the craft of traders". Well liked by the various local tribes, he was often invited, along with his Quaker contacts (no doubt including members of the Browne and Clayton families) to their celebrations and sporting events. As a young man, William Penn was tall, handsome, and quite athletic and strong. The Lenni Len’api appreciated a white man who was willing to learn their dialects, compete in their athletic events such as wrestling and running, and who treated them fairly.

While whites tend to think of Native Americans as all being "Indians", there were in fact dozens of "nations" of natives in this country. They did not lump themselves together any more than did Europeans. In the same way that Europeans saw themselves as English, French, Spanish, Dutch, Swedes, etc. Native Americans saw themselves as Lenni Len’api, Iroquois, Cherokee, Abanaki and so forth. In the same way that Europeans differentiated themselves by language, custom, history, and economics, so did America’s natives. If our ancestors lumped them together as "Indians", did the Native Americans lump our ancestors together as Europeans?

The Lenni Len’api had towns in New Jersey, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. They considered that to be one territory, their territory. Within that area, they had numerous towns. The people in those towns spoke the same language. However within that language, there were dialects, or what we might think of as regional accents.

Consider that you can instantly tell someone is from Boston, or from Vermont, or Mississippi, or Texas, not only by their accent but also by colorful phrases they are known to use. Someone from Louisiana has a rather distinct way of pronouncing words. We understand their English, yet also recognize the accent.

This is true in many languages. Any German can tell if another German is from the north or south of Germany. While we don’t generally think of it that way, most languages used by large populations have regional differences that are instantly recognized by other members of that population.

William Penn spoke several European languages fluently, and understanding this idea of accents made a point of learning several Lenni Len’api dialects. If any readers of this history are fluent in other languages, they will immediately be able to provide examples of this sort.

The previously mentioned Bristol Factor began loading goods in August, and its last load went on board on 2 September. Evan Oliver, one of the passengers, wrote that his 7^th child, Seaborn Oliver, was born within sight of the Capes of Delaware on 24 October. It would have taken about 3 more days to sail up the Delaware to Philadelphia. Since the ship left England in early September, and arrived in Philadelphia "near the end of October", the trip must have taken 8 weeks or more. It is known that the ships the John and Sarah were locked in ice the day after they anchored at Upland. The Swedes who populated Upland housed all the new arrivals they could, and the rest of the passengers dug holes in the ground or made earthen huts, and were still living there the following spring when Penn arrived.

William Browne joined his brother at Marcus Hook but does not seem to have bought land there until 1685. William is described as a Quaker minister of fluent speech, and determined character. He is described as a gifted speaker, according to John A.M. Passmore, a descendent of both brothers.

Nevertheless, he brings with him the following cargo: 4 cwt nails, 4 cwt wrought iron, 120 goads cottons, 2 cwt gunpowder, 1-3/4 cwt chesses, 1-1/4 cwt cordage, 11 cwt lead shot, 56 lbs brass manufactured, 28 lbs wrought pewter, 170 ells English-made linen, 2 small saddles, 48 lbs serges, 2 Spanish cloths, 2 dozen & 4 pairs woolen stockings, 1 firkin butter, 1/8 part of a chalder grindle stones, 2 bags of 1 chest wearing apparel, 1 lb. English thrown silk, 28 lbs haberdashery wares, 9 parcels of several sorts of wares value 14 Pounds. Most of the passengers brought goods with them, as well as their families.^C2l

Money was scarce in the colonies. People had spent their savings on the costs of sailing to the colony and buying land, and perhaps building a home. As a consequence court records refer to judgments of "172 pounds of pork, and 2 bushels of wheat", or "32 shillings for a gun, and 150 pounds of pork for a shirt", or "1000 six penny nails and 3 bottles of rum". Often, in those times, people paid their bills with things they had acquired, made, or grown. Outside the cities and towns farming was the most prevalent occupation, but most farmers were multi-talented. They had to know how to cut and cure timber or lumber, they had to know enough leather working, wood working, black-smithing, etc. to keep their farms and farm animals functioning.

Many a farm was almost like a miniature town. Farm hands might live in tenant houses on the farm. Between the farmers and their tenant farmers you might find the skills of weavers to use the flax grown locally, a blacksmith to shoe the horses and draft animals. This also required skilled carpenters to build and maintain the homes, barns, out-buildings such as tool sheds, and even mills if near a good water source.

In an area of several farms, between all the farmers enough skills were available to make just about anything required on those farms. If not artisans could be encouraged to settle nearby to provide such services, in trade for items and services the farm could produce. Many of the small towns that sprang up in farm country started because there were enough farmers and work in the area for a couple of artisans to settle and to earn a living

With the English acquisition of lands previously claimed by Dutch, and Swedes, the money being used in the settlements included those used locally. People quickly figured out the value of the various units of money, by way of the commodities they bought. The value of gold and silver money is based on the intrinsic value people place on the gold or silver contained therein. The value of paper money, and of copper or nickel coins (i.e., metals with no intrinsic value) is based on what local users will agree to barter or trade for that money. The paper and coin money in your pocket is simply stored value that will purchase something later. However, everyone must agree to that value. If the government guarantees that value, it is easier for the governed to accept it.

As William Penn brought people over from many different countries as part of his grand experiment, they brought whatever money they had with them. Sales of products and services fell into 2 categories: an exchange of money, or an exchange of goods and services in both directions. A sale of a pig would be worth so many English pounds, so many French francs, or Spanish gold coins, etc.

Or it might be worth some item of trade or service back to the seller. Gold and silver money are considered commodity money due to their intrinsic value. Paper money and coins of cheap alloys are considered credit monies in that they are a government- backed definition of the value of paper or coin in use or in storage, within a society.

This was an important issue faced by our ancestors as they settled in the New World.

In addition to tenant farmers, the laws of the day (the 1600’s) permitted "indentured servitude". This was a form of slavery where someone liquidated a debt or a fine by agreeing to work, essentially as slaves, for some contracted period of time. Both men and women could agree to this type of contract.

It might be entered into as a way to get out of debtors’ prison either in England or in the colonies, for example. Many people were induced to use such contracts to afford to come to America. To enter the contract the person had to be 21 years or older, and had to agree to remain celibate for 5 to 7 years.

While the Pennsylvania courts were vigilant in guarding servants against abusive masters, some other colonies were less vigilant. In some southern colonies sexual possession of a servant was widely accepted. However women who became pregnant as a result were often prosecuted for producing "bastards" which was a legal term for a child born outside of marriage.

Since the farmer or plantation owner paid taxes he was rarely prosecuted, and even then might only be fined. Women might be fined as well as whipped. Under those conditions in the Chesapeake region, there was an economic value derived from impregnating white or black slaves. As a result in the 1700’s rates ran as high as 26 per 1,000. (Everyday Life in Colonial America, from 1607 - 1783; Dale Taylor, Writers Digest Books)

As African slaves began to replace white slaves, this continued. Buying black slaves was even more economical, as there was neither an end nor a contract with the slave. African tribes fought constantly and enslaved one another as a matter of their rules of war. In this, there was no difference to what the Greeks and Romans and other Mediterranean nations had done prior to Christianity.

However, the various Christian sects in the colonies sought specific verses in the Bible that might be used to "justify" black slavery. Indeed some religious leaders became powerful if not wealthy by establishing churches that were based on, among other things, those verses. There are today still white Christian sects whose religious leaders teach racist views that blacks were "inferior" and as such should be treated as property.

This attempt to justify the behavior of their ancestors’ plantation based economic decisions may indicate loyalty to the memory of their Southern ancestors, but certainly isn’t in line with what Jesus Christ taught in the New Testament. And since it was legal and economical for plantation owners and their white workers to father children with the slaves, followers of such sects are in fact rejecting descendants of their own ancestors, a decidedly unchristian act.

Because Africans tended not to be Christian, and could easily be detected as "different", indentured slaves were quickly replaced by this more economical form of slavery. Since most Christian religions of the day felt that heathens could be enslaved but Christians shouldn’t be, some early black slaves eventually obtained freedom after converting to Christianity. However, this proved as uneconomical in the long term as indentured servants, and the slave holding colonies quickly changed the law so that blacks remained slaves even if they converted to Christianity. (The Oxford History of the American People, Samuel Eliot Morison)

Furthermore any children produced by such slaves could also be enslaved. An initial investment in 2 slaves could be highly profitable in many ways. Free labor until their death, and if the man and women were fertile, plenty of offspring to increase the slave holders’ profits. And for the slave owner, the female slave had to submit to his every demand, or he could legally punish her. If he fathered any children with African slaves, they were considered Negro, and could also be worked, or sold. (Every Day Life in Colonial America, from 1607 - 1783; Dale Taylor, Writers Digest Books)

. Since the South had relatively small industrial capabilities compared to their farming economy, is it any wonder that they fought so hard to keep their slave economy in the Civil War? (Yes I know that some southerners argue the Civil War was about States Rights. The States’ Right they wanted was slavery.)

In the year 2001, the Senegal president, Abdoulaye Wade, a descendent of generations of slave owning African kings, ridiculed the idea of financial reparations to African Americans whose ancestors had been shipped to America as slaves. He admitted that it was necessary to recognize the wrong done, but pointed out that slavery had historically been practiced by every nation in the world at some point.

It is widely accepted based on slave ship records that between 12 and 15 million slaves were shipped to Europe and America. The African nations now known as the Ivory Coast, Senegal, etc. (west coast of Africa) were among many that enslaved other Africans captured during wars, either with different tribes in their own nation or other African nations. Common practice of the day was to sell slaves. Slavery was not a white institution. It was not, at the time, considered a crime against humanity.

In June of 2003, Ambassador Cyrille Oguin of the African nation Benin, while addressing an audience at Southern University at Baton Rouge Louisiana, apologized for his country’s role in slavery. Benin, formally known as Dahomey in the 17^th century, was a major source of slaves for export. Dahomey records indicate about 3 million people were sold by its leaders to slave traders. These blacks were selling other blacks for the profit, and other reasons, as you will shortly see. The west coast of Africa became known as the "Slave Coast" by Europeans who were the middlemen in the slave business. (Easton Morning Call, Sunday June 29, 2003)

Whoever was in power in a country, white or black, might enslave those they ruled over, or conquered, black or white. President Wade asked "how can I be responsible for what my ancestors did, in the 13^th, 14^th, 15^th, 16^th, or 17^th centuries?" (Easton Morning Call, Thursday August 30, 2001)

Sudan, Africa’s largest country, has been, since its creation, ruled by wealthy northerners who adopted the Arab culture and the Muslim faith in the late 13^th and early 14^th centuries. Like earlier Christian converts in Europe, many people in conquered countries converted by government decree, on pain of exile, or death. Those who didn’t convert had to be far away from the urban centers where government resided, in order to survive. Since the 19^th century, the Arab-like, Muslim northern African slave raiders have been making slaves of the Dinkas, Nuers, and hundreds of other African tribes living in the southern part of Sudan.

The northern government is controlled by Islamic fundamentalists, who (like the Christian slavers) see nothing wrong with enslaving people not of their faith. Since they run the government there is little hope they will permit freedom of choice in matters of faith or freedom to their fellow countrymen in the south. It also helps that the profits from oil in the south go, not to the people living there, but to the government in the north, funding their hold on the government. (National Geographic, February 2003).

There are several points to be made here. African Americans whose genealogy includes slaves must be told the truth. Both Christians and Muslims of the time were partners in the slave business. I have read claims that all slavers were Jews. It is true that some ship captains were. But to blame only one people for the institution of slavery in the Americas is to ignore the well documented facts of the times, as well as the facts today. In some Muslim countries slavery still exists, and is well documented.

Slavery was practiced by Christians, Muslims, and various local African tribes. The African slavers were quite likely to be of the Muslim faith, since that was the prevalent north and West African religion of the times. They enslaved Muslims from tribes with which they were at war, and also enslaved "non-believers" whom they called infidels. Like the Christians, the Muslims have many sects, and their history is one of wars against each other. In addition, they added tribal warfare even against their own sects.

What better way to get rid of Muslims of a different tribe, or a different sect than to ship them out of the country? It is doubtful that African Americans who now take Muslim names realize that they are honoring the people who captured their ancestors and sold them as slaves. At the turn of this millenium (year 2000), there are still African nations where internal wars have slaughtered tens of thousands of men, women, and children, for the same reasons mentioned above.

Armed, conservative Muslim sects have been warring against each other since the founding of their religion. Today there are possibly as many Muslim sects as there are Christian sects. And just as with certain Christian conservative sects, they have their share of religious leaders who ignore the 10 Commandments when it is convenient to their "cause".

Any religious leader, Muslim, Christian, etc. can find a passage in their particular holy book which, when taken separately from the overall intention of that holy book, can be used to justify breaking any of the 10 Commandments. In all these cases, such religious leaders, and their followers, ignore the meaning of the word "faith" as it applies to religious beliefs.

The fact is that people who claimed to be Christian, as well as people who claimed to be Muslim, worked together in the highly profitable business of slaving. If you were not of the same sect, or sometimes were of the same sect but of a different tribe as the Muslims who captured you, you were enslaved inland. Marched to the seacoast, you were then sold to European ship European captains of various religious persuasions (Christianity by this time had many sects, as well). Shipped to America, the slaves were sold to Christian plantation owners.

There is an idea currently promulgated by some Americans, about the slaving business, that it was only practiced by Jews. It is ridiculous to believe that all the French, Belgian, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, and other European ship owners and ship captains in the slaving business were Jews. It is equally ridiculous to think white Europeans could travel deep in country, capture slaves, return to the African west coast, and leave with all those slaves without the consent and cooperation of the existing African governments.

As President Wade of Senegal, previously quoted, has indicated; Africans in power at the time being discussed, made a lot of money enslaving other Africans. Many of these were Muslim Africans. To indicate otherwise is to ignore a history documented by professional historians. (Both political and religious historians tend to "bend" the truth, or even simply knowingly lie when that act will "prove" whatever they wish to justify. Be aware of this when encountering their presentation of "facts". It is in your best interests.

The actual process went as follows. Muslims and non-Muslims in various African countries captured and enslaved other Africans who weren’t of their tribe or of their faith. The captured people were then marched to the nearest slave port. Many didn’t survive the march. Generally these slave ports were in the north, under the control of Muslim governments or businessmen. Muslims sold the slaves to European businessmen, including Dutch, English, Spanish, Portuguese, and others who considered themselves Christian. They hired ship captains, most of whom were Christian, some of whom were Jewish, to transport the slaves where needed. Destinations included plantations on Caribbean islands, Europe, other African and Arab nations, Central and South America, and of course North America.

It is basic historical fact that there were many hands conspiring to make slavery profitable. Let’s follow the path. An African (man, woman or child) is captured by members of slave hunters, who are typically other Africans and are often Islamic. Those captured are brutally treated, while being marched to a shipping port. Tribal warfare was a way of life then as it is now in Africa, even between various Islamic sects, was well as non-Islamic tribes. The slaves arrive at a slave port, with the knowledge of the local city rulers, and the Kings of that country. These leaders exact a tax on each slave; thus begins the profit making.

Slave-ship owners from Great Britain, Netherlands, Portugal, and Spain are at the port waiting. They buy the slaves. The slave hunters have their profit. (By the way, The Dutch East India Co. was a leading exporter of slaves, and was chartered by the Netherlands government.) The slave-ships travel to the plantations throughout the Carribean Islands, the coasts of South and North America, where they sell the slaves for a profit. The buyers, instead of owning a 7 year contract on an indentured servant, whom they may try to cheat for additional years, now own a permanent slave over whom they have total power. These slaves must work for free for life, and cannot refuse any request of their master for fear of legalized torture, or legalized murder. For slave owners this is incredibly profitable, and since slaves, being human, can fall in love and marry, and have children, the children are even more profitable for the owner.

Slavery was never about States rights. It was always about the incredible power over other humans. It was always about the money. Just as it had been when indentured servants were tricked into working additional years. Just as it would be in the factory "sweat shops" at the end of the 19^th century, and into the 1940’s. It was about people claiming to be Christians, demonstrating the opposite of Christ’s teachings, for the money.

It is important to remember that prior to plantation owners developing a religious rationalization for keeping blacks permanently enslaved, many Africans achieved freedom in the same way that white indentured servants had, by working off their servitude. In Boston, at the start of the Revolutionary War, of the two colonists killed by the British soldiers at the Boston Commons, one was a black freedman, .

Moreover, during the Revolutionary War black freedmen served alongside of whites. They were carpenters, blacksmiths, and farmers who wanted the same things the rest of the colonists wanted: freedom from the English king’s heavy tax burden. And they wanted freedom to conduct business in a less restricted way. Hatred for blacks simply did not exist until during and after the Civil War, as wealthy slaveholders saw their free labor slipping away.

During the Revolutionary War many plantation owners sent a slave in their place to serve the Continental Army. George Washington had between 900 and 1,000 black troops in his Army, by the summer of 1778, out of a total of 15,000 troops. Nor were these used as cooks and officers servants. They were soldiers.

These black soldiers came largely from New England, the middle and southern States. Some were slaves replacing their owners, some were paid replacements (a commonly accepted practice for those who could afford to hire a replacement), and many were free men. Often, slaves were promised their freedom by the Patriots if they went to war. However, the British also began recruiting slaves in the South, promising freedom if they fought for the King. Those who did, like the Tories, fled to Canada when the war ended.

Two regiments of black soldiers fought in the battles of Red Bank, at Monmouth, at Crotin River (near Manhattan), and at Yorktown for the colonists. Another black unit fought beside colonists at Savannah. In that action a black unit of 800 men, known as the Chasseurs Voilontair Infantry covered an American and French withdrawal where the Patriots lost nearly 1,000 casualties.

The cost of compensating slave owners for freeing the men to fight in the Colonial Army proved expensive, and by 1778 the military could no longer afford it. However, by the end of the war, about 5,000 men of African background fought for the patriots in the American Revolution. Several black men were recognized by the American Colonial Congress for their outstanding service to the American cause Among these were Salem Poor, cited by Congress for valor and gallantry in action; Oliver Cromwell, Peter Salem, and Prince Whipple. The latter participated in crossing the Delaware with General Washington, fighting in the Battle of Trenton. James Armistead served as a spy for General Lafayette, in the Yorktown campaign, earning his freedom after the Revolution ended. (James Wright, Pennsylvania historian, 2003).

Historically slaves generally had the opportunity to better themselves if they could. But not always. Slave gladiators in Rome, if good enough, might become wealthy, secure their freedom, and live well. But most of them died in the arena.

Moreover Roman slaves came from every corner of the then known world. When Rome conquered a neighboring nation, usually the captured soldiers (whom the "civilized" Romans called "warriors") had the choice of joining the Roman Army or becoming slaves. If you study Roman history, you will see that Rome eventually extended its political and military influence throughout the Mediterranean countries before it conquered western Europe north to Scotland.

This means much of north Africa, including Egypt and Cleopatra, and the African coasts. Roman galleys could navigate coastlines, but were not known for their sailing ability, even though the Phoenicians, Egyptians, Cretians, Minoans, Greeks, and other Mediterranean peoples had been sailing the Med centuries before Rome became a regional power.

Rome had at least one black emperor, in fact. Initially inducted into the local Roman Army (a common Roman Army practice) in northern Africa, he rose through the ranks, to become a General, then to become a black Caesar. If you’ve read your Roman history, you know that many of Rome’s emperors achieved power by that path.

Shakespeare wrote a play in the 1500’s about an African General and his wife. It is called Othello. The General’s race has nothing to do with the plot. It is mentioned that he is a Moor (Mauretanian tribesman) who has achieved the rank of General, and is used to having his orders obeyed. In the days when the play was written, slavery had nothing to do with skin color, and everything to do with conquering other countries.

It was only as slavery became a huge part of the southern economy that ways were sought to avoid freeing slaves. Even with white indentured servants, owners had sought to do this. Records exist of plantation owners making life so miserable in the last year or two of a contract that the indentured servant would run away. By law, once caught, their contract started over again at day one, that is, for seven more years.

There are records of whites in the south who were indentured for 14 or even 21 years before they figured out how to end the contract. One simple method to get a servant to run was to stop feeding, clothing, and sheltering him or her during the last winter of their contract.

A smart indentured servant might survive by finding a cave, or building a hut hidden away from the owner’s house. They might begin smoking or drying food, and storing furs in their shelter. And they’d stack dead-fall wood to heat their shelter. This would have to be done after putting in a 16 or more hour day for their owner. It would have to be kept a secret, so the owner wouldn’t take their stockpiles away.

While not every plantation owner was so brutal, enough of it occurred for it to show up in southern court records that people served double or even triple their contract. This is clear evidence of the powerful economics involved.

In June of 1683, the Bristol Comfort arrived in Philadelphia with additional goods, of which Ralph Smith and William Browne had the following: 4 lbs haberdashery, 1 pc. Kersey, 1 penistone(frieze), 4 cwt nails, 20 lbs shoes, 3-1/2 cwt cheese, 1 doz. Felt hats, 12 yds. Flannel, 1 Spanish cloth, 2 parcels wares value 9 Pounds, 150 goads cottons, 5 cwt cheese, 2 firkins butter, (unk) bushels wheat, 5 cwt wrought iron, cwt steel, 8 chalder grind stones, 6 bushels hay seed and dust.

In both the 1682 and the 1683 shipments William Browne is described as a Bristol merchant. William is also said to have landed at the port of New York in 1696, so he may have bringing in goods and selling them with an eye towards his future. Ships regularly moving between England and America included the Bristol Comfort, the Bristol Factor, the Welcome, and the Endeavor among others.

There existed a corporation of English Quakers called the Free Society of Traders, which stocked a general store in Philadelphia They also established trade with the West Indies, and among other endeavors established brick kilns, glass works, tanneries, etc. The hundreds of English immigrants to the colonies each year needed goods. (The Oxford History of the American People, Samuel Eliot Morison)

On December 20, 1663 James secured a patent for 115 acres along Chichester Creek. Since his brother William had arrived that summer with the goods mentioned above, we may suppose that the sale of those goods helped finance this purchase. By the time he moved to Nottingham PA around 1705, he is known to own several other tracts as well. Between those 2 dates, he had ample time as both a farmer and a weaver, much less as a merchant, to earn more money to purchase more land.

In 1684 William Browne married a second time, to Ann Mercer. His son, Mercer (sometimes spelled Messer) Brown must’ve been issue of their marriage. However, in 1699 he married Catharine Williams, so we may suppose that Ann was no longer in the picture. History does not indicate why, but Quakers opposed divorce, and in those days a woman might die from child birth, or a wide variety of diseases.

By 1711 William had taken on a fourth wife, Mary Matthews. Life was quite hard on women, and perhaps more so for women pioneers. Moreover, the area of the Nottingham Lots would have been a couple of days ride by horse or wagon to any community where a Doctor of Medicine might be available. The average distance of a horse drawn wagon was 22 miles a day, with a mid-day break to feed the travelers and their horses. Without wagons, horsemen might average about 4 miles an hour, a very brisk walk for a man on foot.

It must also be remembered that the medical practice of the day, was not much more than "witch-doctoring", and a common "cure" for ailments was to "bleed" the ill person. (George Washington was bled as treatment for an illness, over a period of a week, until he died. It was common practice to bleed patients in one or both arms until they fainted. This could go on for days. A patient’s death was usually ascribed to the illness rather than the treatment by the Doctor.) (The Alarming History of Medicine, Richard Gordon).

In 1685 "The Comm’rs by Warrant dated 4^th 7mo., 1685, Granted Wm. Brown 300 Acres on Rent,which warrant was executed by Tho. Pierson 19^th 12 mo., ‘85-6, as by return under had in the Office Appears, and was entered and built on as said forthwith and was Confirmed by Patent to the said Brown, dated 4, u mo., ’88. William Browne resigned all right to Joel Baily by Assignm’t on said Patent dated 16 mo., ‘92". Was this the same William Browne brother of James Browne? The timeframe fits. And spelling in those days was not a consistent matter, often depending on the education of the writer.

The Chichester Meetinghouse was built in 1688 on 2 acres of land given to the meeting by James Brown. The deed is dated the fourth day of the tenth month of 1688, in consideration for 1 shilling and sixpence for the 2 acres. A log building was build, which was destroyed by fire in 1768, and rebuilt in 1769. The Meetinghouse held its first meeting for record and business on 17 of 1^st month 1784, although religious services had been held there as early as 1682. Minutes of a meeting held at Chichester on the 11^th day, 11^th month of 1688 indicate that it was proposed and agreed by church members to build the Meeting House and to also a fenced in burial ground on land joining the Meeting House. The subscription there is as follows:

Member	L	S	D
James Brown	3	2	0
William Brown	0	16	0
Nicolas Pyle	0	10	0
Robert Pyle	2	8	0

The "L" would be the British symbol for Pounds, the currency of the day. The "S" would be Shillings, and the "D" might represent Pence.

The land was conveyed to Wm. Clayton Sr. (James Browne’s father-in-law), Phillip Roman, Robert Pyle, Jacob Chandler, Joseph Bushell, and John Kingsman "in behalf of and for the use of the people of God called Quakers". These would’ve been the "Elders" who managed or oversaw the activities of the church.

During the Revolution, while Cornwallis commanded at Aston from the 13^th to the 15^th of September of 1777, British troops foraging from Village Green came into the area looking for wounded American soldiers believed to be in the area. Quakers had already moved the wounded from the church building and hidden them in their homes. Out of frustration, the British shot up the Meeting House’ s closed wooden doors. The marks of the bullets are still visible in the front door. (Furthy and Cope, Chester County, 230-231).(The immigration of the Irish Quakers into Pa. 1682-1750, Albert Cook Myers)

According to Irwin W. Pyle, in 1980, "The meetings are still held at Chichester on the afternoons of the first Sunday in May and November."

Paper money achieved a new legitimacy when the Bank of England, which was privately owned (founded in 1694), was the first note issuing agency in history that behaved responsibly and restrained its issue of paper money. Consequently, Bank of England notes were "as good as gold." This meant that trade between England and the Colonies was based on a solid standard of value. (Money Mischief 1992, Milton Friedman)

Two hundred years after the construction of the first British Warship, the Mary Rose, the H.M.S. Victory would take 6 years to build, require 2000 English oak trees (an entire forest of oak). It would carry 6 acres of sails. Its weapons would be older front loading musket cannon, which design had been around a long time and was quite reliable, as well as the newer breech loading cannon, which were less reliable.

Around 1701 William Penn visited Philadelphia and met with prominent area Quakers. Penn wanted to establish a claim to land bisecting a land grant previously awarded by the proprietor of Maryland, Lord Calvert. Calvert’s land grant intruded into land Penn considered to be part of Pennsylvania. He decided to solve the problem by settling the disputed area first. It is known that James and William Browne took pack horses in the summer or fall of 1701 and left New Castle Delaware looking for land in the area now known as Calvert MD, but which when settled was called the Nottingham Lots. Likely this exploration was at the request of Penn. The Nottingham Lots area is about 40 miles from Marcus Hook.

In 1701 wagons and carts were a rare commodity, and it was not until 1704 that laws were enacted in the area to create public roads and bridges. These laws authorized the roads 20 feet wide to be built, as well as bridges over rivers, creeks, and swamps. Road taxes included the construction and the maintenance. Frequently, roads were paved with planks of wood from the very trees being cut to clear the road. In time covers were built over many bridges to protect the flooring and timbers. These covered bridges could also protect travelers in time of storms.

The Quakers who agreed to move to this new wilderness from their established homes around the Philadelphia area no doubt do so for many reasons:

1. In support of William Penn’s land claim
2. To proselytize among Leni Len’api further west.
3. To seek opportunity in largely undeveloped country
4. Since Quakers didn’t believe in war, to avoid male family members from being pressed into the English Navy.

They selected their final site on the basis that there was a large spring there, as well as trees taller and of greater girth than any other area through which they had passed. Furthermore, as in the Philadelphia area the trees were so tall a man could ride his horse under them, and shady enough to prevent the growth of underbrush. To them this indicated the soil must be superior, and would therefore make excellent farm land. Near the spring was a favorite camping ground of Lenni Lenape Natives, the local branch of whom were called Susquehannocks by the Europeans. These natives traveled from points east, to the head of the Chesapeake Bay, where they fished, crabbed, clammed, and oystered. The spring was on the north side of the road leading from Brick Meetinghouse to Rising Sun, and slightly east of the road which was the boundary between the Sixth and Ninth Election Districts (Route 473?). This same road is also described as being "an Indian trail from Chester County to the trading post at Palmer’s Island" near the mouth of the Susquehanna River.

The brothers felled trees and cleared land before returning to New Castle for supplies. Other Friends accompanied them back. It is thought that William Penn took a large team of Quakers on horseback south along the Delaware River to the town of New Castle DE, and from there cross country into the area he hoped to claim. This certainly means the Browne brothers and Penn were sufficiently well acquainted for him to trust their judgement in returning with the rest of his band of potential settlers. The Browne's populate the area, along with the Churchman, Job, Beeson, Reynolds, Emson, Richardson, Baily, and Cooper families.

In the beginning of the Eighteenth Century, ¾ of the southern line of Chester County ran along Nottingham. From Octorara to Big Elk Creek was all Nottingham. The Commissioners of Property felt that a grant and settlement of the lands in the lower part of Nottingham would be advantageous to the Proprietor’s need to render "the adjacent Barren Lands more valuable" which would also encourage settlement along the Susquehanna River.

The settlement around the Brick Meeting House used a mailing address of Brick Meeting House, Chester County, Pa. After the Mason Dixon survey was completed in 1784, it became Brick Meeting House, Cecil County, Md. On May 12 the name was changed to Calvert Md, a name selected by the wife of the postmaster, Mrs. Hambleton. (Cecil County Maryland Tecentennial, 1974)

According to a 1901 Bi-Centennial book published at the Brick Meeting House, "The measures being determined an advance company to examine this territory set out from Chester in the early spring of 1701, headed by Penn in person, including William Brown, … James Brown" and others who ended up with lots there "and proceeded on horseback with provisions and such necessary equipment as would enable them to spend the night in a camp…" on the several days trip to the area. (George Johnston, The History of Cecil Co. MD). In those early days not many wagons existed.

A plat of the land was developed, and lots were allocated to the following Quaker settlers: Ebenezer Empson, Cornelius Empson, John Churchman, Joel Bailey, James Cooper, James Brown, William Brown, Messer (Mercer) Brown (son of William), Robert Dutton, Andrew Job, Randall Janney, Henry Reynolds, Edward Beeson, John Beals, and John Richardson. The Proprietor (Wm. Penn) kept 2 lots for himself, and allocated Lot 30 as a Common Lot to be used for the construction of the Meeting House (Brick Meeting House). (Book for births and burials, April 28, 1778 East Nottingham Brick Meeting House.). The area was named Nottingham Lots, because William Brown had lived in a village called Puddington, near Williamsborough, Nottinghamshire, England. The lots were assigned by a drawing, therefore a man might have 2 non-contiguous lots.

It may be noted here that William Browne’s son Joseph, born in the spring of 1682, who had survived the ocean voyage (though his mother did not), is not included in this list of lot recipients. By 1701 Joseph would have been 19 years old. Did he stay in the Upland/Chichester area? As will be seen below, it appears his cousin William did.

William Browne, according to tradition, cut the first tree in the Nottingham settlement in 1701. He settled "far back in the wilderness" that year. It is known that the first Friends’ meetings were held at his house, while the Meeting House was being built. His son Mercer (or Messer) would serve as a justice of Common Pleas. (History of Chester County, Pennsylvania). His brother James moved there after conveying his Chichester lands, which he called "Podington" to his son William on June 21, 1705. James also sold several other tracts he owned in Chichester Township prior to moving to Nottingham. (The Browns of Nottingham, Gilbert Cope, 1864)

In that wilderness there were huge trees, both hardwood and softwood; deer; elk, wildcats; boars; wolves; turkey; geese; ducks; curlew; pigeons; and Indian trails leading to Lenni Lenape villages. The native peoples were hunters, farmers, and fishermen using the food sources available to them. They were peaceful people who defended themselves from invasions by Iraqoi war parties when they had to, but who preferred trading to war.

"Pursuant to an agreement made 14^th of ye 11 mo. Last pa 60, with Corneliaus Empson, the said Cornelius Requests a War’t for 15,000 a’s upon the terms proposed by the Comm’rs. Viz: 8 Pls p’r 100, to be paid within one Year and an English Shilling quitrent Ever after, or two bushells of Wheat p’r 100 at some Navigable Landing on Dellaware, the first year to be Clear of Quitrent, and accordingly a Warrant was Signed for the 15,000 A’s dated 7^th mo., 1701-2 to the Persons following:

To Cornelius Empson 1,000 A’s, To John Richardson 1,000 A’s, To James Brown 1,000 A’s , to Henry Reynolds 1,000 A’s, " and so til we get to "Meser Brown 500 A’s, And the Proprietary for his Own Proper Use three thousand Acres if the Land will hold out, all in One Tract with Sufficient Allowance for Roads, according to the Method of Townships, beginning at the Northern Barrens between the main branch of Northeast River and Otteraroe Creek, and bounding in to the Southwards with and East and West Line parallel as near as may be to the Line of the Province, and Northward next the Barrens with a line Also parallel to the South Bounds in in the said Tract to run Eighteen Several Divisions of 1,000 A’s, Each, to be taken by Lotts, and the Surveyor to Draw the Proprietary’s three. The Warant directed to Hen. Hollingsworth". (Minutes of the Board of Property of the Province of Pennsylvaina, Volume 1 – 1893, State Printer).

The above Minutes not only spell out the original intentions, in terms of lot size, but also attempt to describe the boundaries of the area. They also show that lots were assigned by "drawing lots" which meant putting lot numbers in a hat or other container and taking turns pulling out lot assignments. Therefore if you had a 2^nd turn, your lots might not be contiguous. On purchasing the lots, settlers paid eight British pounds for each 100 acres; additionally, they were to pay one shilling or two bushels of good wheat yearly in quit rent.

The land warrant directed the surveyor to begin at the northern barrens, between the main branch of the North East River, and the Octararo Creek, with a southern boundary to be an east/west line parallel to the southern line of the Province. The Plat shows the tract to be 2 ½ miles east of the common land where the Brick Meetinghouse stands, running due west nearly 9 miles. West of the common for a distance of 3 miles, it was 3 ¼ miles wide; continuing 3 more miles at 3 miles wide. From the southwest corner there extended a parallelogram 1 ¼ mile long and ½ mile wide, including land recently called Vinegar Hill.

According to A History of Cecil County, by George Johnson, 1881 his interpretation of the plat his research had uncovered indicated that the whole Township of Nottingham consisted of 30 lots. He says they are 1 ½ mile long and ½ mile wide. This means, Johnson says, that the 18 divisions of 1,000 lots each originally planned did not occur. Instead the lots were around 500 acres. Johnson attributes this discrepancy to the politics in England at the time.

Twenty years before Penn’s grant of the Nottingham Lots, Lord Baltimore had granted one George Talbot the Susquehanna Manor, which would have included all of Nottingham Lots and beyond, well into Pennsylvania. In other words the Nottingham Lots were already part of the Susquehanna Manor grant to Talbot. Johnson concludes "It was a masterly stroke of policy on the part of Penn to cut Susquehanna Manor in twain, and plant a settlement of his followers in the midst of it. This was the surest way of thwarting the efforts of Lord Baltimore and his agents to extend his jurisdiction to the 40 degree of north latitude" should Baltimore try to claim parts of Pennsylvania.

Because of the contention over the Nottingham Lots between the Proprietors of Pennsylvania and Maryland, in 1765 the surveyors Mason and Dixon were commissioned to establish the correct, and legal, line between the two colonies. They were to place stone markers one mile apart, along that boundary, which would be called the Mason Dixon Line. As of 1980 some of those markers still existed.

Although the area was originally called Nottingham Lots, once the Mason Dixon survey was completed, Maryland successfully laid claim to the larger portion of the lots. By 1878 the Post Office adopted the present name of Calvert where Brick Meeting House stood. Cross Keys Tavern was built in 1744, and was the mid-point between Philadelphia and Baltimore on Old Baltimore Pike. The white oak tree at the old crossroads has been ring dated to 1661 by the Maryland Forestry.

A survey map drafted in 1702 shows William Brown with lots 23, 28, and 33; and James Brown with lots 14, and 27. Lot 14 was opposite lot 28, and lot 27 adjacent to it on the western side. With the new boundary line legally established by Mason and Dixon,.the majority of the land was established as part of Maryland. This created legal problems for the settlers, whose ownership papers were Pennsylvanian. (The Browns of Nottingham, Chester County Historical Society)

In 1787 the descendents of these first settlers sent a letter to the Board of Property in Philadelphia designed to ensure their property titles. This letter describes Penn’s warrant granted in 1701 for 18,000 acres. It states the land was divided into "upwards of 30 Lotts called Nottingham" near the boundary between the Provinces of Maryland and Pennsylvania. Since the boundary remained in contention between the two Provinces, the settlers never paid the purchase money, nor were patents issued to confirm the land. When the boundary line was finally determined, 20 lots of 490 acres each, and 2 double lots of 980 acres each fell entirely into Maryland, together with most of 9 other lots and 2 double lots. Only about 1200 acres (the north lots) were actually in Pennsylvania.

The Board of Property ordered a resurvey, peformed by George Churchman, of the north end of the lots. As a result, Isaac Haines received a Triangle; John Churchman, and Oblong; George Churchman, a Trapezium; Jeremiah Brown was given Brown’s Forest; John Harvey received Harvey’s Hope. William Churcham received Fair Hill; John Lewden, Rockland; Eli Kirk, Mount Rocky, and Jacob Brown Jr. received Carpenter Hall. (Around the Boundaries of Chester County, W.W. MacElree, 1934)

In 1788 the proprietors of Nottingham also "caused to be recorded among the land records of Cecil County", to ensure their claim on the lots now designated as in Maryland. Baltimore approved the claims.

In 1705 meetings were being held in William’s home. The first log meeting house was built during 1708-9 of chestnut and yellow poplar logs. "At quarterly meeting 3 mo.2, 1709 _ The months meeting of Chichester moves to this meeting and whereas the meeting of worship that hath to this time beeen kept at the house of William Brown in Nottingham, may for the future be kept at the new meeting-house there built for that end and purpose every weekly first and fift days, which this meeting approves off untill further order." (History of Chester County, Furthey & Cope)

This wooden building burned down in 1724 and was replaced by a brick meeting house. When that partially burned down again it was restored using a stone addition in 1748. The name remained the Brick Meetinghouse. Tradition says that the roof was of slate found in the Octorara Creek, but the site of the slate has been lost. Although the Monthly Meeting that East Nottingham Meeting was originally associated with was the Chichester Monthly Meeting, by "4, 13, 1715" it was requested and approved that Brick Meeting be associated with "New-work", which was much closer. (A History of Chester County, Furthy and Cope, 1881)

Once the area was settled, the population grew rapidly. Penn was actively recruiting settlers from throughout Europe. And in those days farmers had large families. It is necessary to understand this growth, as it will affect where records can be found. Brick Meeting, also called Nottingham Meeting and East Nottingham Meeting, was transferred to Newark Monthly Meeting in 1715. In 1718 it became part of New Garden Monthly Meeting. In 1730, Nottingham Monthly Meeting was established, consisting of East Nottingham Meeting, West Nottingham Meeting, and Bush River Meeting. (Immigration of Irish Quakers, Albert Cook Myers, 1902)

Referring to James and William Brown, the brothers who were among the Quakers settling the Nottingham Lots, the Biographical Annals of Lancaster Count, Pa., the Illustrated (Publishers: J.H.Beers & Co.) says "from these brothers have descended most of that name now residing in the southern ends of Chester and Lancaster counties, Pa., and the northern end of Cecil county, in Maryland."

On the 11^th day, first month of 1727 a lot embracing 5 acres and some perches granted by James King and William Harris for the construction of a meeting house. This was called the Little Brick Meetinghouse, given to the members of the monthly meeting of Nottingham and New Garden. It was about 1 ¼ miles southwest of Rising Sun. It may have been part of Penn’s lot # 20. In 1730, the above mentioned monthly meeting was divided into two: Nottingham Monthly Meeting held at Brick Meetinghouse; and East Nottingham and New Garden held at New Garden, Chester County PA. At the same time, a preparative meeting was established at Little Brick Meetinghouse.

Chester Co PA Will Book I, page 30, Recorded Chester Co. January 15, 1715.

WILL OF JAMES BROWN

I, JAMES BROWN, of the Township of Nottingham in the province of pensilvania, yeoman being sick and weak in body but of sound disposing mind and memory Do make this last will and Testament in manner of following: first my will is that there be an Invty taken of my estate both real and p'sonall and a true appraismt thereof made and that all my just Debts be pay'd and funeral charges be discharged by my Executors hereafter mentioned as soon as may be after my decease.Also I give and bequeath unto my sons WILLIAM BROWN, JEREMIAH BROWN, and MARJORY PIGOT to each and several of them Twenty Shillings to be paid a year after my decease.

Also I Give and bequeath unto my Grandchildren JAMES BROWN, the son of WILLIAM BROWN; and PATIENCE and JEREMIAH BROWN, ye son and daughter of my son JEREMIAH BROWN; and to MARJORY PIGOT, ye daughter of MARJORY and JOHN PIGOT, to each and several of them five pounds, the said legacies to be pay'd unto them when they arrive to the age of Twenty years which shall be hereafter mentioned.

Also I give and bequeath unto my son DANIEL BROWN, ye lot of land lying between Dorsons and Robert Williams containing five hundred acres and my son JAMES BROWN shall help him to get up his fences and build a house.

Also my will is that my son DANIEL shall help my son JAMES to plough and sow the land whereon I now dwell and be assistant to him and his mother while such time as they shall see meet by consent to part and at their parting my son DANIEL BROWN shall have a pair of oxen and a cow with two breeding sows from the plantation stock with a bed and bedding and a pot out of the house.

Item. I do give and bequeath unto my daughter MARY BROWN twenty pounds to be pay'd unto her at the age of twenty years. Also I give and bequeath unto her, my Negro girl Hannah after her mothers decease but if her mother dyes before my daughter Mary arrives to the age of twenty, ye surviving time until ye twenty years be expired, to be served unto my son JAMES BROWN.

Also I give and bequeath unto my well beloved wife HONON BROWN and unto my son JAMES BROWN, all and singular my goods, chattles and estate whatsoever and wheresoever, to hold to them their heirs and assigns for ever provided that my Executors aforesaid shall well and truly pay the legacies aforesaid either in solver money or in the country produce at money price.

Also my will is that my loving wife shall have half ye produce of the plantation during her life or in case she be minded to live elsewhere that then my son JAMES BROWN shall allow her ten pounds a year during life, and lastly I constitute and ordain my said wife and son sole Executors of this my last will and testamt allowing nothing to be done or acted or disposed of without the consent of MERCER BROWN and my son JEREMIAH BROWN in confirmation whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal.

Dated in Nottingham this fifteenth of ye 11th month called January one thousand seven hundred and fifteen. Signed in his hand….James Browne. Witness: James Wright, William Howell, John Bruss, Mercer Brown. Recorded Chester Co. January 15, 1715.

In 1729 the inhabitants of Susquehanna Hundred petitioned the court for a road to be laid out "from the church road by the Indian town called Poppemetto, until it joins unto the road leading unto the Quaker meeting-house at the west end of Nottingham". The church road referred to was a road coming from near the mouth of the Octoraro to the Episcopal church at the head of the North East. (History of Cecil County, George Johnson, 1881) It is interesting to note that a Native American town still existed in harmony with the settlers in that area at that date. The other road being referenced came from the upper ferry (now Port Deposit) to Philadelphia by way of Darby, Chester, Concord, Kennett, New London, and eventually to Nottingham.

By 1724 Irish Presbyterians were settling near the Nottingham lots, near the mouth of the Octorara, known as Lower Octorara. Eventually some purchased land that had been part of the original Nottingham Lots grant. Nearby at North East, Episcopalians had established a church as well. Because of William Penn’s foresight in planning the Pennsylvania constitution and laws, settlers were expected to accept one anothers’ choice of faith. Generally people in the area got along quite well.

Women had a different set of responsibilities than men, but the norm was that their lives were also productive. While the man was out working the farm from sunup to sundown, the woman was busy cooking to supply him and the sons with the calories they needed to do their jobs. She washed what few clothes the family owned, by hand in a washtub using a washboard. She raised the girls. She also raised the boys until they were old enough to learn farm work; somewhere between 6 and 8 a boy had to learn his responsibilities, with father and the older brothers.

Women’s lives were also as much at risk as their men’s lives. In the kitchen, the fireplaces were large enough to accommodate large cooking pots needed to feed large families. In order to control the heat applied for cooking the women were usually close to the fire. More than one colonial woman died when an ember caught her dress, set her on fire, and she burned to death. It was not unusual, when the men were out in the fields for women to be undressed or nearly undressed while cooking. This was not considered salacious, but a matter of safety.

Farmers grew flax and raised sheep. Mutton was more common than beef for most of this century. As a result of the ready availability of flax and wool, most homes had at least one spinning wheel, if not one for each female. Girls learned to spin thread as part of their contribution to the household. The woman of the house might buy cloth at a store, but thread was spun in the home.

A foot pedal operated a wheel connected to a spindle. A distaff held the flax or wool. The girls transferred the material from the distaff to the spinning wheel spindle by hand, controlling the thickness of the thread by the speed of the spinning wheel, via the foot pedal. Typically a mother might sit with her daughters, all of them spinning, while chatting about day to day things needing to be shared. As a social act, the females in a household might hold spinning parties.

If a family produced a lot of thread, they might also own a weaving machine, called a loom. They could then weave the thread into cloth. This was especially useful far away from towns where professional weavers might sell their products. In a large family with a lot of girls, excess cloth and thread might be sold or traded locally to families not so fortunate.

The word "spinster" originally referred to women who spun. Eventually the meaning came to mean unmarried girls who spun. In the early 1820’s commercial spinning mills were industrializing the manufacture of cloth and thread. Over time this supplanted homemade cloth and thread, because it was cheaper, and less time consuming to get. Over time less girls learned to operate spinning wheels, and only a few older, unmarried women were still "spinsters".

During the French Indian Wars, many women were kidnapped for ransom. However, women who showed weakness during the forced march into Canada were often put to death in the most painful ways as an example to the other prisoners. Often those women who survived were kept as slaves by the conquering warrior, until they were ransomed. Slavery meant brutal treatment in many cases.

In addition there was the matter of childbearing. A married couple might have as many as a dozen children, or more, and if there were problems in any part of the pregnancy or the birthing, the medical skill of the day was of little help. In the country, a mid-wife might, through years of experience, know more than the city doctors.

Doctors were few, mostly in the larger towns or cities. Their main cure was blood-letting, which usually further weakened the sick and injured. Many people "died of their illness" after a doctor spent 6 or 7 days removing a cup of blood a day from at least one arm, if not both.

Quaker Meetings, or local churches if you will, reported to Monthly Meetings, which while organized on the larger scale, cannot be equated to a Bishopric, for example. Monthly Meetings were a way that all members of all Meetings could share religious discussion. Remember… Quakers believe in knowledge, education, and both logical and faith based discussion by all members, to better understand God.

Eastern Quakers do not now have bishops or ministers; they have Elders who guide, but do not command. Monthly Meetings, in turn, report to Yearly Meetings. Indeed members of Meetings were expected to attend Monthly Meetings, once per month, and Yearly Meetings once per year.

It should be mentioned that Meetinghouse records contain accounts of the piety and strength of faith of both James and William Browne. With the religious turmoil of the day, people who were investigating the beliefs and principles of the many religions of the day were called Seekers. This meant they were seeking "the truth".

This involved reading the Bible and trying to understand what it really meant. One question that arose asked whether it was better to let someone else, royalty, existing church leaders, politicians, etc. tell you what to believe, or was it better to try to develop your choice of faith based on your own understanding of the Bible. Those Seekers who became Quakers chose the latter.

Prior to 1730, Quakers recorded their church business meeting minutes. After 1730 they began to record marriages, births, and deaths of Meeting members as well. Therefore records of those three activities prior to 1730 will be found in local or County documents. For example, the Registrar of Wills would be a good resource of information, since the will usually listed the person’s name, their spouse, children and the distribution, if any, of property.

By 1718, one of the sons of James Browne lived near the Prinicipio iron works, and when it was in operation, had an interest in that property. In 2001 Sean Giffing, son of James Giffing and Karen Brown Giffing, spent time doing a "dig" of the iron works site, as part of a school project. The Principio Company as a joint stock company formally founded on March 4, 1720

It is known that by 1725, George Washington’s father (Captain Augustine Washington) also had a business interest in it. The site had been chosen in 1704 by English who noted that there was a water supply, iron ore on top of the ground, and plenty of hard woods for making charcoal, as well as huge piles of oyster shells (left by Lenni Lenape) which contained lime.

These were exactly the ingredients needed for an iron works blast furnace. However, it was not until 1719, the Maryland Assembly approved "An Act for the Encouragement of an Iron Industry." Owners of uncultivated land near streams who committed to building a forging mill within four years were granted an additional one hundred acres of land, on the condition that pig iron was produced within seven years. Up to eighty mill-workers were to be levy free (not required to provide labor for a public works project like working on roads, or military service). In 1721, the exemption from the yearly levy to work on roads was extended to furnace and forge workers.

When the local iron ore was exhausted, ore was brought in from Iron Hill near Newark. Captain Augustine Washington also sold ore to the works from his Accokeek mines in Virginia. The profits would provide for George W. and his step-brother Lawrence to be educated in England. It also funded building Mt. Vernon. George W. is known to have visited the Principio works briefly in February, 1756.

Management of Principio property was similar to the plantation model. Iron was produced for export, and food was grown to provide help feed the workers. A company store sold merchandise to workers, and local farmers. Slaves and indentured servants provided most of the unskilled labor.

At least one native american, known as Indian John, worked there. Initial resistance to the idea of training slaves to become skilled labor, was overcame by the company's practical needs; and some slaves held skilled positions at Principio. Skilled workers were needed for the foundry and forge work, and the clerical tasks. The number of workers used at the site is unknown, but the iron works may have employed as many 250 workers.

Various tasks required large numbers of workers. Large groups were needed to dump layers of iron ore, charcoal, and oyster shells into the furnace, to cut wood and to assist in the production of charcoal. Workers were neede to haul wagon loads of raw materials as well as the processed iron

Most of the pig and bar iron manufactured in the colonies was exported to England, where it would be made into more profitable finished goods. Britain did not permit the colonies to compete in production of finished goods, which was one of the economic grievances expressed by the colonists that triggered the Revolution. (PRINCIPIO - By Milt Diggins)

In 1718 William Penn died, and his land office became inactive. When that occurred, numerous squatters moved onto Penn family holdings, illegally claiming Penn land without paying for it. When William’s sons Thomas and John, from his 2^nd wife investigated they discovered in 1732 that the Penn family was deeply in debt. Some historians believe that William’s trusted associates had cheated him, for the question arises "How could the proprietor of the colony Pennsylvania, with such bountiful resources, and income from both the land and those resources become so poor that close friends had to keep him out of debtors prison?"

In 1751 six members of the Browne family, 4 men and 2 women, were ministers of the Nottingham Monthly Meeting. During this same year Thomas Penn, son of William, married Lady Juliana Fermor, the 4t^h daughter of Lord Pomfret of Easton-Neston, Northamptonshire, England. To honor his bride, Thomas created, in Pennsylvania, the county of Northampton and established the town of Easton as it’s county seat. This town had been established somewhere between 1739 and 1742 at the intersection of the Delaware and Lehigh Rivers, called by the Lenni Lenape natives "Lechauwitank". This translates to "the place at the forks" of the 2 rivers. (Historic Easton, M. Summa, F. Summa, and L. Buscemi Sr., Arcadia Publishing, 2000)

Thomas Penn and his brother John would become infamous for the "Walking Purchase". The two brothers did not share their father’s idealism perhaps from having seen their father cheated by his trusted business associates. Certainly they had the incentive of needing to overcome debilitating family debt. Some historians think the brothers were influenced by William Allen and James Logan of Easton, who benefited by the end result of the Walking Purchase.

In any case, Thomas and John produced a deed of sale for land they claimed their father had acquired from local natives back in 1686. They claimed land as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. They then hired 3 men, Edward Marshall, Solomon Jennings and Edward Yeates to walk the western boundary of the purchase. The local Lenni Len’api chief, Lappawinzo, had his own native observers escorting the men. On the morning of September 17, 1737, at dawn the walk began. Jennings quit after 18 miles; the next day Yeates collapsed (and died 3 days later); but Marshall managed to cover 65 miles in 18 hours, gaining for the Penn brothers about 1200 square miles along the Delaware River. The chief realized the first day that he was being cheated. His own men were dropping off the pace as well. (Historic Easton, M. Summa, F. Summa, and L. Buscemi Sr., Arcadia Publishing, 2000)

There is a world of difference between a casual walk of perhaps 2 miles per hour and the brisk 3.6 miles per hour managed by Marshall. In 1965, when this writer went through Army basic training, trainees were expected to march at 4 miles in an hour or less to pass part of their physical fitness requirements, near the end of basic training. You can see why Mr. Marshall had a reputation as a renowned walker.

To average that speed for 18 hours is an amazing physical feat, even in that time when people were used to walking long distances. William Penn had made a point (for moral reasons) of not cheating the natives he met, even learning several Lenni Len’api dialects. The natives called him "Brother Onas" and his treaties usually included language stating that the natives and the white men should "live in love as long as the sun gives light".

After his sons cheated the Lenni Len’api of so much good land along the Delaware River, it became obvious that the new English proprietors would not prosecute anyone who cheated the Native Americans in Pennsylvania. From the Fall of 1737 forward, it became common for whites in this colony to get away with cheating and committing mayhem on native peoples without fear of prosecution.

In the mid-1700’s war was raging between England and France after William and Mary acceded rule. Both countries sought alliance with the Five Nations of Canada. However, the French were successful in getting the northern tribes to raid the English colonies. Thus began French and Indian War of 1754 to 1763. The new English king ordered the New York Governor, Fletcher, to take control of the Pennsylvania government to involve the colony in that war. Remember, a large segment of the initial settlers were Quakers, who did not support the concept of war as a solution to problems.

Since Count Frontenac, Governor of Canada had incited the Canadian tribes to conduct vicious raids all along the western frontier (basically the Allegheny Mountains) Fletcher needed money to build forts to secure the frontier starting with New York and Pennsylvania. Dissatisfied with Quaker anti-war sentiments, Fletcher began to try to overthrow Penn’s charter.

In 1755, in response to an outbreak of the French and Indian War, the Governor of Pennsylvania, and the non-Quaker members of the General Assembly and Council voted to declare war on the Indians. To save his charter Penn had to promise the English crown that he would provide the money to build the forts. In doing so, he angered many of the Quaker legislators, who in protest of war resigned their governmental offices. In retrospect this didn’t help Quaker causes, because other than Penn there were no longer Quakers to represent Quaker interests in the legislature. The end of the French and Indian War with the defeat of the French on the Plains of Abraham, near Quebec City, in 1759.

The French allied tribes had regularly raided deep into the Colonies, murdering and scalping British settlers. A few settlers, usually women and children, were carried off to Canada to be ransomed back to the British colonists. Most of the men were killed immediately. Those captives who showed any signs of weakness on the trip back to Canada were often killed in horrible ways, to strike fear in the rest of the captives.

As a result some settlers hated all Indians, including those who were peaceful, and even allies with the Colonists. Since they couldn’t get revenge in Canada, certain rabble rousers began to foment plots to kill peaceful Lenni Lena’pi settlements. Among the most infamous of these were a group of Presbyterians in a town called Paxtang, near Harrisburg. The group became infamous as the "Paxton Boys". In 1763, numbering 1500, they massacred a band of unarmed, friendly Susquehannock Indians at Connestoga Pa, wiping out that Nation. A few lucky people managed to escape to Lancaster Pa., but a few days later the Paxton Boys followed them, and slaughtered the rest (mostly women, children, and old people).

On hearing of this (remember, news didn’t travel as fast back then), the Moravians in the Lehigh Valley area removed their Bethlehm Moravian Indian converts to Philadelphia for safety. The Paxton gang changed direction, intending to kill all those unarmed, friendly Indians as well. However, Philadelphia citizens, including those Quakers who were not pacifists, sent word that the murder of innocent Indians was going to be stopped with force, if necessary. Ben Franklin met with them and promised them additional frontier protection. (Oxford History of the American People – Morison)

The Paxton Boys returned home. They had not achieved vengeance on the Iroquois Nation warriors. They had perpetrated on unarmed friendly Pennsylvania tribes exactly the results they claimed to hate when the Iroquois warriors visited it on white settlements.

There was one additional side effect of the French Indian Wars. The Iroquois people tended to adopt into their tribes and even their families, those captives who showed strength, courage, and intelligence in surviving their captivity. Many sons of British colonists sons were, until the war ended, adopted into warrior families, and trained in the art of Indian warfare. At the end of the war, all British colonists were returned, as part of the war settlement. The returning young men had stalking, tracking, hunting, and fighting skill that British soldiers had never experienced in the British military schools.

Much has been made of ability of the Patriots’ farmer/soldiers abilities, during the Revolutionary War, to fight the King’s soldiers in unconventional ways. European battle convention was to place 2 armies opposite each other in an open field, and fire weapons until one side suffered sufficient casualties to withdraw from the battle. The other side declared victory.

Many American Generals had been trained in this classic manner. Remember, until the Revolutionary War, most Americans considered themselves British, and sent their sons to England for classical education, military or otherwise. However, the warrior trained Americans used Indian tactics on the British generals and soldiers. New England being closest to the Canadian border had the largest number of young men so trained. They fielded entire companies of such men, and the American Generals often used these men as scouts and cavalry in support of the foot troops. Thus was the concept of "guerrilla warfare" introduced to European trained army officers. It can safely be said that these companies, with their warrior skills, made the difference between winning and losing the war.

A newspaper called the American Weekly Mercury was the first Pennsylvania newspaper. It first appeared in late 1719, in Philadelphia. In 1728, the Pennsylvania Gazette began to compete the Mecury for readership. By September of 1729 Ben Franklin had bought the Gazette, and under his guidance it quickly became the most popular and successful paper in the colonies. He introduced both an editorial section, and a political cartoon. Newspapers were a way of circulating news from Europe, colonial news, and local news. As such they became highly popular both in the cities and in the rural areas. Most newspapers of the time consisted of perhaps four pages.

With the editorial section, leading businessmen of the day, like Franklin, could express their political views on the subjects covered in the news. The politics of the day centered on philosophical and religious issues as well as politics, because throughout Europe religion and politics were closely connected. Most colonial political leaders were well educated in the classical mode, familiar with Greek and Roman histories, and philosophies. Many were well trained in business or engineering, and had a strong mathematics and logic training.

Quakers, being among the leading businessmen of the day, had a strong belief in a well grounded school education, as well as on-going lifetime education. They encouraged discussion and debate of philosophical and political issues. As leading businessmen they were expected to have well thought out opinions to help them in their decision making process. Being up on the latest news was part of that.

Unfortunately, by 1775 many newspaper owners were using their papers to viciously attack their political enemies, learning to skillfully wordsmith their attacks to generate the most emotional response without quite being crossing the line into slander and libel. There were at least nine newspapers in the 13 colonies prior to the Revolution.

In 1754 Ben Franklin attended the Albany Congress, a congress of politicians who intended to decide the colonists involvement in the French and Indian Wars. The British and French were warring over which would end up with Canada. The French had enlisted their local natives to raid English settlements all the way south to Georgia. The English met with leaders of the Iroquois Confederation to counter this. He began to learn about their society and their politics.

Franklin was fascinated by their sophisticated style of government. There was a balanced separation of powers. Within the confederation, one tribe couldn’t destroy another member tribe. The Iroquois also, like the Lenni Len’api, provided women’s rights. In fact female elders of the tribes appointed the chiefs. Although the Lenni Len’api, and the Iroquois Confederation, were not Judeo Christian, most of the concepts concerning equal rights and of freedom of choice built into the U.S. Constitution, and the Bill of Rights, were a natural progression away from royal decision making. That held few rights for the common man (think Navy press gangs), and leaned away from individual rights and individual choice.

I In addition to thinking about politics, the leading colonists of the period were also studying science, mathematics, and philosophy. Many had studied at the leading colleges and universities either in the colonies, or in England. William Penn had studied not only in England but on the Continent. Thomas Jefferson had a great interest in architecture. Most of them also had knowledge of the law.

In 1752 Benjamin Franklin discovered that lightening is electrical in nature. The previous 250 years of exploration had opened peoples’ minds to new lands, new societies, and new ideas. There was not only opportunities for exploring and exploiting the resources of the new continent, but for exploring science and exploiting that as well.

By 1753 Eli Whitney, a Yale graduate had explored the need, on cotton plantations, for a machine to separate cotton seed from cotton, and invented a machine to exploit that need. For the next 2 centuries, American and European scientists would explore more aspects of science than had been studied and understood in the previous 2,000 years. And scientists and inventors would exploit those discoveries, by improving the way men and women performed their work. Efficiency became profitable, and those profits would drive further science and further inventions.

In 1796, Edward Jenner, an English medical doctor inoculated a boy with cowpox. He knew English milk maids who contracted cowpox, never contracted the deadly disease smallpox. His careful scientific report "Vaccination Against Smallpox" eventually led to the medical establishment’s acceptance of vaccination as a smallpox prevention. It would lead other scientists to explore vaccination against many other diseases as well.

Another part of the burst of creativity of the mid-1700’s was the shift from goods all being manufactured by hand, to the mechanization of various stages of many manufacturing processes. What little mechanization that existed up to that point was based on the use of water-power. Grinding grain, sawing wood, and many other processes that required large amounts of power, were accomplished by building a mill with a waterwheel on the banks of a stream with fast moving water.

However, inventors and engineers had been experimenting with steam driven power for some time. The steam engines were low pressure contraptions with little power. Around 1769 James Watt, a Scott, developed a high pressure steam engine, and other inventors, once they understood how it worked, began improving the machine.

A native of Newport, Delaware named Oliver Evans had been experimenting with steam power in his father’s gun shop, as a boy. He had discovered he could shoot a ball out of a musket barrel when he heated the barrel with water in it. It occurred to him that this high pressure represented a lot of power. Evans moved to Philadelphia around 1780 to work at his brothers’ flourmill. Creative by nature, but well trained mechanically and as a millwright, he quickly designed improvements that cut their expenses in half.

For at least a decade after Watt’s success, people in Europe and America had been working on variations on the basic design, attempting to power boats, vehicles, and mills with varying success. High pressure steam engines tended to blow up, often killing people nearby. Low pressure steam engines didn’t blow up, but had limited power.

In 1792 Evans applied for a U.S. patent in Philadelphia on a steam driven land carriage, which he called the "oruktor amphibolos". The machine was designed as a steam-powered water barge with a conveyer belt lined with buckets. The conveyer was designed to be lowered into the Delaware River for dredging purposes. At the time the City of Philadelphia dumped its sewage into the river. Medical science was beginning to realize that cholera epidemics were caused by this, and the Philadelphia Board of Health wanted the sewage dredged up, to be disposed of elsewhere.

By 1804, Evans had built the barge onto a "land carriage" that could be removed once the barge was in water. He fired up his 5 horsepower steam engine, applied power to the wheels via a belt, much the way lawn mower belts work. He then drove the 4,000 pound machine out of his garage in the city, down Market Street to the nearest waterway, the Schuylkill, leading to the Delaware. (Some consider his machine to be America’s first automobile.)

After driving into the river, Evans detached the land carriage part of the machine, moved the belt so it would apply power the paddle wheels. He then ran the boat downstream to the Delaware River, and then up the river to where the dredging was to take place. The machine made quite a stir throughout the country, although its final function was as a powerful dredging machine.

Nevertheless, Evans received a number of proposals to build high pressure steam engines for boats, railroads, and large wagons, as well as for mills. Unfortunately these proposals seem to have lacked sound financial backing. Because of this, and perhaps because of his millwright background, he seems to have focused on the mills. He became well known for his inventiveness, and wrote "The Young Steam-Engineer's Guide," and "The Young Millwright's Guide." Evans is credited with a great number of improvements to the milling machines of the day, as well as numerous other inventions that improved both the cotton and the wool business.

Prior to the advent of the steam engine, America’s population had been using wood for fuel. The colonies were loaded with it, especially hardwoods. It got in the way of farming. The trees were ancient, and huge. Profits could be made shipping it to Europe, making charcoal, simply milling it, and so on. It was easy to go out and cut some firewood.

On the farms, land had to be cleared for tilling. The wood could be used to build the house, build the barn and other outbuildings such as silos, corn cribs, chicken houses, out houses, spring houses, etc. Many churches were built of donated wood. Tree stumps could be laid out to mark property lines, and laid in rows as "fences".

While water powered mills continued to survive into the 1900’s, steam power had arrived. Steamboats could use wood cut from the trees that lined many waterways. But railroad steam engines needed a more efficient source of heat. Anthracite coal was the answer. It burned longer, and produced more heat than wood or even soft coal. It burned cleaner, and produced less smoke.

What was good enough for railroads was even better for homes. In 1820 only a few thousand tons of coal had been mined, mostly for local use in towns near the mines. With the ongoing construction of railroads that were replacing wagon trains and canals as providers of commercial transportation and hauling, the demand for hard coal rose. In addition iron furnaces were replacing fireplaces as heating mechanisms in many American homes. By 1860 around 10 million tons of hard coal was being mined in Pennsylvania, alone. In addition about 3 million tons of soft coal was being consumed that year. Soft coal was primarily used to produce coke for America’s fledgling iron and steel industries.

Fortunately, Pennsylvania had sources of iron ore, and numerous coal seams. And they were reasonably close together. Easton, Bethlehem, and Allentown Pa were the core towns for the growing steel industry in the region called the Lehigh Valley of Pa. Pittsburgh Pa, was another place ideal for manufacturing steel.

Furthermore, gas (not gasoline) and oil could be manufactured from soft coal These products were replacing candles as a better, cleaner, less smelly source of lighting both in building, and in street lighting. The mines seemed inexhaustible. Whale oil was becoming expensive, because the whales had nearly been wiped out.

In 1758 the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting held that the owning of slaves was a religious offence punishable by being disowned by the Quakers. Being disowned by your Meeting meant not participating in church activities, unless you mended your ways.

By the time of the Civil War most Quakers had freed their slaves if they had owned any to begin with. As a matter of belief in freedom, most northern Quakers did not. I am unable to document what southern Quakers had to say on the subject.

As a matter of faith, many Quakers became part of the Underground Railroad, helping fellow human beings flee the misery of slavery. In the book "Around the Boundaries of Chester County" by W.W.MacElree, the author describes "William Brown of Brown’s Ford, whose ancestors came over from England with William Penn. Brown’s curly black hair which falls in glossy ringlets over the straight stiff collar of his Quaker coat is a reminder that nature has not designed him to live in a world whose color is drab.

There too is Margaret Lincoln, the daughter of some Scotch Presbyterians who had emigrated to American at the close of the Revolutionary War and settled near Elkton. Upon her marriage to Brown, Margaret united with the Friends and in her modest Quaker dress is a perfect picture of matured womanly beauty". The author’s description is taken from "John and Mary or the Fugitive Slaves" written by Ellwood Griest about 1830. In that book, Griest is describing "An isolated spot, lonely, wild and desolate" used as one of the stations on the Underground Railroad. Griest informs his readers in the preface that all his characters are real.

Quakers and others who ran the Underground Railroad kept few records. People could be prosecuted for helping slaves escape to the north. So only those who needed to know were informed of the various ways north. Those involved became expert at building "hideaways" to hide escapees during the day, and tunnels to move them from one location to another at night. The Quaker Meetinghouse at Wilmington Delaware, has several such hiding places which are known and still work correctly. Several Quaker owned buildings in that area are known to have tunnels to other Quaker owned buildings.

There is an understanding among African Americans who take Muslim names that their family name was taken from the name of the slave holder who owned their ancestors. This is only one source of names however. As escapees, many slaves who successfully moved north chose to change their last name, to make it more difficult to be traced if they stayed in the U.S.A. (rather than move to Canada). One option was to take the last name of someone who had helped them along the Underground Railroad, in memory of their help. Many slaves also successfully went west, and although movies and TV don’t show it, many cowboys on western cattle ranches were black freemen.

Chester County Tax Rates for 1765 show 2 Browns in the area, along with their property:

It is unknown whether the servant was a slave or a paid employee. Given the 1758 stance taken by the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting on slavery, it seems unlikely to have been a slave. Nevertheless, the category of "servant" seems to mean property. It is also interesting to note that English colonial settlers were raising more mutton than beef during the time. Cows generally were only being used for their milk.

The American Revolution was largely supported by business people in the eastern seaports, by local businessmen and merchants, and by plantation owners. The leaders were well educated middle-class people who got their ideas out to the public via publications and orations. England had been trying to raise money to pay for various wars that had for the most part not affected the colonies. They were simply too far away. The French Indian Wars had occurred locally, been funded and fought with local militia.

The English Stamp Act of 1765 was resented as much for the nuisance as for the tax. All legal documents had to be taxed, making for huge inconveniences in trying to conduct business. It was an easy target to build support for a revolution. Men from all the colonies began to unite against it. By March 1766 the Stamp Act had been repealed largely because the colonists had rioted against and attacked British government officials responsible for collecting the tax, or enforcing the Act. Stamp distributors and even governors had been attacked and had their property destroyed.

Still the British government needed to raise money, and some kind of tax on the colonies seemed to be the answer. The next effort was the Townshend Act of 1767, which levied taxes against many English products coming into the colonies from British factories. Glass, paint, paper, tea were taxed. Flax, hemp for rope, and timber were taxed going the other way. Three years later this Act was also repealed.

Initially Americans wanted primarily to prevent England from taxing them without their input, because in many other ways English laws were protective. In John Dickenson’s "Farmer’s Letters", he expressed the idea that England should have certain powers over the colonies, but that the colonies should have rights which today we would see as State’s Rights. The British government failed to pursue the idea, but the American desire for representation in the making of laws and taxes that affected them gathered support.

Another problem not mentioned in schoolbooks was that of land speculators. Businessmen, including George Washington, traveled to the "far west" looking for land to promote. The British government had in 1768 defined the western boundaries of the colonies with 3 treaties with Native American governments, the Cherokee, the Creek, and the Iroquois nations. These speculators wanted to push into the Ohio valley, and other points west of Pennsylvania, including Kentucky and Tennessee.

Even Ben Frankin was involved in a big company called Vandalia. These companies, large and small, offered to pay huge sums of money for laws supporting "inland colonies in America". But they also encouraged a boycott of British taxed goods into the country to help make their point. Home industry was promoted, including spinning bees, home woven cloth, locally manufactured paper and wines.

When British governing agencies tried to do anything about these efforts, the local colonists often would riot. In January of 1770 a riot in New York had cost one citizen killed. But in March of 1770 a riot in Boston cost 3 men, including a black freedman, their lives. It quickly became known as the Boston Massacre. After that the Revolution’s movement slowly caught hold, and eventually led to war. The Revolution-ary War is well covered elsewhere, and needn’t be covered here. (Oxford History of the American People – Samuel Eliot Morison)

The Europeans had been using muskets for over two centuries. The muskets had replaced bows and arrows, because musket balls could pierce a Knight’s armor. Muskets effectively ended the era of Knighthood in battle. However, muskets took up to a minute to load, and worse, tended to foul after several shots.

Some musket manufacturer in Europe, thought to be German or Swiss, tried straight grooves in his barrels as a place for the black powder residue to settle, so his muskets could fire more shots before fouling. Later some gunsmith reasoned that if straight grooves could hold a certain amount of fouling, grooves curved inside the barrel would be longer and therefore hold even more fouling. Since all musket manufacturers tested their products on a test fire range or line, gunsmiths quickly realized such rifled barrels were far more accurate over much greater distances.

While smooth bore muskets were popular with European armies, the rifles tended to be bought by hunters. In America, once introduced, rifles quickly caught the attention of the colonist farmers, who could put meat on the family table with less chance of scaring their prey. Rifles were accurate up to two hundred yards. Smooth bores were not very accurate beyond fifty yards.

Once the American Revolution began, Britain was sending its armies to the colonies with smooth bore muskets, known as the Brown Bess. These troops needed to get within fifty yards of opposing forces to fire with any degree of effectiveness. In Europe, typically two armies would march to within fifty yards of each other, then the first line of men would fire, drop to their knees so the second line could fire (while the first row of troops reloaded). As the second row of men fired and dropped to one knee, the third row would fire. By that time in the first row, any men not wounded would get up, re-fire their muskets, and the whole process would start over. This was called shooting in volleys. Each side would continue until once side yielded, usually for lack of standing men.

In the colonies, most of the colonist farmers had rifles and were used to shooting accurately from one hundred to two hundred yards. The only real problem they had was the fact that initially most of the Revolutionary officers had been trained in Europe, and wanted to fight the British in traditional ways. Over time, the American officers came to realize the effectiveness of fighting "Indian" style; that is, taking advantage of natural cover, and using the qualities of the rifle to best advantage. American riflemen could pick off British officers from a great distance. They could effectively engage British troops at distances where the Brown Bess was simply ineffective.

In addition, during the French Indian Wars, many young male colonists had been captured by the French allied Indians from the north. These tribes had a tradition of adopting captured boys into their families, if the boys showed strength and courage. So, many hundreds of these boys over duration of that war had received their military training "Indian style".

At the end of the French Indian Wars, part of the agreement had been that all male and female children of the colonists be returned to their families, by the tribes. There were so many of these now young men, that some northern colonies quickly fielded military units composed entirely of men highly skilled in tracking, Indian style warfare, and woodland survival skills. Armed with rifles, and led by officers similarly trained, these men made life miserable for British officers and soldiers alike.

Most Quakers refused to fight in the Revolution. They showed their refusal to take sides by supplying both sides with food, clothing, and medical supplies. For the most part, they did not supply either side with war materials. In some cases, they were minor partners in businesses that did. Nevertheless, at the end of the Revolution, some Quakers were tried and hung as traitors for selling supplies to the British as well as to the American Army.

In 1776 America won its freedom from England’s taxation without representation. In 1788 the Congress of the Confederation authorized the first national election and designated New York City, the largest city in the new States, to be the temporary national capital city. New York was a central point from the north and the south for the new government’s representatives to commute by horse, carriage, or ship. It was also an important shipping and trading location

Take out a one dollar bill, and look at it. The bill you're looking at first came off the presses in 1957 in its present design. It is called paper money, but is in fact a cotton and linen blend, with red and blue minute silk fibers running through it. It is a strong material. We've all left it in our clothing and washed it without it falling apart. A special blend of ink is used, a formula we will never know. It is overprinted with symbols and then it is starched to make it water resistant and pressed to give it that nice crisp look.

If you look on the front of the bill, you will see the United States Treasury Seal. On the top you will see the scales for a balanced budget. In the center you have a carpenter's square, a tool used for an even cut. Underneath is the Key to the United States Treasury. That's all pretty easy to figure out, but what is on the back of that dollar bill is something we should all know.

If you turn the bill over, you will see two circles. Both circles, together, comprise the Great Seal of the United States. The First Continental Congress requested that Benjamin Franklin and a group of men come up with a Seal. It took them four years to accomplish this task and another two years to get it approved.

If you look at the left-hand circle, you will see a Pyramid. Notice the face is lit, and the western side is dark. This country was just beginning. We had not begun to explore the West, but the thought was there. The Pyramid is not capped, signifying that we were still building. Inside the capstone you have the all-seeing eye, an ancient symbol for divinity. It was Franklin's belief that one man couldn't do it alone, but a group of men, with the help of God, could do anything. Not caring for formal religions, he was careful not to specify whose God.

"IN GOD WE TRUST" is on this currency. The Latin above the pyramid, ANNUIT COEPTIS, means, "God has favored our undertaking." The Latin below the pyramid, NOVUS ORDO SECLORUM, means, "a new order has begun." The Founding Fathers were very careful not to designate a specific religion. They did not say "In Jesus We Trust. At the base of the pyramid is the Roman Numeral for 1776.

The Bald Eagle was selected as a symbol for victory for two reasons: First, he is not afraid of a storm; he is strong, and he is smart enough to soar above it. Secondly, he wears no material crown. We had just broken from the King of England. Also, notice the shield is unsupported. This country can now stand on it’s own. At the top of that shield you have a white bar signifying congress, a unifying factor. We were coming together as one nation. In the Eagle's beak you will read, "E PLURIBUS UNUM", meaning, "one nation from many people".

If you look at the right-hand circle, and check it carefully, you will learn that it is on every National Cemetery in the United States. Slightly modified, it is the seal of the President of the United States, and it is always visible whenever he speaks, yet very few people know what the symbols mean.

Above the Eagle, you have thirteen stars, representing the thirteen original colonies, and any clouds of misunderstanding rolling away. Again, we were coming together as one. Notice the Eagle holds in his talons an olive branch, and arrows. This country wants peace, but we will never be afraid to fight to preserve peace. The Eagle always wants to face the olive branch, but in time of war, his gaze turns toward the arrows.

It is said that the number 13 is an unlucky number. This is almost a worldwide belief. You will rarely see a room numbered 13, or any hotels or motels with a 13th floor. But think about this: there are 13 original colonies, 13 signers of the Declaration of Independence, 13 stripes on our flag, 13 steps on the Pyramid, 13 letters in the Latin above, 13 letters in "E Pluribus Unum", 13 stars above the Eagle, 13 bars on that shield, 13 leaves on the olive branch, 13 fruits, and if you look closely, 13 arrows. And, for minorities: the 13th Amendment. Thirteen seems to be a lucky number after all.

Among our founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin was frankly hostile to all organized religions, knowing quite well the historical damage done when religion and politics become bedfellows. Thomas Jefferson was a Unitarian, which is distinctly not Judeo-Christian. His political writings of the time demanded a "wall of separation" between the government and the churches in the colonies.

The time of the Puritans in New England hanging 3 Quakers for their religious beliefs was well remembered. James Madison was Episcopalian who warned that "a religious sect may degenerate into a political faction". Which explains his wording of the Bill of Rights. Like the other founding fathers, he was well educated, and aware of the damage politicized religions could do, as a simple study of history will indicate.

What is true, is that many of the Founding Fathers had strong religious beliefs as well as strong political beliefs. They also had a deep understanding that religions are based on faith, and freedom of choice is based on a healthy respect for the rights of others, with an equal expectation of others’ respect for one’s own rights. It was OK to agree to disagree with regards to choice of religions. As stated earlier, Ben Franklin disavowed organized religions, with no ill effects on his status among the Founding Fathers.

They did not desire to repeat the mistakes made throughout Europe. There, politics and religion were mixed in such a way that people were being persecuted for their religious beliefs. Politicians and royals often sought power based on a particular religious interpretation of the Bible, which might strengthen their claims to office. For all these reasons, our Founding Fathers intended a separation of church and state.

Prior to the United States of America Founding Fathers establishing the principal of Religious Freedom, all European governments had been based on the concept of a State sponsored Church, or in many cases, a Church sponsored State. Since the time of the Egyptian Pharaohs, government leaders had claimed their political authority as being derived directly from God, and therefore extrinsic from the people being governed. The Pharaohs were God-Kings, and all authority therefore came from Divine Revelation, which must not be questioned.

Early Greek, and later Roman, leaders while not claiming to be God-Kings, nevertheless were closely allied with religious leaders. While not all politicians in Rome thought, for example, that Julius Caesar was a god, it was advantageous for them to promote to the people governed that God must be on Caesar’s side for him to win all those wars. Once the Christian Church had grown in population to where it had economic and political clout, a new alliance of religion and politics took place.

Initially the new Christian religious leaders were involved in approving or disapproving Kings and Emperors. This used the earlier extrinsic logic with which the public was familiar. God spoke to the head of the Christian Church, who then named and supported "God’s choice" for the office.

This quickly led to the development and growth of the Holy Roman Empire, in which local politicians reported to Kings, who reported to Emperors, who responded to the will of God, as given through his Holy Leader in Rome. Today there are still religious sects in the world, such as the various Islamic sects and certain Christian sects (Jim Jones at Guyana comes to mind), that believe this antiquated concept where political power is extrinsically derived from God. If you know your European history, you already know this concept was a major source of wars right up to the Religious Reformations of the 1600’s.

What the American Revolution’s leaders brought to the table was a high degree of education and awareness of the problems such thinking created. The colonies already had a history of persecuting, prosecuting, and even killing people for their religious beliefs. William Penn’s, and indeed all Quakers’, beliefs in religious freedom was clearly not going to work if the politicians had to designate one specific State religion. The only clear solution would have to be found elsewhere.

The solution they agreed upon was that political authority needed to come from the people being governed, i.e., be intrinsic in nature. This concept had its roots in the Magna Carta of King John’s time in the early 1200s. The Magna Carta had established a legal boundary on the power of English Kings over English citizens. In addition to establishing the two assemblies of Parliament (one of which was elected), the Magna Carta created fundamental rights for citizens, making England a legal state rather than a regal state. (The Outline of History, H.G. Wells). Royal power was restricted to controlling the lives and property of his citizens only with the consent of that citizen’s equals.

The question was, "How do you do that?" The British model worked somewhat well, but had major problems. One the one hand, citizens generally had more rights than elsewhere in Europe. One the other hand, it took a revolt, with resulting deaths, to change kings. And the average citizen had no say in the selection of a new king. New kings were for life, unless overthrown, and they usually dictated your religion. No doubt you can think of other problems with the British model.

The next logical step was to have the governed, we the people, elect both assemblies as well as vote for the head of the new government. The idea of a President, who would have nowhere near the power of a King, and who could be voted out of office if needed was explored, debated, and quickly found favor. If we elected our government, and if the religious freedom of all religious sects in the new country were to be respected, there could be no State sponsored religion.

Instead of one State recognized religious leader ruling the people via his personal interpretation of the will of God, the new government would reflect the will of the people as demonstrated in their vote. All the American religious sects were free to teach their religious interpretations, but none would be free to force that interpretation on any other sect.

Toleration for others’ social, political, and religious ideas and beliefs was almost unheard of at the time. However, it was popular with all the American religious sects because it was immediately clear that no one sect would be allowed to use political power to destroy any other. Religious wars would not exist in this new form of government.

Because European history of the prior couple of hundred years was rife with death from religion based causes, the benefits of this new concept quickly caught on with the public. After all, in Pennsylvania Billy Penn’s Grand Experiment was working just fine. Quakers, Methodists, Presbyterians, Catholics, Moravians, and many other Christian and non-Christian sects (Muslims had founded several towns in Pennsylvania, at Penn’s invitation) too numerous to mention were living in communities side by side without killing each other, because of the way Pennsylvania laws made that possible.

While most of our founding fathers believed in God, since many of the original colonies had been founded by people of specific faiths, it was understood that the colonies could not exist in harmony if any one colony was trying to force its specific beliefs on the other colonies. Laws were written to prevent, or at least minimize the chance of any one religion using its political power to force its beliefs on others.

It meant that extremist religious leaders could no longer hang so-called "witches" much less Quakers. In this new age of reason, the educated realized there was no such thing as witches. People who understood the curative powers of various plants began to be viewed as valuable members of society, rather than being branded as witches.

One of the most valuable contributions to the discussion of freedom of religion was the recognition that everyone’s choice of religion, and indeed of a religious sect (Baptists, Catholics, and Methodists are only 3 of the many Christian sects) was based on faith. All religious belief is a matter of faith.

Faith is defined as the conviction that a thing unproved by evidence is true. It was recognized that people were born into and accepted the faith of their parents, or (as had happened within the prior century) studied religious thought and selected a religious sect based on what felt right to them. Our Founding Fathers and the leading thinkers of the day, and indeed the colonists reading the publications of the time, all understood that religious freedom could not exist unless it was based on an understanding of the meaning of "faith".

Without this understanding, the concept of religious freedom was meaningless. Any sect with enough economic and political clout could simply force its views on all the other religions and that would be the end of religious freedom. Our Founding Fathers thought that it would be sufficient that religious leaders could discuss their views on morals from their pulpits. It would be up to individual church members to vote for politicians by choice rather than by pulpit directive.

Even in 1960, 200 years later, John F. Kennedy, a Catholic, had to make it quite clear to the voting public that the Pope would not be involved in Kennedy’s political decisions. Only in more recent decades would Presidents after Kennedy find ways to blur the distinction between and separation of the Church and State. Doing is dangerous for all people of faith, because once political power can be bought by religious leaders, it is only a matter of time before right wing (ever notice how left wing and right wing always mean extremists?) zealots will be arguing that true Christians need guns. (Oops, some already are!) Can you name all the conservative Christian leaders who have given conservative Christians a bad name? Hint, start with Jim Jones in Guyana, and you should be able to list at least a half dozen others who have turned out to be wealthy con artists. You know who they are. Fortunately, only a few have killed their followers.

Oddly, conservative Christians either defend such leaders (which makes them sound foolish), or don’t want to talk about them at all (which is exactly what lets the next con artist put one over on them). This is not to condemn conservative Christians, but to suggest that having a conservative faith does NOT mean losing one’s own common sense and good judgement. Exactly the opposite; conservatives of any religion, Christian, Islam, or any other must be especially on their guard against religious leaders who would tell them to murder, or other un-Godly acts, in the name of God, Jesus, Mohammed, etc.

Run, don’t walk, away from any religious leader who asks you to break any of the 10 commandments in God’s name, or who even suggests that "if someone does it in God’s name, it will be a godly act". Our founding Fathers knew and understood that historically that is exactly what some conservative Christian sects in the colonies, and in Europe had done. The entire principle of separation of church and state was intended to minimize, if not prevent, the evil actions visited upon people by smooth talking, but fallacious religious leaders.

Because separation of church and state was built into the new government, houses of worship had an absolute prohibition on partisan political activities. This did NOT mean that people of faith couldn’t express their views on political matters which they thought involved moral issues, such as they did on the slavery issue. It DID mean that they could not spend congregational monies supporting specific politicians.

Donations to the church of their choice were expected to be acts of devotion to the God of their choice, not to support the election of the politician of their choice. Since people in the same congregation could easily support opposing candidates for office for many political reasons, much less for reasons of conscience, having the religious leader of that church use church offerings to support a specific candidate was recognized as being improper and wrong morally.

Religious leaders were expected to express their moral views on matters of national importance, and to provide a perspective based on widely accepted religious views. If a particular religious sect wanted to use poisonous snakes in their worship of God, that was OK. And if some of those worshippers died as a result, that was OK. As long as they didn’t try to pass a law forcing other religious sects to use the same practices, and as long as they didn’t force their members before the age of consent, people were free to choose a religion that might kill them. (Even today, there are people who will argue the case for Jim Jones killing all his followers in Guyana. Same for the rapist church leader in Waco, Texas.)

Furthermore, religious leaders were to be held responsible for what they preached in church. Just as freedom of speech has specific expectations of responsibility, so did religious freedom. You cannot yell "Fire!" in a crowded theater, start a stampede of people to narrow exits such thate folks are trampled and injured, or someone suffers a heart attack. You cannot slander or libel anyone and pretend it is free speech. It isn’t. The idea of what free speech is was debated, carefully analyzed and carefully defined.

If you abused that definition, you could be prosecuted, and claiming "freedom of speech" wouldn’t save you. Likewise you could not advocate the murder of abolish-ionists from the pulpit and expect to get away with it. You could express your moral views on a subject, as a religious leader or as a member of a congregation. An example of this was the public and religious discussion of the issue of slavery. People discussed the morality of slavery, but it was unacceptable to advocate the murder of slave owners.

You were expected to meet Federal laws regarding protecting children from rape. You could not use religious biblical interpretations to justify marrying underage girls. Nevertheless, local interpretations of what the term "underage" meant were often applied by local law enforcement agencies. Many parents in poverty stricken parts of the country married off their underage daughters so there would be one less mouth to feed.

Historically it was in the financial interest of southern religious leaders to find rationalizations of biblical scriptures to support slavery. And many such leaders chose the financial rewards rather than declare slavery to be morally bankrupt. Wealthy plantation owners, making incredible profits using slave labor, were hardly going to fund religious leaders who told them to free their slaves.

East Coast Quakers, however, did not have ministers to dictate biblical meaning. Meetings were funded by all members, and no individual could dictate to the other members. Decisions about the rightness or wrongness of issues such as slavery and of alcoholic beverages were discussed over periods of time until consensus was reached. If one member brought up a biblical quote that seemed to support a particular view of an issue, other members were free to quote other passages for or against that view. Elders were expected to enforce the rules of such discussions, and perhaps to prevent individual quotes from being taken out of moral and historical context.

Upon consensus the elders would issue a statement spelling out the decision. If no decision could be reached, members were free to take the issue to Monthly Meeting , Quarterly Meeting or to Yearly Meeting. At some level, sooner or later, a decision would be reached. If local meeting members still disagreed, they were free to choose another meeting or another religious sect. Generally however because Quakers valued facts and reasoned logic their members understood and accepted these decisions.

By 1777 Yearly Meeting announced that the distilling and using of spirituous liquors made of grain ought to be wholly discontinued. A committee was chosen to visit all Quaker distillers and all Quakers providing grain for such use were requested to stop. For a long time no alcoholic beverages could be found for sale in the Ninth District (Nottingham area).

During the Revolutionary War, any Friend who went to war was disowned immediately, as Quakers did not believe violence, and hence war, solved problems. They believed in negotiating when possible. However, they believed in charity towards the soldiers who risked their lives, and Meetings severely fined Quaker members who accepted money for helping soldiers through medical aid, blankets, horses or wagons.

At the end of the war, there were about 50,000 Quakers in America. The eastern colonies, now States, were filling with people. Southern and Eastern Quakers began migrating westward. They and thousands of non-Quakers traveled over the mountains of the "far west" from Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia into Kentucky, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan. Eventually they moved to Kansas, California, and Oregon.

One of the many famous thinkers at the time of the Revolution was Ben Franklin. He had a natural curiosity about how things worked, but more than that he also believed in the scientific process. That is to say, he observed things, both man-made and natural, and used logic to try to understand the things he saw.

He proposed explanations about why and how things worked, then tested his ideas to see if they worked consistently. He also liked to solve problems using what he had learned. He also liked to make things that did work, work better. For example, he had poor vision and needed glasses to read. He got tired of switching back and forth between reading glasses and long distance glasses, so he decided to figure out a way to make his glasses let him see both near and far. He had two pairs of eyeglass lenses cut in half and put half of each lens in a single frame, thus inventing bifocals. Eyeglasses were not new, but his solution to the specific problem was.

One of the misunderstandings about Franklin is that he did not invent electricity. However, he did understand the power of lightening, and invented the lightening rod to help prevent fires caused when lightening hit wooden structures like houses and barns.

Earlier in this document, it was mentioned that in colonial America, most people warmed their homes by building a fire in a fireplace. Cooking fireplaces were quite dangerous. They also used a lot of wood because most of the heat went up the chimney.

If you get a chance to visit the Valley Forge historical sites, try to go when the home George Washington stayed in is open to visitors. The kitchen fireplace is large enough for a woman to walk in. Many women cooked in the kitchen with no clothes, or minimal clothes, on because an ember could ignite their dress and burn them alive.

If you visit the log huts the soldiers stayed in while wintering over with General Washington, you will notice their fireplaces and chimneys were made of logs and mud. While providing some minimal heat to the structure, you can see how inherently danger-ous the design was. It seems likely that at least one soldier in each hut had to stay up at night to ensure that a spark from the log and mud fireplace didn’t burn the structure down along with its inhabitants. (I might mention that the WWII wooden Army barracks used coal heat and the Army required two-hour shifts of Fire Duty at night for the same reason).

Prior to the iron stove, there was usually a fireplace on each of the two floors of the farmhouse. The 1^st floor fireplace would be in the kitchen, although in a large farmhouse there might be another at the opposite end of the house. In a small farmhouse one fireplace heated the entire 1^st floor. The 2^nd floor would have a fireplace in the master bedroom, and the children’s bedrooms might get their heat from that. If there was a 3^rd floor, the door to that stairway would be left open since heat rises.

Using the principal of rising heat, some homes had a hole cut in the second floor with iron grates between it and the ceiling of the 1^st floor. Heat could rise in this way from the 1^st floor to the 2^nd floor bedrooms. The door in the stairway would also be left open for the same reason.

Foot warmers were of various designs. One could heat bricks, place them in a pan with a lid, and put that at the foot of the bed. Or put burning embers in the pan, if the lid could be secured. The danger was in knocking the lid off and starting a fire when your bed linen came in contact with the hot bricks or burning embers.

Since most heat went up the chimney, some homes had large steel rectangular plates built into the 3 walls of the fireplace to reflect some of that heat out into the rooms. With the invention of the iron stove, far more heat stayed in the home, than was lost.

Franklin decided that there had to be a safer way to heat the home and to cook food. His invention of an iron stove allowed people to warm their homes less dangerously and to do so with far less wood. You know it as the Franklin stove. You can burn wood or coal in it. The hot iron surfaces generate maximum heat into the house, while losing the least amount of heat up the chimney. The iron contains the burning embers, thus reducing the risk of an ember fire.

Variations on his invention became the pot bellied stove, and the cast iron cook stove with a large flat cooking surface on the top of the stove. The oven portion can be used for baking and broiling, and the top can be used for pan cooking. The four openings in the top allow the cook to control the heat for specific cooking surfaces of the stove.

The iron stove had its own dangers. Children and adults could easily burn themselves if they brushed up against a hot stove. The wood and coal ashes still had to be removed and discarded carefully. If a hot ember hit anything flammable you could still start a fire.

With some much more heat being radiated into the home, far less wood or coal was required to heat it. This was highly cost effective, requiring less labor if the home-owner gathered their own wood, and less money if buying coal. The stove fire could be banked at night, requiring less care. Properly set up for the night, the fully closed stove was far less likely to spit out a burning ember, and start a house fire. The invention didn’t take long to become popular.

Interestingly enough, Ben Franklin also established the first fire company in the new nation, in Philadelphia, and founded the first fire insurance company. . As was mentioned elsewhere, both the Chichester Meeting and the Brick Meeting were severely damaged by fire, and had to be rebuilt. However the idea of Fire Insurance had not yet caught on, and Meeting members bore the costs.

In 1783 Noah Webster (1758-1843) born in West Hartford Connecticut and a Yale graduate, published "Webster’s Elementary Spelling Book. In 1784, he added a grammar, and in 1785 a reader. These 3 elements comprised his "A Grammatical Institute of the English Language". His purpose was to differentiate American English from British spelling, grammar, and pronunciation. For example, he proposed dropping those letters in words that were not sounded: British "honour" became American "honor". He proposed to spell things the way they sounded: British "gaol" became American "jail", "centre" became "center". His was also the first comprehensive dictionary, including technical and scientific terms as well as literary terms.

His intention was to ensure that Americans had a standard of using the English language that was different from British English, as part of the American national identity. Among the many changes he made, he proposed to drop the "e" off the end of words, if the "e" was silent, and did not modify the sound of other letters. For example, the "o" in the word "mode" requires the "e" to make the "o" a long "o" sound. However the name Browne, by Webster’s rules does not require the "e" at the end. In 1828 Noah Webster published his "American Dictionary of the English Language" which was the first dictionary to emphasize American rather than British usage.

Historical researchers reading original Quaker records, court records, land records, and the like will notice in them during the time between 1783 and 1828 ongoing changes in American spelling. These reflect the new American nation’s adoption of Noah Webster’s publications. You can literally read a page of a Quaker record of births and deaths and see one style of handwriting indicating the Recording Secretary spelled the name Browne, then turn the page to a new Recording Secretary’s script, and see the same persons’ names spelled Brown.

At the end of the Revolutionary War, 17 of the 57 signers of the Declaration of Independence had held commissions in the army or served medical duty during the war. Most signers who lost property during the war, re-established themselves after the war. Thomas McKean, of Delaware, was wealthy when he died in 1817 at age 83. Those signers captured during the war, were treated like all British prisoners of war, which is to say badly. None were singled out. The war itself was harsh, and some British officers were particularly cruel in their treatment of all combatants and non-combatants who supported the revolution.

If you think most of the signers of the Declaration of Independence died in poverty after the war as part of their "sacrifice for freedom", you are incorrect. I’ve seen email to that effect, and have done some reading on the issue. Whoever originated the document, and all who have forwarded it, have participated in a fraud on the American public.

While it sounds very patriotic that our founding fathers mostly sacrificed their families and wealth for the sake of freedom, it simply didn’t happen that way. However people who don’t check into the veracity of such things are doomed to repeat the mistakes of others. If the source of the information was political in nature, all the more reason to check the facts so that one could choose not to participate in the hoax.

Prior to 1749 southern Lancaster County Quakers had to travel to the Nottingham Monthly and Particular (weekly) Meetings for prayer and business. In 1749 Friends living "in and near Little Britain" requested and received permission to build a meeting-house. A Quaker named Michael King provided 5 acres to a board of trustees, which included one Joshua Brown.

A log building was built in the early 1750’s, but this burned down and was replaced in 1764 with a stone meetinghouse. Joshua Brown had moved from Nottingham to a 500 acre farm in 1758. His son, Jeremiah Brown built the current meetinghouse in 1823 at a cost of $2,053.48. Jeremiah’s wife, Mercy Shreve Brown, was a well known Quaker preacher and the old stone meetinghouse couldn’t hold all the people who came to hear her. Jeremiah built the new building for her. Unfortunately she passed way on Oct. 24, 1823, 6 days after the new building was presented to the Quaker members. (Churches of Today and Yesteryear in Southern Lancaster County – Fellowship of Solanco Churches, R.Dunlap, G. Herbert, R.Yates Sr., 1968)

Records of Little Britain Monthly Meeting (now called Penn Hill Meeting), are part of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, aka Quakers. A Microfiche was found in Friends Library, in Swarthmore College, which has the code: MdHR M 2608. Membership Book, 1797-1977. This record indicates Anna Mary Brown, Hugh M. Brown , Evan K. Brown, and Mary S. Brown were all "Released 8 mo., 18, 1900" which means they no longer belonged to that Quaker Meeting. No reason is given. However William J. and Ada P. were later buried in Eastland Cemetary, along with their parents Alvin Brown (October 18, 1847 September 11, 1916) to and Anna Mary Griffith Brown (August 13, 1849 to February 20, 1917). It would appear that they had simply moved.

Both Alvin Brown’s father and grandfather were named Jacob Brown. The grandfather was born February 5, 1766, just two years after the stone meetinghouse was built. Alvin’s great-grandfather is thought to be Samuel Brown, no dates given. It seems likely these Browns are related to Joshua and Jeremiah Brown, but this remains to be proven. Joshua is thought to be a descendent of James and William Browne.

Among the many families who attended the Little Britain Monthly Meeting (a.k.a. Penn Hill) are prominently listed the Browns, the Stubbses, the Haineses, the Kirks, the Smedleys, the Kings as well as many others.

During the Revolutionary War, the Iroquois Nation had sided with the British government. Their populations, already reduced by European diseases had further diminished. After the war ended and the new nation settled on a Democratic Republic form of government, George Washington, the new President, invited the Iorquois to Philadelphia, the new government’s capital, to negotiate new treaties with them.

A delegation of 51 Native Americans including such famous Iroquois chiefs as Big Tree, Cornplanter, Farmers Brother, Good Peter, Infant, Little Billy, Red Jacket and others. Infant (Hamangaikhou) stood 6 ft, 4 inches. The others were typical at 6 ft. tall on average. They traveled down theWyoming Valley through Nazareth and into Bethlehem PA. They wore leggings, linen shirts, wool coats, and moccasins. Some were armed with muskets, but most carried bows and arrows, and tomahawks. Some had been converted to Christianity, so there were Moravians and Presbyterians among them. The Moravians in Bethlehem held a 4 day reception for the delegation.

After the various celebrations held in their honor, they took the Lehigh River to the Delaware, and from there traveled to Philadelphia. Although one Iroquois, Peter Jaquette, died at age 26 while in Philadelphia, the treaty was successfully negotiated. Cornplanter, a Seneca chief, lived to be more than 100 years old leading his people on land in northwestern PA. He died in 1836. Farmers Brother was 90 when he died in 1814. Red Jacket fought on the side of the Americans in the War of 1812. He died at age 78, in 1830.

In the early 1800’s transportation was by boat, wagon or horse. Some commerc-ial transportation was by canal where a reliable water source existed. A major canal system ran on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware River. The State had almost 1000 miles for portage canals in operation by 1840, including canals across the Alleghenies to Pittsburgh.

However, in 1826 the first rail road was built. The cars were pulled by horses. Such rail roads were cheaper to build than canals, and like canal boats, could use horses, mules, or oxen for power. Unlike canals, which needed to be near water, you could build them anywhere. Eventually steam engines would replace the animals.

Unlike canals, railroads could go up and down hills, across gullies, ditches, or even valleys. The steam engines needed a water source, but pulled the coal car or wood car that supplied the heat to convert that water to steam. The steam engine moved at first at an amazing 25 mph and sustained that speed over long distances. However railroads required a great deal of labor and resources to build tracks over those same distances. The construction of canals and of rail roads created a demand for cheap labor. Company owners sent representatives to Europe and Asia for laborers, to build the railroads, to work the steel mills that made the rails, and to mine the coal that fueled the engines.

Trains inevitably replaced canal boats and long distance stagecoach travel. (Stage coaches traveled great distances in stages from one station to another, so that the travelers could eat, attend to nature, and at night, perhaps rest. Teams of horses could be changed and/or rested, and local mail dropped off for distribution). Local freight hauling and stagecoaches continued to do business. Long distance railroads were a lot less bumpy than stagecoaches, therefore easier on the passengers.

Trains required water for their steam engines. Some towns provided water via a water tank on a tower. A funnel was swiveled into place to pipe water into the engine. These were called "tank towns". Smaller towns couldn’t afford to support a tank, and provided water via a water trough built between the railroad tracks. The train lowered a scoop, and "jerked" the water into the engine. These were called "jerkwater towns".

However, initially all railroad stations ran on local time, because there was no national time standards. This created huge problems for the railroad employees trying to determine train departures and arrivals. Imagine for a moment that you are a station master in Wilmington Delaware, and you know that a train left Washington D.C. at 10 AM, bound for Wilmington. You know the speed of the train and the distance it must travel, so you do your math and come up with a time the train should arrive at your station. Based on this, you decide to allow a train leaving Wilmington for Baltimore Maryland to pass through your station without being side tracked.

Unfortunately neither Baltimore nor Washington watches are set to the same time your watch is set to. The northbound and southbound trains collide, killing passengers and destroying freight. (Initially most railroads did not have two sets of tracks assigned for traveling in opposite directions. The idea was to sidetrack trains at designated areas so they could pass one another.) The greater the distances between departing and arrival stations, the greater the chance for accidents due to bad time calculations.

Some accidents were caused by train engineers who would find out at a particular station that they were not "on time", as they had calculated the local time. They would try to make up the "missing" time by going faster to the next station. Hitting a curve at too high a speed, or going downhill too fast was often the cause of an accident (remember the story of Casey Jones?).

The solution was to implement time zones across the country. With time zones, timing calculations were reduced to 5 time zones, rather than the hundreds, if not thousands, of time differences from the East Coast to the West Coast cities and towns. Railroad accidents quickly reduced a mere fraction of what it had been prior to the institution of time zones. Later, as airplanes and highways supplemented the railroads, time zones continued to solve the same timing problems. So we still have them today.

In the early 1800’s Alessandro Volta published his studies into the nature of electric currents. He had discovered that certain metals had positive charges and others negative charges. He experimented with alternate plates of copper and zinc, separated by moist paper, and eventually added salts and acids. Touching the copper top, and the zinc bottom caused a flow of electrical current. He was able to scientifically explain how it all worked; creating the basis for the battery.

By 1820 Hans Oersted, experimenting in this new field called electricity, discovered its magnetic properties. Andre Ampere, a French physicist, expanded on this research by establishing the precise physical and mathematical relationship of an electrical device to the electromagnetic field it created during current flow. In 1827 Georg S. Ohm, also a physicist and mathematician published the results of his studies on the nature of electricity. He published the basic relationship between voltage (pressure), current (flow) and resistance in electrical circuits. Every child learns in grade school science that Voltage equals Current times Resistance (E = IR). By 1832 Joseph Henry had published his experiments about electromotive force and electromagnetic resistance. He also built an electric motor, and a control relay that increased electrical transmission distances.

The constant experimentation with and publishing of papers about electricity came to the attention of Michael Faraday, a famous chemist and physicist. He developed the first electric generator. He also discovered the principle of electric inductance, which is now used to design transformers.

In 1838 Samuel Morse, a Yale graduate, demonstrated his invention, the telegraph, at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. The first telegraph circuit covered 10 miles. He also invented the Morse code which allowed his invention to convey information. The ability to instantly transmit information many miles was immediately recognized by Congress as important to the growth of America, and American business. Congress provided $30,000 (a considerable sum at the time) for further testing and development. The speed with which information went from city to city changed from hours by coach or horseback, to minutes. And time was, as the saying goes, money.

Cyrus McCormick, in 1831 demonstrated a horse drawn mechanical grain reaper for farmers. Two men and a boy (and the horse) replaced a dozen men with hand sickles, and a half dozen men with grain cradles. Farming grain had been revolutionized. The idea of efficient, fast production was taking hold in America’s farmland.

In 1821 Thomas L. Jennings, a tailor, was the first black American known to receive a patent. He invented a method for dry-cleaning clothes.

This need for efficiency drove an inventor named Elias Howe to develop the sewing machine in 1843. Although not initially accepted by American clothing manufacturers, by 1845 many companies were infringing on his patents. The days of sewing clothes entirely by had had ended. American was mechanizing.

Sarah E. Goode was the first black woman to receive a patent. She invented a folding cabinet bed in 1885. Several other black inventors affected American business in a major way, in the 1800’s. Jan E. Matzeliger invented a machine to sew together shoe tops to shoe soles. Granville Woods invented an air brake system that made braking trains less dangerous. Prior to his invention, railroad brakemen had to lean out of the train to brake each car individually. It was low paying, but highly dangerous work. The railroads initially rejected this black man’s invention, but when the death toll rose enough to arouse public sentiment against the railroad magnates, they began to convert to this invention. Another black, Elijah McCoy invented an automatic lubrication system for trains, eliminating the need to stop every half hour for a manual lubrication. His design was so good that military buyers demanded "the real McCoy" when offered alternate systems. (Express-Times, February 16, 2003).

In 1855, Heinrich Hertz proved Clerk Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism, by inventing equipment which both generated and detected electrical wavelengths longer than light. He proved they could be reflected, refracted, and polarized, thus obeying the physical laws known for light wavelengths.

By 1896 Guglielmo Marconi used this knowledge to design and build the first radio transmitter and radio receiver. In a period of 3 years he improved the range of the equipment from 100 yards, to 85 miles. It was called a wireless, and initially carried only Morse code.

The spark of understanding electricity also struck Thomas Edison, , whose patent diagram for a phonograph machine was dated 1877. Nor would his creative genius stop there. Among the hundreds of inventions he thought of were the electric light bulb, the power lines to transmit electricity to that bulb, and the electrical generating plant to create the electricity continually. By the way, it was a black employee, Lewis H. Latimer, who discovered the carbon filament that made the bulb burn rather than burn out.

Meanwhile a fellow named Alexander Graham Bell was working on an idea for an electrical invention to help his deaf wife hear. He and an assistant name Thomas Watson were working on what they called a "harmonic telegraph". By 1875 Bell had designed the transmitter and receiver which we call a telephone.

In another experiment with the concept of wavelengths, Professor Wilhelp Rontgen was experimenting with passing electricity through various gasses. By accident, he observed certain wavelengths could be recorded through objects onto a barium platinocyanide coated screen. He chose to call the wavelengths "X-rays".

In the early 1870’s Luther Burbank, who had studied plant life, and read of Darwin’s theories, becan experimenting, in California, with developing better vegetables fruits, fruit trees, and flowers. For the next 40 years, he would explore plant variations, selecting specific traits and breeding plants for them, providing America’s farmers and orchards with healthier, more productive (hence, more profitable) plants. While nature might eventually have produced the same plants over centuries or millennia, Burbank exploited his ability to significantly speed up the selection part of the process. As did the farmers who bought his products. (Inventors and Inventions – Tuska)

In 1814, Francis C. Lowell opened a textile factory on the Charles River in Waltham, Massachusetts. Waterpower drove looms to mass produce textiles. Prior to this people power had operated such looms. Every step of his production process was under one roof. The concepts embodied in the factory were copied by other manufacturers. Another popular concept introduced into gun manufacturing, and copied by other manufacturers, was the mass production of interchangeable parts. Prior to this, parts were hand made, and often parts between two like items could not be swapped. Mass produced parts greatly reduced the manufacturing and the repair costs for all kinds of mechanical devices, from guns to watches, and everything in between. Thus began the American Industrial Revolution. (Charles River Museum of Industry – Waltham Mass.)

By the end of the 1800’s, mass manufacturing was reducing the costs of all kinds of desirable goods. It was also putting many people out of work. Owners of factories that relied on "hand work" such as clothing factories that needed sewing machine operators to convert cloth to clothing could demand outrageous hours from their employees, for pathetic pay. This was true in many companies where production was dependent on labor, such as the coal mines.

After all, there were more workers than jobs. This drove labor costs down. Many of the "robber barons" became multi-millionaires by abusing their employees. It would take decades for employees to reach a point of fair pay for fair labor. It would take decades to get children out of the factories, and into schools. Generally this occurred for two reasons: people organized into unions, and various devastating disasters, such as deadly factory fires, mine cave-ins, and other horrors were brought to the public’s attention via newspapers. Change then came because the public demanded it.

In the decade of the 1820’s only 129,000 "aliens" had come to America. The decade of the 1830’s brought 540,000 of whom about 44% were Irish, 30 % German, and 15% English. The next decade tripled that to a million and a half people, and in the 1850’s nearly 3 million immigrants arrived on these shores. Principally they were Irish and German.

But as the steel industry, the railroad industry, the coal industry, and other labor dependent work expanded along with the need for people to populate the lands west of the Alleghenies, Eastern Europeans were sought out as well to fill the need for labor and for farmers. (Oxford History of the American People, Samuel Eliot Morison, Oxford University Press)

The Austro-Hungarian Empire controlled a great deal of eastern Europe. The Slavic peoples who immigrated to America, like most European immigrants didn’t speak English when they first arrived. Often their legal papers identified them as Hungarians, regardless of the actual country they came from, within that Empire. The Scotch, Irish, and other northern American coalminers whose parents or grandparents had once been immigrants, called them "Hunkies". In the coal mines of the south, this eventually became "Honkies".

In the mid-1800’s guns and rifles underwent rapid design and functional improvements. Smokeless powder was replacing black powder, and metal cartridges were replacing paper cartridges, which had replaced powder and ball. In Europe, rifling had replaced notoriously inaccurate smooth bore muskets. This had started in the previous century, and in America became popular as the Pennsylvania Rifle. It was incorrectly called the Kentucky Rifle after a ballad was written about Andrew Jackson when his riflemen from Kentucky defeated the British at the Battle of New Orleans

The first rifled muskets, with the inside of the barrel grooved to impart spin to the bullet, and greater accuracy, were invented and manufactured in Germany in the mid-1500’s. The muskets at first were fired, or ignited, by hand. The next improvement was the matchlock, which was a mechanical lock that slightly improved the firing of the weapon. Next came the wheel lock, but it was much more complicated and prone to problems. By 1630 the flint lock, which was a smaller, easier and cheaper to make, easier to use, firing device, was invented. By the early 1700’s, flintlocks were the preferred design in the colonies.

Weather was a problem, prior to the invention of cartridges, because wet powder didn’t fire. The flint needed to ignite powder in either a pan, or a hole leading to the powder behind the ball. If the weather was rainy, hunters and solders alike struggled to keep their powder pan dry. In hunting, no-fires could lead to hunger; in battle, no-fires could lead to death by arrow, war axe, or knife if the opposing force was so armed.

German gun makers brought their art to Pennsylvania, probably in the mid-1600s. Sold to Kentucky people at the edges of the "wilderness" like Daniel Boone, they became known as Kentucky Rifles because so many were sold there. The accuracy of Kentucky riflemen was renowned throughout the colonies. The heyday of the Pennsylvania Rifle was between 1725 and 1775. (The Pennsylvania-Kentucky Rifle – Henry J. Kauffman)

With caliber ranging from 60 to 75, these rifles could bring down eastern mountain buffalo, bear, elk, deer, and smaller game at considerably greater distances than smoothbore muskets. With the large families our ancestors had, being able to put game meat on the table was an important part of feeding the family. Almost certainly our Pennsylvania ancestors hunted using these highly accurate Pennsylvania Rifles.

It would not be until the Civil War that breech loading rifles would commonly available. The paper cartridge allowed quick reloading by breech, but was still affected by rain and snow. The metal cartridge eventually replaced it, being far more dependable.

The U.S. standard railroad rail spacing, or gauge, is 4 feet, 8.5 inches, because that's the way they built them in England; and the U.S. railroads were built by English expatriates. The English built them that way because the first rail lines were built by the same people who built the tramways, and that's the gauge used for the tramways.

The engineers used that measurement for their rail spacing because building the tramways permitted reuse of the same jigs and tools used for building wagons, which used that wheel spacing. The first railroad cars were simply wagons on rails.

Why did the wagons have that particular spacing? Well, if they tried to use any other spacing, the wagon wheels would break on some of the old, long distance roads in England, because that was the spacing of the wheel ruts. The first long distance roads in Europe (and England) had been built by Imperial Rome for their legions to move quickly over great distances to "trouble" spots in the lands they occupied.

Once built, local Roman settlers, farmers and traders, could also use those roads to move trade goods to port cities, where they could arrange shipping in demand of such trade goods. Profitable commerce and military protection were benefits of well designed and well built roads. The roads have been used ever since

The ruts in the roads, which everyone had to match for fear of destroying their wagon wheels, were first formed by Roman war chariots, and baggage carts. Since the chariots and carts were made for (or by) Imperial Rome, they were all alike in the matter of wheel spacing.

The U.S. standard railroad gauge of 4 feet-8.5 inches derives from the original specification for Roman war chariots. Specifications and bureaucracies live forever. The Imperial Roman war chariots were made just wide enough to accommodate the back end of two horses.

The chariots carried a driver, and a soldier such as an archer to provide deadly mobility during battle. The ox drawn carts were used to carry supplies during the march to the battle. Whether building axles for chariots or carts, it would be less complicated to stick to one specification for the axle width.

Since the Egyptians had been using chariots long before the Romans, no doubt the measurement is quite ancient. (Author unknown)

(A History of American Agriculture 1776-1990, by Economic Research Service)

Neither Cement nor macadam roads had been invented in the 1800’s. In large towns cobblestone streets were the norm. (In Wilmington DE, many cobblestone streets still exist, but are now covered by either cement or by macadam. They are occasionally discovered during city water or sewer repairs.) In small towns dirt roads were more common.

Sometimes local conditions required a more substantial road. These might be made of wood, and were called corduroy roads because of their look, and how they "rode". The area between Newport Delaware and the Town of New Castle Delaware traversed a large swamp in the mid 1800’s. The solution was to build a wide wooden road, with supports or buttresses into the more solid parts of the swamp.

However, a road through a large forest might make use of the cut down wood in the same way. Areas that tended to "muddy up" during heavy rains might enjoy the benefits of a corduroy road, as well. The use of cobblestone or wood was dependent on the availability of materials. Was a quarry readily available? Or did forests need clearing nearby?

All our male ancestors who settled the wilderness of Nottingham most likely added to their larder by hunting and fishing. The Octorara Creek and tributaries were nearby, and certainly game such as wild turkey, bear, and deer abounded. Prior to 1790 the Henry family was making Pennsylvania Rifles and other firearms. William Henry I had opened his first gun shop in Lancaster Pa. His son Henry II would move to Nazareth PA and set one up as well. The grandson William Henry III would open a shop known as the Boulton Gun Works in Boulton Pa. In 1812. The last rifles from this shop were sold in 1907.

The Pennsylvania long rifle became famous for its accuracy, ensured by rifling the inside of the long barrel to give the bullet great stability over long distances. As the Kentucky wilderness opened up, hunters like Daniel Boone made the Pennsylvania long rifle so famous that it became known as the Kentucky rifle. This was a misnomer because the vast majority of them were designed and manufactured in various Pennsylvania gun works.

It seems likely that our Brown ancestors used rifles like these to supply meat to their family table. In the 1700’s cattle were kept for milk, oxen for plowing. Prior to the Revolutionary War, most settlers were eating the same meat their families back in England ate: pig, goat, and sheep. In England only the rich landowners could hunt, but in America anyone could, since the forests were full of wild game. It was only later that Americans would raise beef cattle for meat.

A man was stopped by a game warden. He was carrying 2 buckets of fish. He was leaving a lake well known for its fishing. The game warden asked the man: "Do you have a fishing license to catch those fish?" The man replied to the game warden: "No, sir. These are my pet fish." "Pet fish?" the warden replied. "Yes, sir. Every night I take these here fish down to the lake and let them swim around. After awhile, I whistle and they jump right back into their buckets, and I take them back home again."

"That's a bunch of bunk! Fish can't do that!" the warden said in an outburst. The man looked at the game warden for a moment, and then said: "Here, I'll show you. It really works. "OKAY. I've GOT to see this!" the warden was very curious, now. The man poured the fish into the lake and stood and waited.

After several minutes, the game warden turned to the man and said, "Well?" "Well, what?" the man responded. "When are you going to call them back?" The game warden prompted. "Call who back?" the man asked. "The Fish". "What fish?" the man asked.

In 1826, Thomas Jefferson – aged 83, and John Adams – aged 90, passed away within hours of each other on July 4^th. The nation, aware of both men’s fragile health had set aside political differences to pray that both men would live to see the 50^th anniversary of the adoption of the Declaration of Independence for which they had been jointly responsible. Jefferson passed away at noon, and Adams at dusk on the 4^th of July, aware (according to family and care givers) that they had succeeded. . (Oxford History of the American People, Samuel Eliot Morison, Oxford University Press)

Various religious groups, among them the Quakers, furnished the earliest educational facilities in the colonies. Quakers, for the most part businessmen, as were most farmers, saw a need for their children to be educated so as to learn the family business. Citizens would establish a school by hiring a teacher through pledges of the parents.

Some of the earliest schools were what we would now call private schools, established by Quakers, Catholics, Moravians, and other groups of settlers. In 1674, state legislatures passed a law requiring children learn reading and writing. However the law did not provide for public schools. Free schools, or what we’d now call public schools did not exist in Pennsylvania until 1859.

Teachers were required to adhere to a strict code of conduct because of their influence on the children they were teaching. Most of the small farming communities of the time supported one room schoolhouses. All the grades were taught simultaneously. It was expected that older children would study while the teacher focused on material for younger students. If necessary, older children might be permitted, if their grades were quite good, to help the teacher instruct the younger children. In all cases, repetition helped everyone, whatever grade they might be in.

Discipline was expected at all times, and respect of the teacher was paramount. It was understood that the teacher’s job was to teach the reading, writing, and math skills a farm child would need in order to conduct their business when an adult. It was understood that the child’s job was not to complain about homework, or about the teacher, but to learn the skills that would be required to function successfully as an adult.

Therefore discipline was harsh both at school, and at home. Get in trouble with the teacher, and not only would you be whipped at school, but when your parents found out you had failed to conduct yourself properly, you’d likely get whipped again at home. In large families, the older children were expected to help their younger siblings, not only scholastically, but in areas of conduct as well. A child’s job was to prepare to become an adult, educated and responsible. Failure to work towards that goal brought swift punishment.

School was conducted during the winter months so as to not interfere with children helping with farming chores. Even when the planting, growing, and harvesting seasons were over, farmers still had to take care of their livestock. Teachers of the day were not required to have a teaching degree, or even a formal education. They would pass a county examination, and be awarded a certificate to teach.

Eventually, as education became more important, and more prevalent, school went from 3 months of the year to 9 months. However the 3 summer months were still set aside for the crop season of planting, weeding, and harvesting. Often, girls received more schooling than boys simply because boys bore the brunt of farmwork. Girls were not expected to shovel manure, work a plow team, or do other heavy work and were therefore free to attend more school than boys.

In 1827, a split occurred among Quakers. Quakers divided into two groups: Orthodox and Hicksite Quakers. The Hicksite Quakers were the majority in Little Britain, and held on to the Meeting property.

The Orthodox Quakers who lived in the Little Britain area built their own brick meetinghouse close to the line of Fulton township in an area called Soapstone Hill. This was named Balance’s Meeting. (History of Lancaster County – Dr. Frederick Klein, 1926)

Since Alvin Brown and his family moved from Little Britain/Penn Hill Meeting to Eastland Meeting, it is likely his family was originally of Hicksite persuasion. Apparently it was not sufficiently important to the members of the Eastland Meeting that accepted them.

The first successful picture was produced in June or July 1827 by a Frenchman named Niépce, using an asphalt like material that hardened on exposure to light. His pictures required an exposure of eight hours. His first pictures were of buildings or still-lifes.

On 4 January 1829 Niépce agreed to partner with Louis Daguerre to continue to develop a photographic process. Unfortunately Niépce died four years later, but Daguerre continued to experiment. Soon he discovered a way of developing photographic plates, a process that greatly reduced the exposure time to about one half an hour. He also discovered the image made with this process could be made permanent by immersing it in salt.

In July 1839, following a report on this invention by Paul Delaroche , a leading scholar of the day, the French government bought the rights to it. Details of the process were made public the following month, on 19 August 1839, and Daguerre named it the Daguerreotype. The announcement that the Daguerreotype "requires no knowledge of drawing...." and that "anyone may succeed.... and perform as well as the author of the invention" was greeted with enormous interest, and "Daguerreomania" became a craze overnight. People with no artistic skills could create realistic images of anything that didn’t move.

However, not all people welcomed this new invention. Some people viewed it in quite sinister terms. A newspaper report in the Leipzig City Advertiser stated: "The wish to capture evanescent reflections is not only impossible... but the mere desire alone, the will to do so, is blasphemy. God created man in His own image, and no man-made machine may fix the image of God. Is it possible that God should have abandoned His eternal principles, and allowed a Frenchman... to give to the world an invention of the Devil?" ( A History of Photography, from its beginnings till the 1920s – by Dr. Robert Leggat MA M.Ed FRPS FRSA)

It is interesting to note that with the advent of the United States of America government, and its totally new concept of the separation of Church and State, that America is the source many new ideas and inventions. With religious sects no longer able to use their particular religious interpretations to prevent secular and scientific progress, Americans begin to outstrip most other countries for new inventions.

The first postal services in the colonies began in 1775. On February 2 1792, President George Washington signed an Act of Congress creating the U.S. Post Office. Until the invention of the automobile, and for quite a few years afterwards, mail was carried by horseback. While we are familiar with the idea of the Pony Express, few people realize that our ancestors received their mail once a week by horseback, or a one horse wagon. If they lived close to the Post Office, they might pick up their mail while in the area. With the invention of the telegraph, and later the telephone, communications speed improved (if one could afford the fees), but until a century ago, long distance communications was still quite slow. Before steamships, and later the transatlantic cables, intercontinental communications could take months.

Sailing vessels took 2 to 3 months to cross the Atlantic, so a business question from England to the colonies might not receive an answer for 6 or more months. In the colonies, a mail message from Philadelphia to the area of the Nottingham lots could easily take 2 weeks to a month to arrive.

City to city, town to town, mail was shipped by stagecoach, canal barge, steamboat, and eventually by railroad. Eventually the airline and trucking industry would take over the job. In 1831, when steam-driven engines "traveling at the unconscionable speed of 15 miles an hour" were denounced as a "device of Satan to lead immortal souls to hell," nevertheless railroads began to carry mail for short distances. By 1836, the Postal Service had awarded its first mail contract to the railroads.

As early as 1896, the Post Office Department experimented with the "horseless wagon" in its search for faster and cheaper carriage of the mails. In its Annual Report for 1899, the Department announced that it had tested the practicality of using the automobile to collect mail in Buffalo, New York. In 1901, the Post Office Department entered into its first contract to carry the mail by automobile.

Samuel F. B. Morse conceived of an electromagnetic telegraph in 1832. He constructed an experimental version in 1835, but did not construct a practical system (i.e., cost effective to build and operate) until 1844. At that time, he built a functioning telegraph line from Baltimore to Washington, D.C.

He applied for and was granted a patent, granted in 1849. In that patent he described a method for marking dots and dashes on paper, now known as Morse Code, which would be used until voice radio became practical. You probably know that Morse Code was used even in WWII by the military.

Within ten years after the first telegraph line opened, 23,000 miles of wire crisscrossed the country. The invention profoundly affected the development of the West, made railroad travel safer, and allowed businessmen to conduct their operations more profitably. (Courtesy of the National Museum of American History, from the U.S. Patent Office.)

A little farm humor: Two brothers inherit the family farm. Unfortunately, after just a few years, they are in financial trouble and are down to their last $600. In order to keep the bank from repossessing the farm, they decide to purchase a bull so that they can breed their own stock. Upon leaving, the elder brother tells his brother, "When I get there,if I decide to buy the bull, I'll contact you to come out after me and help me haul it home." The brother arrives at the seller's ranch, inspects the bull, and decides he wants to buy it. The man tells her that he will sell it for $599, no less. After paying brother goes to the nearest town to send his younger brother a telegram to tell him the news. He walks into the telegraph office, and says, "I want to send a telegram to my brother telling him that I've bought a bull for our ranch need him to hitch our wagon, and drive out here so we can haul it home." The telegraph operator explains that he'll be glad to help, then> > > adds, "It's just 99 cents a word." Well, after paying for the bull, the brother only has $1.00 left. He realizes that he'll only be able to send his brother one word. After thinking for a few minutes, he nods, and says, "I want you to send the word "comfortable." The telegraph operator shakes his head. "How is your brother ever going to know that you want him to hitch our wagon, and drive out here to haul that bull back to your ranch if you send the word,"comfortable?" The eldest brother explains, "My brother only has a 3^rd grade education. The word's big. He'll read it slow.

Thousands of books have already been written about the Civil War. Essentially the South attempted to secede from the Union over the issue of State’s Rights. However, the State right they wanted was to continue the practice of enslaving fellow human beings. It is important to this history of the Brown family, because as Quakers they were opposed to slavery, but also opposed to the war over it.

The cotton economy of the south depended entirely on slavery. Millions in profit were made by slave owners, who had few employee expenses. Nearly all the money made in cotton transactions was profit. Then there was the subsidiary slave businesses. Slave trading, hunting runaway slaves, field foremen to control the slaves, all provided ways of profiting from the slave business. The Triangle Trade of the West Indies described the way ship owners made their profits as well. Rum from New England was shipped to Africa to pay African Kings and slave hunters for slaves. Slaves were then shipped to the West Indies and in some cases on to America to trade for molasses. The molasses went to New England for more rum. Each leg of the transit was profitable.

In October of 1859, a firebrand anti-slavery Quaker named John Brown (we do not know if he was related to the Nottingham Brown’s) led an armed troop of men who attacked Harper’s Ferry in Virginia. Killing the mayor, and capturing several leading citizens, Brown forted up in a locomotive roundhouse when the Virginia militia arrived.

After fierce all day fighting a Colonel Robert E. Lee arrived with U.S. Marines, and the following morning Brown and four surviving men were captured. After a trial, John Brown was found guilty of treason against Virginia, and was hung. However, he had brought to the nation’s attention how volatile the issue of slavery was.

Both pro and anti slavery speakers proceeded to use Brown’s actions to prove their stance. Although the majority of Northern newspapers condemned Brown’s actions, southern extremists claimed he was typical of Northern sentiment. The 6 year old Republican Party, which had replaced the Whig Party as a political power now had a problem.

The Republican Party had originally gained power by being a party for the common man. But Southern Republicans made it clear that the 1860 presidential election would be about slavery. Abraham Lincoln wanted to compromise; there would be no slavery in the Territories, especially after they achieved statehood, but slavery in the existing states could continue. Southern Republicans were getting campaign contributions from the wealthy plantation owners who generated greater wealth via the unpaid slave labor. Eventually this shift from representing the common man to representing big business and big finance would swing the Republican Party to ideals opposite to their founding principles.

However the Democratic Party also had problems. Southern Democrats, lead by Jefferson Davis demanded a platform "plank" that would permit slavery in the Territories. Yancy of Alabama wanted a plank declaring "slavery is right". When the Democratic Convention ended with an anti-slavery platform, eight cotton states withdrew in protest. They held their own convention, with their own presidential nomination and the pro-slavery platform they wanted.

Jeff Davis had led the way. However, his maneuvers ended any chance of a pro-slavery Democrat being elected president. The Republican, Abe Lincoln would win. Not that there wasn’t plenty of debate in the States and the Territories about what should be done about slavery. Southern literature touted the "evils of a free society". This made white workers nervous; who would pay a white worker, if they could buy a slave and have free labor forever?

Laborers came to see slavery as another way to keep white workers from earning a fair wage. After all, the wealthy capitalists made it no secret that the only thing they loved better than no wage at all, was a minimum wage. Even in the North, factory owners kept their workers in the factories 10 to 12 hours a day, 6 days a week. Sunday was still for church, and was the "day of rest" as quoted in the Bible. The Robber Barons had made enormous wealth by paying minimum wages to the workers who produced that wealth for them.

So the stage was set for the Civil War. With 18 free States and 15 slave States. In the 1860 election, Lincoln carried every free state and 180 electoral votes for the Republican Party. Douglas, the Democrat carried only Missouri and 12 electoral votes.

John Breckinridge of Jeff Davis’ Southern Democratic Party carried every cotton state (plus 3 border States) for 72 electoral votes. John Bell of the National Constitutional Party carried 3 southern States and 39 electoral votes.

Those Southern States that were not cotton states held a large contingent of moderates who understood that slavery would eventually cease to exist. These voters failed to vote for Douglas. In addition Jeff Davis intensely disliked Douglas for failing to deliver Kansas as a slave state. He threw his support to Breckinridge.

Southern businessmen preached a dream of slavery from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They claimed slavery would end poverty throughout the world, all historical evidence (such as slavery in ancient Greece and Rome) to the contrary. Furthermore, several southern Christian church founders and leaders offered Bible quotations to "prove" that God approved of slavery. This, of course, ignored the entire discussion of Moses leading the Jews out of slavery, as well as ignoring several of the 10 commandments.

On December 20, 1860 the South Caroline legislature met at Charleston to declare their secession from the Union. Within 2 months the other Southern States had joined and together created the Confederate States of America. It was founded on two ideas, states rights and slavery. The most important state right would be slavery. Buchanan was still President of the Union.

Since many southerners disliked slavery, and believed it un-Christian, the founders of the Confederacy avoided, in all their secession statements, any mention of slavery. They only mentioned states rights. However any reading of official letters, personal letters, newspapers, and other literature of the day clearly demonstrate that slavery was the desired state right. (Oxford History of the American People; American Encyclopedia of American History; ).

The Southern politicians were so successful at selling the states right issue, that some Northerners fought for the South. Likewise many Southerners disliked slavery intensely, understanding it would hold down their wages, and fought for the North. There are many cases of family members fighting on opposite sides in combat. More men would die in Civil War battles than the combined loss of men for all the other wars in which this country has participated to 2003.

By the way, although General Sherman’s troops did plenty of damage to Atlanta during their "march to the sea", most historians agree that the burning of Atlanta occurred because the retreating Confederate soldiers blew up over 80 freight cars full of ammunition they wanted kept out of the Northern hands. These fiery explosions threw flaming debris hundreds of yards onto the roofs of hundreds of nearby homes, businesses, and warehouses. So many buildings were thus put on fire that there was no hope of extinguishing them. Not willing to believe that their own soldiers had done that much damage, it was easier to blame it all on the Northern soldiers. The immediate local literature of the day details what actually happened.

While Alexander Graham Bell was experimenting with electricity and telegraph instruments in the early 1870s, trying to figure out how to use it to give his deaf wife and all deaf people, hearing, he realized it might be possible to transmit the human voice over a wire by using electricity. By March 1876 he made a transmission, however the sound was extremely faint.

He improved his results over the next few months, including a critical test with this instrument on November 26,1876 when he transmitted sound clearly between Cambridge and Salem, Massachusetts. The device he had created functioned as both a transmitter and a receiver. (Courtesy of the National Museum of American History). The sound was somewhat tinney, and distant". By 1914 most businesses, and some well to do families had telephones, although most were party lines. This meant that many people were on one line, and if you wanted to use your phone, you might have to wait until someone got off. On the other hand, everyone could be "rung up" at one time if needed in time of emergency. Also the town gossips could listen in on the line during anyone’s conversation. Business transactions could be overheard as well. What better way to throw off your business competitors then to set up fake deals over the phone? After a while things that didn’t sound right were said to be "phoney".

Thomas Edison developed a practical light bulb toward the end of 1879. In 1880 he designed the first version to have all the essential features of a modern light bulb--an incandescent filament in a vacuum glass bulb with a screw base. Creating a successful filament was the most critical factor. For it to be practical, it had to glow when an electric current passed through it, possess high electrical resistance, and last a long time.

(Courtesy of the National Museum of American History)

On January 30 of 1883 - Edison signed the historic first contract to build the world's first 3-wire electrical system. Sited completely outside the Manhattan "loop," this dramatic improvement upon his earlier two-wire system. It was officially opened on Oct. 1, 1883 in the quaint little New England village of Brockton Massachusetts. Meanwhile, having invested time and money on it, he was still enlarging, aggressively advertising and selling, (and struggling to perfect) a city wide electrical service in New York City It was his intention to replace worldwide gas lighting with worldwide electrical lighting.

In December 1877, Thomas Edison demonstrated his new invention the phonograph for Scientific American. A year later he demonstrated it for President Rutherford B. Hayes in the White House. –It was predicted that it would be of use in business offices for dictating letters, in court houses for recording testimony, in schools for teaching students, and in the field of music.

In the process of experimenting with electricity, Thomas Edison ended up inventing other uses for electricity. the light bulb, phonograph, generator, electric motor, motion pictures, or the telephone - all of which were either invented by Thomas Edison, or improved upon by his research. However it was not until Nikolas Tesla discovered that alternating current could be sent great distances more efficiently than direct current, that electricity began to make its way from the cities to the farmlands.

The Civil War had been a catalyst for creative problem solving in the United States of America. Not only were there vast improvements in military capabilities, such as the repeating rifle and the gatling gun, but railroads had been used to move troops and supplies over vast distances more quickly than in any prior time. Steamboats were likewise used, and were successfully replacing the sailing vessels. Hot air balloons were used by artillary spotters to direct fire onto enemy lines, and the telegraph could move information over greater distances faster than the faster courier on a horse.

On September 24 1869, Jay Gould and James Fisk, Wall Street financiers created a Wall Street "crash" that ruined thousands of business men and investors, when they tried to corner the gold market. They tried to neutralize the federal government by trying to use the President Ulysses S. Grant’s brother-in-law as influence. Grant was neither fooled nor influenced, rebuking his brother-in-law, warning the Secretary of the Treasury, and then foiling Gould and Fisk's attempt by ordering the Treasury to sell gold.

Nevertheless, by 1873 there was a country-wide banking panic, with people withdrawing their money from the thousands of banks nationwide. From 1873 to 1879 there was an economic depression, and people had a hard time earning a living. The government tried to deal with this by creating the Bland-Allison Act, which authorized silver dollars and silver certificates. By 1879 American greenbacks were being redeemed in gold, because it took several greenback dollars to buy one gold dollar.

President Grant took the blame for the economy. He had made powerful enemies not only for blocking Gould and Fisk, but also for strongly enforcing the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. He returned Georgia to military rule until it ratified the Fifteenth Amendment, a requirement Georgian whites deeply resented. Fraudulent elections and race riots occurred, including the murder of hundreds of recently freed slaves. In Louisiana he sent in federal troops to suppress the murders. Habeus corpus was suspended in parts of the South. South Carolina was put under martial law in order to suppress the Ku Klux Klan. Grant was enforcing the anti-Ku Klux Klan Act of April 10, 1871.

The original Ku Klux Klan ceased to exist by 1872. It would not revive in political power until President Woodrow Wilson made his racist views known. Other violent racist groups continued to try to find ways around the law, however. . By 1874 the growing unpopularity, in the North, of Reconstruction cost Republicans the House of Representatives. The lame duck Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1875 in a last effort to protect Southern blacks, but the law was soon gutted by the Supreme Court.

Grant earned the anger of Southern whites and Southern historians who viewed Reconstruction as an oppression of the South. To this was added the hatred of Northern "reformers," in league with Southern Democrats. They wanted to replace government patronage with a system of civil service examinations. Given the low quality of the public school systems in most states, only the wealthy and upper middle class could afford to educate their young. Civil Service exams seemed aimed at placing educated persons in the political bureaucracy, under the belief they would be less prone to corruption.

Many of the charges of corruption leveled at the Grant Administration were simply complaints about a patronage system that had existed since Andrew Jackson’s presidency. By 1870 President Grant was calling for civil service reform, and established a civil service commission. Within 5 years, he had become disillusioned with the new system, as he saw how quickly politicians figured out how to get around its intent.

The Gold Standard was first officially adopted in 1873. However this set up the gold rush into the Dakotas, Sioux Territory, beginning the last of the "Indian Wars". The U.S. economy, still recovering from the Civil War, had to bear this one as well.

However, in 1882 another economic depression hit the country. It lasted well into 1885. By 1893 the nation was again in the throes of an economic depression which lasted until 1897. During this period 156 railroads went bankrupt, and unemployment was sitting at 18.4%. By 1900 the U.S. Government decided to handle these crises by enacting the Gold Standard Act, which reaffirmed the Gold Standard, meaning the government was backing its money with vaults of stored gold bars, effectively guaranteeing the value of paper money.

By 1905 unemployment was down to 1.7 %. But in 1907 there was another bank panic. However the U.S. solved this problem by expanding the money supply in circulation. With the advent of American participation in World War I from 1917 to 1918 Inflation again hit the country.

Remember that inflation exists where the aggregate level of prices goes up, and deflation exists where the aggregate level of prices goes down. The causes of both inflation and deflation can be several, so we won’t go into it here. Suffice it to say that David Chalkley Brown, Alvin Brown and his ancestors had to deal with the economy as given above. Deflation is bad for borrowers, because their debts become worth more money over time. Borrowers would rather have inflation, because that reduces the value of debts over time. Both affect farmers, who are commonly in debt and were a significant part of the population until after WWII.

The USA economy continued to bounce around after WWI, and in 1921there existed a 11.7% unemployment rate. This led to a recession in 1922, but by 1923 the unemployment had decreased to 2.4%. By 1924 it was going back up (5.0%), but never became significant until the Roaring Twenties was almost at an end. In 1929, unem-ployment was only 3.2% but due to the Stock Market crash of 1929, by 1930 had.again risen, to 8% and was the beginning of the Great Depression Deflation. By 1938 unemployment had risen to 19.0%, and it stayed in the "teens" until 1941, when it dropped to 9.9%. With the USA’s entrance into WWII in 1942, unemployment fell to 4.7%. (Money Mischief 1992, Milton Friedman)

And as America’s young men went off to war in Europe and Asia, women and blacks were accepted into the workforce to replace them. Unemployment dropped, and incomes increased as American factories built weapons, munitions, and other military items for Uncle Sam. Farmers were selling their food stores to the government, which needed to feed its military branches. Was it Napoleon that said an Army travels on its stomach?

The majority of the population was farmers, before, during, and after the civil war. The national economy was based on this. Most banks were local, rather than national and the people in the small towns pretty much knew one another. The earning and buying power of the American dollar was different from today, as shown by the charts below:

YEAR	JOB OR POSITION	SALARY
1862	Clerk in a general store	$5.00/mo. & board
1865	General store Manager	$100.00/mo.
1900	Factory Worker	$0.22/hour
1923	Farm Worker	$1.00/day & dinner
1926	Farm Worker	$15.00/wk & room & board
1942	Machine Operator	$0.19/hr.
1961	Factory Worker, unskilled	$45/wk
1964	Factory Worker, Quality Control	$120/wk

It is difficult to break the above chart into hourly wages prior to 1900 because workers were expected to work a 12 hour day, 6 days per week in many cases. Because of the Sunday Blue Laws, most people other than farmers were expected to take Sunday off to go to church. By the 1950’s most states were repealing the Blue Laws, so that stores could be open to Sunday shoppers.

In making the above chart, it was necessary to search through both catalogs for the same items. It became apparent that Sears was trying to sell to middle and upper class city and town people. Montgomery Ward was target marketing to rural and farm people. For example Sears, rather than selling baseball gloves, sold boxing gloves. Sears clothing line was at least twice the selection offered by Montgomery Ward. Moreover while Sears offered little in the way of farm tools, they had a large line of carpenters tools, watchmakers tools, veterinarian tools, and the tools of other professionals.

Notice that their prices are mostly competitive, although in some cases either the quality or the name of the manufacturer, affect the price. For example, guns, rifles and shotguns demonstrate how Colt and Ithaca were selling only to Montgomery Ward, but Smith and Wesson sold to both.

If the prices seem low based on the wages people earned in the 1990’s, consider that the average worker was earning less than $500 per year. Review the wages chart above, to realize that the discrepancy between what the average worker received and what managers and owners received was quite large. It was generally thought that "robber barons" were good for America, and laborers should be glad they had any job at all. Businessmen had the connections to start businesses, and if they became incredibly wealthy while the workers who slaved for them barely earned a living, that was OK.

Safety of workers was generally not considered important, since there were always immigrants coming into the country looking for work. Replacing miners killed in cave-in’s was not a problem. Replacing workers crippled or killed in factory accidents was not a problem. Tens of thousands of immigrants were coming into this country to populate the vast stretches of land.

Alvin Brown (1847 –1916) married Anna Mary Griffith (1849 – 1917). His parents were Jacob Brown (1809 – 1861) and Catherine Moore (1816 –1872). Anna Mary’s parents were William Miller Griffith (1823 – 1867) and Susan Hutton Pugh (1824 – 1913).

According to maps of Little Britain Township found at the Southern Lancaster County Historical Society, Alvin Brown’s farm was previously owned by Jacob Brown. A map dated 1875 shows the farm as owned by Alvin Brown. Another map dated 1899 still shows Alvin Brown’s name on the farm.

However, a patent map of the area, dated 1714 to 1800, shows that the same farm was previously owned by John Hunter. "War. Apr 11, 1740. Sur. 8-8 br. 1751. Pat. June 7 1810 to Jacob Brown". "War" meant warrant, that is, the previous owner, Hunter, was holding the mortgage on the farm. "Sur" meant it was surveyed for the property lines. "Pat" meant the mortgage had been paid off, and ownership of the land had been legally transferred to Jacob Brown

The 1862 map of the Township shows the land as the "Estate of Jacob Brown". Jacob had died in 1861. But the 1875 map, previously mentioned, shows land on the opposite side of Kirk’s Mill Road, as belonging to "Missrs Brown". This seems to mean that while Alvin Brown inherited his father’s farm, a home may have been provided for Jacob’s daughters, perhaps unmarried? By 1899, that land is owned by other people.

The 1862 map shows Anna Mary Griffith’s father William Griffith owning a farm just north of, and perhaps adjacent to, the Eastland Quaker Meeting property. However the 1875 map indicates the same property (91 acres) is owned by "Wid Wm Griffith" meaning the widow of Wm. Griffith. He having died in 1867. By 1899 the same farm is no longer in family hands, so his wife Susan Pugh Griffith must have sold it.

Susan Hutton Pugh was a sister to Evan Pugh, the founder and president of the Pennsylvania Agricultural College, now known as the Pennsylvania State University, in February of 1860. It was intended to serve the farmers of southeastern PA. No doubt she told Anna Mary, her daughter, of Evan’s belief in education. Anna Mary, in turn shared that with her children and grandchildren.

By the way, the 1899 map also shows at least 3 properties for J. F. McLaughlin. If this is the McLaughlin’s who raised Emma Norris, later to be David Chalkley Brown’s wife, the family must have been "well-to-do".

In the summer of 1900 only 8% of homes had a telephone. Only 14% had a bathtub. The majority of the U.S. citizens used large wash tubs for that purpose. All farmhouses and most town houses still used an outhouse; and in the winter, a chamber-pot, when it was too cold to walk outside at night. Better than 95% of all births took place at home, but the mortality rate for newborn babies was high. Antibiotics were still unknown by most physicians, and the leading causes of death were tuberculosis, pneumonia, and in particular influenza epidemics. (During WWI, America lost more soldiers in Europe from the flu than from battle). People lived an average of 47 years. The average worker earned less than $500 per year. Only 6 % of the US population had a high school degree. A U.S. postage stamp was 2 cents.

According to the 1910 census, the Lancaster County total wealth was $ 20,767, 116, ranking 1^st of the 12 leading agricultural communities in the U.S.A. This compared to $15 Million in 1900 and $12 Million in 1890. The farmers used a systematic rotation of crops, producing $2 M of hay, $3 M of wheat, and $2.5 M of corn as well as many other crops.

It also counted number 1 in live stock products, reporting that year $4,037,286 as the "greatest stock fattening market in the East. A typical farmer might be worth $50,000 to $75,000, yet could be found selling his produce in Farmers Markets or on those streets in the nearest town where all the farmers would line their vehicles to the curb and sell their produce, on a Market Street or close to it. You might find their wife or children selling butter, chickens, ducks or geese raised on the farm.

Land sold for an average of $200.00 an acre, and in 1910 there were at least 8,411 farms in the county. The farmers rotated crops, tilled across slopes rather than down slope, and used techniques now considered to be "natural" farming.

Most people lived on farms. There, outhouses were used for toilets, and corn husks for toilet paper. In the cities, some sewer systems existed, but these generally ran to the nearest river, where the untreated sewage was dumped directly into the river.

Frequently these same rivers were being used for a drinking water supply downriver. It was thought that there was so much water that pollution wouldn’t be a problem. However by the early 1900’s typhoid fever, caused by drinking unfit water, was infecting and killing people by the hundreds. On October 18, 1902 the small city of Allentown, near Bethlehem PA, reported 344 people infected with typhoid.

Various epidemics of typhoid, flu, and other diseases swept through Europe and the Americas each year. Medical doctors were only just beginning to apply a knowledge of science to their art, and were woefully unable to cure most people. If someone survived, it was often pure luck. Most families had "family remedies", generally not much better than the doctors’ remedies. In southern Delaware, for example, sheep manure tea was a commonly used cure for many maladies.

Some families simply couldn’t afford a doctor’s fees. Others were too far away from any doctors. Still others had seen family members "bled" to death and didn’t trust doctors. So family cures probably weren’t any better or worse than doctors’ cures of the time. Also traveling Medicine Shows often passed through, offering entertainment and "medicinals" for a fee. These medicinals generally contained alcohol and/or cocaine or heroin in dosages strong enough to at least reduce pain, if not knock the patient out. Sometimes the resulting rest would allow the patient’s immune system to do its job; sometimes it killed the patient. Medical treatment was a "roll of the dice". With luck you survived.

As noted earlier, before and after WWI the American economy was largely a series of recessions and depressions. American soldiers coming back from Europe struggled to find work, and since most had been farmers, they largely went back to that occupation. Women’s work was defined as nursing, teaching, and working in clothing factories. They had the small hands and the hand/eye coordination necessary to do "needlework". Women who ventured into other fields were frowned upon.

Both women and children worked long hours in factories. The American textile mills commonly used children as young as 6 years old to work in their factories. At the beginning of the 20th century, Rhode Island industries, particularly the textile factories, relied on child labor to a greater degree than other states of the industrial northern United States. (The Rhode Island Century 1900-1910 Shameful history of child labor - Rhode Island Historical Society).

However the wealthy factory owners throughout the north commonly employed children to create lives of luxury for the rich. Since this helped make those states as wealthy as the Southern plantation states, politicians had no problem looking "the other way". Although slavery had legally ended in the south, wealthy plantation owners had found ways to continue with cheap labor. The northern factory owners seized the same policies and methods to maximize their profits as well.

Since farmers with large families to feed frequently had their children doing farm work at an early age, society simply accepted the vast difference in wealth between the rich and the poor. If you weren’t rich, you either worked or died of starvation. The concept of sharing some reasonable amount of those profits with the workers simply didn’t exist.

By the 1930s, the government enacted New Deal programs, including the Social Security Program, among many. The intention was to put money into a government managed account so that when people reached retirement age, they would have some income. Since the majority of workers were receiving minimum wage, it was recognized that they were least likely to be able to save for their retirement. Income had to be spent on food, clothing, shelter, medical care, etc. and if any was left over, that might go for luxuries like the children’s education, and perhaps retirement.

The retirement age was set at 62 years because most people died before then, and would not collect the money. However, by the 1930s medical science was improving, and in the year 2000 far more people lived past age 62, and were collecting social security. When Richard Nixon was President, he found that there was a great deal of money in the Social Security "bucket". He supported reducing taxes, by passing a law permitting the government to use Social Security monies for other projects. Once the first law was passed, it became easy for politicians to repeat the process.

The money, in theory, had to be returned, but of course never was. Eventually, this political maneuver would lead to problems with the funds remaining for peoples’ retirements. You will find it an interesting exercise to ask your Senator or Representative for all the other federal projects funded by your Social Security monies.

The latest political idea is to give voters the option of investing some portion of their Social Security money in stocks and bonds. Since Wall Street investment firms earn a fee for each investment transaction, this is widely approved by big business. It means, however, that some portion of each monthly social security deduction will not go into the fund. It also means that any invested money will be at risk to the rise and fall of the markets. In 2002, with the investigations into the ways that Enron, the energy corporation, and many other corporations have for at least a decade been "cooking the books", it will be interesting to see if any better monitoring procedures are put in place to protect social security investments. Clearly accounting procedures of the recent past are highly questionable.

Between the mid-1800’s and 1920 a series of epidemics had swept across Europe and across America. Parts of or entire families were wiped out. Parts of or entire towns were wiped out. Many Europeans immigrated to America because no one was left "back home". Flu, chicken pox, and cholera were almost among the annual killer epidemics. Medical science was still arguing about the idea of diseases caused by bacteria and virus. People in the larger towns and cities built along rivers commonly got their drinking water from that river. It was also common to dump sewage into that same river. So cholera took many lives.

In the eastern cities of the U.S.A. orphan trains and marriage trains were quite common. Orphan trains involved government agencies taking surviving children and sending them westward to any farm families willing to take them in. Even if one parent survived, if the authorities judged that person would be unable to "properly" care for the children, the children could be legally declared orphans and sent away.

Marriage trains were sponsored by farmers who had lost their wives to illness. They’d advertise in Eastern Newspapers for a wife. Young women who had lost their family, but were of marrying age could respond, and arrange to meet and perhaps marry a proper farmer. He’d pay all costs, of course, because she had no family to provide a dowry.

Among the killers were the flu, cholera, tuberculosis, and a host of other contagious viral illnesses. Some, like flu and cholera, killed quickly. Cures had not yet been discovered, and people often died in a week or two.

About the time of the early 1900’s a Doctor wrote a child rearing book that became as accepted in society as Doctor Benjamin Spock became in the mid-1900’s. His concept was that life was very difficult (which as seen earlier, was true), and that children should be raised to be "tough". Being kind to children, and expressing affection was discouraged. Hitting them would harden them to the life they must later live.

Parents were encouraged to raise their children in as cold an emotional environment as possible, so that they could survive losing their entire family if that happened. If the child ended up working 12 to 16 hours a day, 6 days a week, they’d be tough enough to survive. (I’ve lost this particular reference, so if my readers should happen to find it, please contact me with the specifics of that Doctor’s name, so the reference can be added here)

Because recessions and depressions had been a way of life since 1869, this all made sense to the people of the day. However, as that belief and way of raising children passed down to each successive generation, the original doctor was forgotten. Parents simply knew they should raise their children to be tough in a hard world. Men and women were expected to "do what had to be done" without complaint, whether working in a textile factory or a coal mine 12 hours a day. Children of the poor were expected to find work as soon as possible to contribute to feeding the family.

The coming of the concept of Unions would eventually bring about the 8 hour work day, and decent wages. It would also remove children from the workplace and put them in schools where they would have an opportunity to try to "better" themselves. Those who worked at their education might move upward a class or two, if they had the intelligence, diligence, and perhaps a little luck as well.

People who rail against unions generally are not aware of the history of American economy in decades past. ‘They are usually people who have not worked in a factory environment for any length of time. The highly educated have their own unions.

However, they usually aren’t called that. Nevertheless organizations such as the AMA, the Bar Association, Banking Associations etc. serve as an economic and therefore political organizations designed to provide maximum benefits to its members. I’m sure you can think of other similar groups.

I find it quite interesting that upper class people who belong to such "clubs", "associations", and "organizations", etc, are perfectly willing to take advantage of all the benefits of their membership, but will call workers unions such names as "socialists" or "communists", when poor people organize in the same way to benefit their families. The only real difference is that most small unions have very little power, compared to the economic, and therefore political, clout of organizations like the AMA or the American Bar Association. There are many other such you can easily think of.

There are only a very few national labor organizations with power potentially close to this. They are universally hated by conservative politicians and their followers. Nevertheless, without unions most of those of us who were not born into rich families would still be working alongside our 8 year old children, in "sweatshops" and unsafe conditions. To deny this is to be ignorant of the history on the subject of labor.

Canal boat transportation had largely been supplanted by railroads. Some canals were still used to move ships and boats from one waterway to another. Railroad speeds had increased each year, as had their pulling power. By 1901 steam engines on level tracks were pulling as much as 400 tons at an astounding 75 mph. Engineering improvements would continue to the end of the century with high speed trains hitting 150 mph and more. (20^th Century Steam – Wordsworth Editions)

However, the gasoline engine had been invented, and one of many applications for it was the horseless carriage. Rapid design improvements led to the automobile, and later to replacing the steam engine on the farm tractor. Although steam power was experimented with in automobiles (Stanley Steamer), the problem of heating the steam engine, and replacing the water made for inconveniences that gasoline engines didn’t have.

The first automobiles were had built, and therefore labor intensive and expensive. Once Henry Ford figured out assembly line production methodology, cars and trucks could be built cheaply. Other manufacturers quickly adopted assembly line production as well. Not only could cars be built cheaper, but so could most other factory made items.

WWI had driven improvements on the Wright Brothers airplane technology. Not only fighter planes but bomber planes had come out of that war. And big plane technology inevitably led to big commercial planes that could carry passengers or freight for a price.

However only the rich were traveling by plane in the 1940’s. The average person was using the train. My father, who was in the Army during WWII, and my mother traveled long distances by train, to California, Oklahoma, Arkansas, and back to Delaware and Pennsylvania.

After WWII, many servicemen came home used to using Army trucks and jeeps to travel. Most of them bought a car when they left the service. Most stores and markets were still located in the cities, and buses were still popular for commuting from the suburbs to the towns and cities to go shopping. Suburban shopping malls for the most part did not yet exist in the 1950’s. Cars were used to go where buses and trains didn’t go, to beaches, fishing spots, back to visit family at the farms.

The convenience of not being restricted to bus or train schedules, or not being restricted to train or bus routes, combined with the convenience of putting groceries and other purchases in a car trunk rather than carrying them by hand on the bus and the walk home was quickly appreciated. Cars meant a new kind of freedom on many levels, and by the mid 1950’s most families owned at least one car.

Trains began to lose passengers, and focused on hauling freight. At either the pickup or drop off point, trucks were involved in the local hauling. Commercial airplanes, by the 1950’s could however haul fresh fruits and vegetables cross country to market at least 3 or 4 times faster than freight trains. However airliners couldn’t carry nearly the weight carried by freight trains.

By the 1950’s the new enemy was the Iron Curtain and the Communist countries. The Cold War ensued. This was less a physical war than a war of psychology and economy. President Eisenhower convinced Congress and the public that the U.S.A needed Federal Highways running north and south, and east and west. The idea was that our military ground forces could quickly move to any invasion point on U.S. soil via these highways.

The public quickly found these highways, paid by their tax dollars, to be quite convenient. Lower class and middle class people could now move greater distances in far shorter times than their ancestors had. People could travel and "see the country" they had fought for in WWII.

The economy was taking off, and cars were cheap. A used car that ran could be had for $50 or $100. A new car cost around $2000. Gas went for between 15 and 19 cents per gallon. Most Americans could find work, as American factories tried to supply goods to the devastated European and Asian markets.

Upon America’s entry into World War II U.S. military was required in Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. As a result the majority of men who met health and age requirements were called to service in the Army, the Army Air Corps, the Navy, the Marines, or the Coast Guard. But U.S. factories also required a work force to gear up to the war effort production requirements. This was met by putting women in factories, and the concept of "Rosie the Riveter" was born and sold to the public in ad campaigns geared to make it acceptable for women to do "men’s work". Not only was it acceptable in wartime conditions, it was a patriotic duty.

When the war ended, however, women were supposed to go back to their homes, and the men coming back from the various war fronts were expected to find jobs. The government realized these men needed new skills. After all the demand for trained warriors in the peacetime was not high. So the GI Bill was enacted to give men enough money to get 4 years of training. They could take up a trade, or go to college.

What many people did not realize was that the manufacturing infrastructure of both Europe and Asia had been demolished. This had not happened during the trench warfare of World War I. But after World War II, it would take a couple of decades for European and Asian manufacturing to rebuild. This meant that American business could not produce goods fast enough to keep up with world-wide demand for product.

Suddenly, Engineering degrees were in demand to design product. Factories began paying better wages to keep workers producing goods both for American and for foreign consumption. By the late 1950’s, the average American worker was enjoying a better life than any American, but the wealthiest, had before.

And American engineering was creating wondrous new inventions, and improved products for consumption. The demand for scientific advances to fuel new products was at a high level. Computers, developed by the military originally to quickly calculate cannon shell trajectories, were applied to business needs. This provided for vastly more efficient ways of conducting and tracking business processes and profits. It also allowed scientists and engineers to perform their kinds of mathematical calculations in a fraction of the time previously needed. All these things brought new and improved products to the market in markedly faster timeframes.

The 1914 Farmer’s Directory for Lancaster County (Published by Wilmer Atkinson Company, Philadelphia PA) lists among its residents:

1. Alvin Brown (Anna M.) farmer O 158a B tel R2 Nottingham LBri 167 (Father of David, Kirk, and Hugh)
2. Ada S. Brown school teacher bds Ephrata (Sister of Alvin)
3. David C. Brown (Emma) 3 ch farmer WOS 158a R2 Nottingham LBri 167
4. E. Kirk Brown farmer B tel R2 Nottingham (Evan Kirk Brown)
5. H.M. Brown farmer R2 Nottingham (Hugh Moore Brown)

As among the several dozen Browns in the area.

Born in 1845, he died in 1916., aged 71. He was married to Anna Mary Griffith, born 1849, died 1917 aged 68. Said to be a very good fisherman, he taught his sons to fish as well. He was a farmer. In those days, every farmer supplemented his family’s diet with some hunting and fishing. His wife was an excellent cook, it is said.

Records of Little Britain Monthly Meeting (now called Penn Hill Meeting), part of Baltimore Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends, aka Quakers. The Microfiche was found in Friends Library, in Swarthmore College, and has the code: MdHR M 2608. Membership Book, 1797-1977. Indicates Anna Mary (his wife), Hugh M. , Evan K, and Mary S. Brown were all "Released 8 mo., 18, 1900" which means they no longer belonged to that Quaker Meeting. No reason is given. However William J., Ada P., and David C. were later buried in Eastland Cemetary. In 1900 Alvin would have been 55 years old. His son Evan Kirk was 25, Hugh M. 27, and Alvin’s daughter Mary S. was 22 years old. Since the 1914 Lancaster County Farmer’s Directory lists Alvin and his family as living in Nottingham, it seems likely they had all moved from the Little Britain Meeting to the Eastland Meeting around 1900.

The farm Alvin Brown gave to his son David Chalkley Brown (December 29, 1887 to October 4, 1958) is located in Lancaster County PA, just north of where the Octoraro Creek creates the border to Chester County PA. Perhaps ¼ mile past the Creek, Rte 272 bears right, and Kirks Mills Rd connects from the left. Turning onto Kirks Mills Road, one travels a short distance to a dirt road heading downhill on the left. Ahead and to the right is a house. The traveler turns onto the dirt road and follows it down and to the right to an old farmhouse with 2 barns, and a springhouse. The spring runs parallel to the front of the farmhouse, through the springhouse and down past the front of the barn that sets north and east of the farmhouse.

Following west on Kirks Mills Road, one will cross over King Pen Road, Browns Road, Brabson Road, and Sleepy Hollow Road. At the intersection of Kirks Mills Road and Friends Road, will be found Eastland Friends Meeting and cemetery. It is here that David C. and Emma Brown, and David’s parents Alvin and Anna Mary Brown are buried. Following Friends Road to the right takes the visitor to Little Britain Road, and turning right (North) takes one back to Rte. 272. On the left is the brick one room schoolhouse where David and Emma’s children went to school. It is on this road that William E. Brown was hit by a truck, which eventually cost him his leg.

Alvin mortgaged his farm so he could help his son Hugh buy an automobile mechanic’s garage, and his son Kirk (Evan Kirk Brown) buy a farm. The total mortgage is said to have been $3000.00, in those days a considerable sum of money (see Lancaster County section). Alvin Brown was also known as "Whiskey Al" and "Creek Al" due to his habit of "goin’ down to the creek" with a bottle of whiskey and his fishing gear.

His grandson Robert remembers Alvin as being tall and skinny, with a mustache and goatee. He chewed tobacco, and liked his booze, which was not well accepted by his fellow Quakers. His wife, Anna Mary Griffith Brown was "big, broad, and heavy", and ruled her home with an "iron fist".

According to Gene and Bob Brown, their Aunt Ada kept house for a cattle dealer named Ed Blackburn, who was financially well off. Her 1^st husband had left her. Anita Jackson, their daughter seems not to have been adopted by Blackburn. It is unclear what Ada and Ed’s relationship was. Whatever the truth was, Ada lived with Blackburn the rest of his life.

She is listed in the 1914 Farmer’s Directory for Lancaster County as being a schoolteacher.

Born in 1873, Hugh Moore Brown ran a mechanic’s garage in Genersville PA, on old Route 1, between 796 and 841 (West Grove, Oxford, Avondale areas). It was one of the first automobile garages in the area. His nephews visited him often, and at least one – my father, Stanley Alvin Brown – became fascinated with the mechanics of things. Throughout his life my father enjoyed and was very good at taking anything apart and fixing it. This was of great benefit in his occupation as an electric motor repairman, as well as repairing things around his home.

Evan Kirk (Uncle Kirk) was known to be a very good farmer. He married "a Townsend girl" who had inherited a farm. Kirk was nearly six feet tall, and "raw boned", i.e., a big man, said to be exceptionally strong. His nephew Bob remembered him as being very big in the chest and arms. He usually worked about 16 hours a day, until he came down with cancer, which he is said to have fought for about 6 years. The cancer was why he brought his brother David Chalkley Brown to work the farm.

Prior to getting ill, Kirk as said to be the only farmer in that part of the country who was making money. Kirk tried to help his brother David Chalkley by moving David and Emma onto his farm and farming "halves" with David. After Kirk died, Chalk moved his family to Fulton and farmed halves at Eller’s farm.

Kirk and his wife lost a young son. The story goes that the boy had the run of the farm during the day, and was too young to know about green apples. He was in the apple orchard, got hungry, and ate so many green apples that it made him sick. He died from it.

His mother and father adopted an orphan girl, and raised her. When Chalk and Emma and their kids moved in to the other half of the farmhouse, Kirk’s wife wouldn’t let the kids eat the apples. Emma thought her sister-in-law was being mean, and never forgave her for not letting the kids eat the apples.

Kirk died of prostate cancer. Jake and Gene stayed up with him nights until he died. His other nephews visited him on weekends when he became bed ridden. In those days the level of medical care was minimal, and the man suffered in great pain for many months before his death.

Kirk willed $750.00 to each of his nephews and nieces when he died, and the farm to his daughter and wife. That was a large sum of money in those days.

Mary married Thomas Cooney on December 19, 1900. She and her husband had 3 children, Doris Cooney, Alvin Brown Cooney, and Marion Cooney. Note that Mary named her son in honor of her father. Doris, who married Edwin Carter Cauffman, lived in Wilmington Delaware on North Broom Street in a beautiful neighborhood. I remember my parents visiting her. When I became interested in the family tree, it was Doris who loaned me her books on the subject, which I read and returned. She was very encouraging, and provided a great deal of information she had already gathered on the Brown family.

Mary may have been a nurse.

Our David seems to have been named after his father’s (Alvin) brother: David Chalkley Brown, who was born in 1847 and died in 1904 at the age of 57 years. The son of Alvin was born in 1887 and would have been about 17 years of age when his Uncle David died.

The subject of whom we speak was the last of his parents’ children. As such his cousins told me he was quite spoiled. Both Doris Cooney Cauffman and Anita Jackson repeated a story their parents told them as follows. His father bought him a .22 caliber rifle and encouraged him to sit on his front porch shooting birds out of the trees in front of the house. He was not yet a teenager. His older sisters however were required to clean up the dead birds. Years later, the sisters still resented it.

David Chalkley Brown had tight curly, jet black hair when he was young, and was said to be quite handsome. According to Ester Schuler, the sister of Joe Conrad, who married Chalk’s daughter Mary, Chalk whom she knew as a young girl was very handsome and always joking around. Ester said that Emma Norris Brown, his wife, was quite beautiful as a young lady. According to Ester "People in those days helped each other out and shared with each other. You were always busy, working the farm, hunting, or picking berries off berry bushes" to eat or make jellies and jams.

His daughter Ruth, in an interview in July 2003, remembered seeing a photograph of a football team. She believed her father had played football at Penn State Agricultural College, and recalled someone pointing to a player in the photo and stating that was her father as a young man. She told stories of her father being quite athletic.

Ruth spoke of a day that she, her brother Jim, and some neighboring kids had come home laughing and bragging about their adventures ice-skating in a nearby creek, behind the home at The Cedars. Chalk commented that when he was young, he had been a pretty good skater. At this time, he was about 57 years old, so his children laughed and teased him for telling such a wild story.

She remembers he came up with some ice-skates, took them back to the creek, and proceeded to show them how to perform figure-eights, circles, and other tricks. "He outskated all the kids in Cedars", doing "tricks" on his borrowed skates. "At 57 he was still very athletic", she said.

Chalk Brown played French Horn (according to his daughter Ruth; his son Robert thought it was a coronet) and organized a band which traveled the area playing at dances and various other local events. According to his son Bill Brown, Chalk had dreams of becoming a great band leader, but for various reasons never achieved more than local fame. His older children related stories of Chalk coming home from an all night dance, asleep in the back of his wagon, confident that his horse knew the way home.

On his farm, he grew corn, wheat, potatoes, tobacco, and about 3 acres of tomatoes. He raised chickens, hogs, milk cows and sold milk and eggs in addition to selling his crops. Chalk’s farm was at least 160 acres, with 40 acres of woods.

He had received the farm from his father Alvin. Alvin had owed $3000 on the farm and had never paid the debt, so his son David Chalkley Brown had taken over the farm with the idea that he would pay off the debt. Chalk’s brother Kirk Brown owned a farm nearby, and Alvin and his wife Anna moved into the tenants’ house on their son Kirk’s farm. It was about 10 acres. They lived there until they died.

David C. Brown must have taken over the farm before his father, Alvin, passed away in 1916. Born in 1887, Chalk would have been 29 years old when his father passed away. His son Norris (Nick) would have been aged 6, Gene aged 5, and Bob aged 3 when their grandfather died. Since David C. and Emma were married July 7, 1909, it seems possible Alvin gave him the farm between 1909 and 1916.

After about 10 years, Chalk had not paid off the debt either, and the farm was taken from him. His sons, Gene and Bob, said that Chalk wasn’t very ambitious as a farmer, much preferring to hunt and fish. Many of his children have said to this writer that Chalk would assign them the farm work, then go off hunting or fishing. So his farm was never a big financial success from year to year.

Considering the overall condition of the national economy, and Chalk’s preference for hunting and fishing, the odds were against his making a success of the farm. As stated earlier, his brother Evan Kirk Brown was one of the few successful farmers in the area, primarily because he was willing to work a 16 hour day. By the time he lost the farm, Chalk’s parents had both passed away.

The bank wanted its money, and took the farm and auctioned it off. A horse and cattle dealer named Everett Jackson bought the farm. He moved in and Aunt Ada and her daughter Nita (Anita) moved in with him. Nita married Everett and bore him 2 sons. Everett died in a car crash down south during a trip to buy horses.

According to his son Robert Brown, in 1921 David C. Brown moved his family to a tenant house on Bard Hollowman’s farm. Eugene would have been 10, and Bob 8 years of age. After 2 years, the family moved to East Blackburn’s farm for 1 or 2 years. Then they moved to another tenant farm for 4 years, before finally moving to the farm of Chalk’s brother Evan Kirk Brown.

Uncle Kirk lived in the "big" house and had electricity, and David and Emma and their children lived in the tenant house. Both Gene and Bob tell of being "farmed out" to other farmers, when between the age of 10 or 12 years. (See their stories for more). This would tend to confirm the idea that David and Emma ‘s farming was not a great success, even farming halves. Farming one’s children out to another farmer was a way of ensuring they were fed (room and board) and usually the parents were paid either a monthly or yearly amount of money for the work their children did.

When he was 38 years old, and Nick was 17 and Gene 15, David Chalkley Brown fell off the running board of a car, on the way to work with those two sons to a mill where they worked when not farming. He suffered a severe concussion, and was out of work so long, that his wife Emma had to start selling family furniture, some of which were family heirlooms, to pay the bills. One of Chalk’s sisters, Hannah (Aunt Han) was a nurse. She helped care for him. His son Bob Brown says that when Chalk finally recovered, after being laid up for 6 months, his personality was never the same. About a year after the accident, Bob came home to find his father rolling a quarter down the middle of the highway.

According to Bob, he had lost the farm years before. After moving from the farm he worked for other farms for half shares of the profits, until he obtained a job at the mill, which made kitchen cabinets.

Around 1940 or 1941, the family moved to Cedars, off Rte 41, just north of Kirkwood Highway and the County Prison. They moved in with Bob and Stella until they bought the house up the hill in front of Bob and Stella’s place. Bob and Stella lived near the creek and railroad tracks at the bottom of the hill next to the State Park. Jim and Ruth lived with Chalk and Emma, but Paul and young Dave stayed at Lee’s Bridge with their sister Liz Roten and her husband Bill. Jake was teaching at Fairmont in PA, near Quarryville.

Chalk got a job in Newark Delaware at the Vulcanized Fiber Mill as a "smooth saw" operator. He retired from there at age 71. He died of a heart attack in a Wilmington Hospital during radiation treatment for prostate cancer he had developed.

Arthur Norris was serving in the military, when his wife died, possibly during one of the flu or typhoid epidemics that raged across Europe and the Americas. His wife was said to be a red headed German Jew, but not much is known about her at the time of this writing. Of Emma’s children, Nick, Mary, and Liz were all red heads.

Emma and Florence Norris were the daughters of Arthur Norris and his wife. The wife died at the age of 25 or 26. One girl was 3 and the other 5, when the State stepped in and declared that their father could not care for them. Hence they were considered orphans, and sent to farms in Lancaster.

Florence was raised by an Irish Catholic family named Smith. Not knowing her real last name, she married Fred Bellar. When they had problems having children, it turned out that Bellar was related to her mother’s side of the family. (At this time, this writer has not discovered her mother’s maiden name, and cannot speculate on the exact nature of the relationship).

His grandson Robert Brown remembers visiting Arthur in the 1930’s, he believes at Jersey City NJ. He believes Arthur was Irish. At that time Arthur was a floor walker (security guard) for a famous large department store, possibly Gimbols in Jersey City, NJ.

Bob didn’t like his grandfather very much because the man tried to impress people, including is family, by "talking big". Arthur gave Emma a stickpin as a gift, and claimed it was diamond. It turned out to be paste. Another time the grandfather visited Bob at a garage where Bob was working on his car. Arthur belittled his grandson, saying "real military men don’t get their hands dirty. I got paid for thinking, not for labor". If he was trying to impress his grandson, it didn’t work. Bob resented him as a blowhard.

Arthur H. Norris may have served in the Army for 22 years, possibly in the Hospital Corps, although this is not yet confirmed information. His granddaughter Ruth believes he served in the Spanish American War, and may have been an officer.

Before he died, he shipped his daughter Emma a trunk, that he wanted her to have. He died in a nursing home located in Asbury Park, NJ. He and his second wife were there only a year or two.

Emma Mary Norris was born in North Philadelphia, but was raised by the McLaughlin family, in Lancaster County, as a Presbyterian. In her 60’s she became a Methodist. To do so, she had to be re-baptized, as she had no records from her Presbyterian Church. The McLaughlin family had a daughter named Cora, who inherited the family farm when the parents died. Cora had cattle on the farm at one time. Cora died in the mid-1950’s, and Emma received a small inheritance with which she bought her first electric stove and electric refrigerator. Prior to that, at her home in the Cedars, she used a wood stove and an icebox.

In those days once children were declared orphans by the State, relatives had no say in what happened next. In addition, relatives were permitted no contact, once the children were placed in their new homes. Emma went to Millersville College in PA (which has emphasized teaching for the past for 150 years). She attended for 6 weeks, and she boarded during that time, according to her son William. She received her teaching certificate, and taught in the Lancaster area.

Some family members believe that is how she met David C. She taught for 1 year before she married David C. Brown. A handsome young farmer with his own band, he must have been quite a "catch".

Arthur Norris only learned of his daughters’ whereabouts when Florence (Flo) married Fred Bellar. Fred lived in Philadelphia, and Arthur read of it in the Philly newspapers, and was able to contact her. The same is said to have happened when Emma married David

This writer remembers his parents driving their car to the Wilson Line Ferry in Wilmington, DE, driving their car onto the ferry, and taking the ferry boat to Philly to visit Dad’s Aunt Flo and Uncle Fred. They lived in a row home there. They were unable to have children.

After Emma and Flo were reunitied, Flo discovered that Emma was a jealous woman. So when she visited Emma and Chalk, she’s sit on his lap and flirt with him just to make her sister mad. Flo thought that was pretty funny.

The early 1900’s were a time of great change in the world. Life in 1900 was still largely without what people in the year 1950 would consider to be necessities, and the people in the year 1990 would consider as common. David Chalkey Brown, his wife Emma and their children would live in a time where change occurred more rapidly than in any century previously.

Low pressure steam engines, and later high pressure steam engines had recently been invented. They were used in boats and in train engines. Sailing vessels longer were dependent on wind. Trains could pull a load up steep hills, and across great distances without the rest breaks required by horses. Train stations could be greater distances apart than stagecoach stations. Steam engines also could be applied to factory machinery, and automation began to catch on. Railroad tracks didn’t need to follow rivers, and were rapidly replacing the canal boat industry.

Women of the 1700’s and earlier cooked in fireplaces so large you could stand in them. In the mid-1700’s Ben Franklin invented the wood stove and coal stove which within a few decades replaced this mode, because there was less chance of an ember leaping onto the female’s clothing and setting her on fire. Later the gas stove and the electric stove came into vogue, as they could be turned on and off, and didn’t require constant tending to keep a fire going, and more importantly only consumed fuel when you used them.

Prior to iceboxes, you preserved food by canning it, drying it, smoking it, or salting it. If your property had a cold spring near the house, you could keep your milk, butter and some other foodstuffs cool by placing them in sealed containers in the spring house. Salting meat involved pouring salt into the storage container, inserting the meat so it would be centered in the container, then covering it with more salt. The salt soaked into the meat and preserved it, but you had better like the taste of salt, because even soaking the meat prior to eating it wouldn’t get all the salt back out.

Iceboxes were wood and metal boxes into which you place blocks of ice in one compartment and your perishable food items in other compartments. The iceman delivered ice a couple of times a week because every time you opened the icebox to get anything, the ice melted a little faster. You didn’t hold the door open for minutes at a time; you got in and got out fast to save the ice. However, your meat didn’t all taste like either smoke or salt.

Still farm work was largely dependent on human and animal muscle power. Most people traveled by foot, by wagon, or by horse. As soon as a boy was tall enough to stand behind a plow, he learned to hitch the plow to draft horses or oxen, and helped work the farm.

Life for most people was hard physical labor, either on the farm or in a factory, for at least 10 hours a day, 6 days a week. Even on the Sabbath, farmers had to take care of the farm animals and livestock.

Wood and/or coal stoves heated most homes. Fresh water came from a well or a spring. Oil or gaslamps, and candles lit most homes at night. Electricity was just becoming available in the big cities, but the smaller towns used gas to light the public streets (remember the song "The Old Gas Lighter?).

You were born, and usually died at home. Only the big cities had hospitals, and not everyone in the cities could afford them. Farmers might have a country doctor who visited on call. But mostly if you got sick, you either got well on your own, or by some home grown country cure; or you died.

Farming was the largest industry in the USA. But most farmers also had other skills out of necessity. Most knew enough carpentry to build barns, and bridges over nearby streams. Some were smithies, or knew leather.

Outhouses and, at night chamber pots, provided sanitation disposal. Toilet paper had been invented in the mid 1800’s was not commonly available. Used newspapers and magazines went to the outhouse to serve that function. People who couldn’t afford newspapers or magazines used cornhusks. Chamber Pots were used after people went to bed, when they didn’t want to walk to the outhouse.

Cities and large towns had sewer systems, but in the early 1900’s these usually dumped into the nearest large waterway. Since most big cities had been founded as ports on Rivers or ocean fronts, river pollution became a serious problem. Only later in the century would sewage treatment facilities become standard. The result of so much sewage in the waterways serving the large cities, was that epidemics of typhoid were almost yearly events. Few people who contracted typhoid survived.

There was a small number of incredibly wealthy people (the Upper Class), a fairly small class of business people (the Middle Class), and the vast majority of people were incredibly poor (the Lower Class). It was believed that one had to accept pitiful pay or the very rich business owners would simply shut down their businesses, or move their business somewhere else. Politicians supported this, and any workers who tried to organize were either beaten, prosecuted on often trumped up charges, or if too persistent were simply murdered.

When public outrage at such murders brought them to a halt, the same workers were branded as socialists, or worse… communists. Working conditions in factories and mines reflected owner desires for maximum profit and minimum expense. This usually translated into a minimum of governmental safety requirements, and a great deal of injury and death. History is filled with anecdotes of factories catching fire and killing many or all the workers because doors were locked, so workers couldn’t leave.

History is full of mine disasters. If you want to learn about how bad life could be in the mines, take a tour of one in the Pennsylvania coal regions. Several closed mines now offer tours. Read a book, written by a professional historian rather than by a politician, about the Molly McGuire movement in the late 1800’s.

To fully understand the Labor Movement in America, one must educate oneself about the causes of such disasters. While the American Conservatives of today like to pretend that Unionism is some form of Socialism or Communism, this is not even remotely true. People who utter such nonsense demonstrate a complete lack of education about the issues.

A simple proof of this is the fact that the middle class and upper class had their own unions. However they did not call them unions. They called them "associations" or "clubs", or "organizations". Still, they served the same purpose as unions. They provided a way for those classes to mingle, discuss pay scales, establish business connections with others, and to promote the betterment of all those who belonged. Since the middle and upper class people generally could afford to educate their children, and induct them into the same "associations", the system was self perpetuating. What made it palatable to the lower class and middle class was that at any time, one had some hope that one might somehow move from a lower position to a higher position.

After all, America was the Land of Opportunity. If you were smart enough, worked hard enough, you might just get rich. If you found gold or silver in a mine that lasted, you could get rich. If you invented something and successfully marketed it you could move up.

If you got lucky, you could make the jump. This is how Richard W. Sears started Sears and Roebuck. Richard Sears was a Station Agent at North Redwood Minnesota in 1886, when a local jeweler refused a shipment of watches. The shipper offered them on consignment to Sears, who quickly sold them at a very good profit. The deal was so good that he ordered more for resale through other Station Agents. Within months he had made so much money that he quit the railroad to set up a full time mail order business. By 1887 he had moved to Chicago as a better central location for shipping facilities. The rest, as the saying goes, is history.

Such successes fueled the population movement from other countries to America. Where else did such opportunity exist? In other countries classes were not permitted to advance themselves so freely. The stories of "striking it rich" in America soon fueled a belief that America’s streets were "lined with gold". However, the reality was that most people were not going to become rich.

For the upper and middle classes this didn’t matter. From a business owner’s or business manager’s viewpoint, the poor made up the majority of the population. There were always more workers willing to risk their lives to feed their families, so why pay for safety? Why share the profits with the workers who earned them for you?

In 1961, in the first (non-union) factory where I worked out of high school, 2 men were blinded and I lost a fingertip. The blinded men lost their jobs, but received no compensation other than their immediate hopitalization being paid. I kept my job by going back to work the following Monday, taking my arm out of its sling so I could do my job which required heavy lifting. A piece of skin had been grafted to my fingertip from my biceps, and when the biceps’ stitches broke, I had to live with the open wound or lose my job. The next job I found was union, and I stayed union until I made management in Bell System. Even as a manager of 20 years, I believe in unions. They protect workers from the worst abuses by employers, but certainly not from all.

From 1900 to 2000 our grandparents and parents would see public water, public sewer; railroads across America; biplanes to monoplanes, to jets, to rockets, to spaceships, to men walking on the moon. They’d see telegraph, to telephone, to radio, to television, to cell phones. Medical science would go from witch doctoring and bloodletting to penicillin, from "saw bones" to microsurgery, from scalpels to laser surgery.

In the military, artillery would be supplemented by aerial bombing, then by air to ground and ground to ground rockets, then by pin point bombing. Guns and rifles would be supplemented with rapid fire weapons and machine guns. Steel battleships had replaced sailing vessels, but now submarines and aircraft carriers threatened them.

In business offices paperwork was done by hand for the most part. There were mechanical calculators, and typewriters, and some telephones. Mainframe computers would not exist until during WWII, when they were developed for the military. After the war the American economy began to grow so rapidly that businesses needed them to keep up. Desktop computers wouldn’t appear until the late 1970’s and then as a novelty. However within a few years IBM began making an office desktop computer, and the demand rapidly grew. With the advent of networked desktops, mainframe computers became relegated to collecting and managing huge volumes of data. Departmental work went to the desktops.

In general communications became personal and high speed. Bell System’s goal of a phone in every home was met. Only the very poorest people could not afford one. In the 1970’s computers communicated at 300 Baud. By 2001, the average family had at least one desktop computer in their home with 56,000 Baud modems.

The Norris name seems to come from his mother Emma’s side of the family. Her father was Arthur Norris. It was a common practice at the time to use the wife’s maiden name, if possible, as a first or middle name for one of the children. This was seen as a way of honoring the wife’s family.

Nick Brown, as he was called, had inherited the red-hair of his maternal grandmother. He was kicked in the head by a farm animal – a work horse. After he was hurt, his mother Emma, wouldn’t let her other kids around the horses and cows. But they’d wait until she was occupied and then go around the animals anyway.

Over a period of time his health deteriorated, and he passed away at age 22 or so. Doctors said that over time the injury to his brain had abscessed and killed him. He had very curly red hair. Emma’s mother had red hair. Nick, Mary and Liz all seem to have inherited their red hair from their maternal grandmother

There are a number of Jacob Browns in the family history. The name seems to have been popular for generations. Many names in the family have biblical connotations. It may reflect the religious beliefs of the time, which held that naming a child after a great biblical figure would encourage a moral behavior as the youths became familiar with their bible. Or it may have been to honor a beloved older family member.

During his teenage years, Jake was the catcher for a local baseball team on the Southern Chester County Baseball League, where his brothers Bob and Gene were pitchers. Jake took up the offer of David Chalkley Brown’s brothers and sisters to put him through college if he got his Teaching Degree.

He served in the Army in Africa and later in Italy during WWII. After the war he eventually took a job with Bell of Pennsylvania, a wholly owned subsidiary of AT&T. He made management, and eventually retired there.

During his college years, he brought some school chums home to his parents’ farm for one of the holidays, possibly Easter or Thanksgiving. The farmhouse was an old building with a cooking fireplace in the 1^st floor kitchen. The first floor also held the dining room and living room. On the 2^nd floor were the parents’ bedroom and 2 smaller bedrooms, and on the 3^rd floor a single large attic bedroom. There was an outhouse, and out buildings included the barn, the smokehouse and other out buildings. A small creek ran parallel to the road about 60 feet from the house.

His mother sent Jake out to the smokehouse to get a ham, and his guests seem to have teased him about it. He did not take the teasing in good humor. The gist of the teasing was about the farm boy going to a smoke house for a ham versus the rich city kids going to a butcher shop. Jake swore to his siblings that he would never return to the farm. From that day forward he never did. He had little to do with his brothers and sisters, although he hunted and fished with Gene and Bob from time to time. This writer remembers seeing Jake twice on social visits, and at a couple of family funerals. Jake made good his promise to forget his modest beginnings.

His brother Bob thought that "Uncle Lew" had put Jake through college. This would have been Alvin Brown’s Uncle Jacob Lewis Brown, after whom Jake may have have been named. It is also possible his name honors his paternal grandfather Jacob Brown, Alvin’s father.

Lewis had lived in Kansas and Bob Brown remembers meeting him once, as a child. Lewis had 2 daughters who came to visit Doris Cooney and Emma Brown in Wilmington, DE. Lew’s daughters are said to have settled in Florida.

After graduating from college, and after Jake and Vivian were married, they got an apartment. His sister Ruth remembers the apartment was small and had a Murphy bed. This was the kind of bed you may have seen in movie comedies of the time. The bed folded into a wall, to provide floor space in small one room apartments.

When he was about 8 years old, he went into his father’s bedroom looking for a handkerchief. He found some 22 caliber bullets, and stuffed a couple into his pocket. Later he and some friends decide to hit the bullets with rocks to see what would happen. A bullet went off and through one kid’s ear. When his father, David C., found out, he took a long snake whip, hunted Gene down (Gene had tried to hide in the woods), and whipped him with the snake whip until he ripped some skin off Gene’s back, and drew blood.

Gene worked on his father’s farm and at 9 years old was walking behind a horse drawn plow, harrowing the fields, and milking the cows. At age 11, in 1922, he was farmed out to Bard Hollowman. One day he argued with Hollowman about something, and told Bard, "You go to hell!" and he ran away towards Lancaster PA. He met up with another youngster who worked for Gene’s Uncle Kirk. In those days the "Aid Society" took kids of poor people, and orphans, and placed them on farms where they were expected to work for their room and board. This youth had been placed with Kirk Brown. A man from the Aid Society, named McMann caught both boys, and contacted Kirk, but Kirk didn’t want the boy, whom he considered troublesome.

Gene’s dad, David Chalkley Brown, came at 3 AM with a wagon and picked them up. The next morning Gene was made to go to school at Summer Hill School. During his teenage years, Gene was the pitcher for a local baseball team on the Southern Chester County Baseball League. He was a lefty.

At age 18 Gene joined the Marines, as a truck driver in a Transportation Unit. He was sent to the Panama Canal, where he came down with malaria. Eventually he was assigned to President Herbert Hoover’s summer camp in the Pocono Mountains of Pa., driving the President or his "parties" in a station wagon. This often required driving as fast as the cars of those days could go – 50 or 60 mph.

Part of the time he was also a dispatcher of other drivers. He also dispatched out of Quantico Virginia, for the President. Gene was also the personal chauffeur for Generals Lee and Smedley Butler. Gene spent 4 years in the Marines.

At some point after he got out of the Marines, he worked in the maintenance shop at Baldwin Locomotive at Eddystone, PA. He quit Baldwin to work at Lincoln Electric Co. in Cleveland, Ohio, so he could study welding.

After the Marines, in 1935 he joined the Army, which his brother Bob had joined the previous year. The Army sent him back to Panama. He boxed in the Army at 145 lbs as a welterweight. He had 2 fights on the way to Panama, winning the 1^st against a heavyweight boxer. In the 2^nd fight, on the ship going to Panama, he won the in 1^st round.

Once in Panama, he was made Squad Leader, even though still a PFC (Private First Class). He worked out in the gym each day, and the Army paid him for each scheduled fight - $25 to $30 for a win, $10 to $15 to the loser, depending on how many rounds he fought. One day his Captain told him he expected Gene to win the welterweight championship for the Unit. Gene didn’t want to fight like that. Growing up with a father who like to hunt, Gene fired expert on the pistol and rifle ranges. So he went to the Motor Transport Captain who knew of his firing range scores, and that Captain went to the Colonel, who transferred Gene to the Motor Transport Unit. And that’s how Gene got out of boxing. He was in the Army 3 years, and at some point served in France during WWII.

When he got out of the Army, he worked at "the fiber mill’ in Newark DE and later as a welder at another company. Eventually he and his brother Jake hitchhiked to California, looking for work. They found work in Oregon lumber camps as lumberjacks. Coming back from Oregon, Gene bought an old used car that had no heater. In those days, a car’s floor boards were of wood, and often were not well sealed, particularly in an older car. He drove home in the winter, from Oregon to Delaware. By the time he arrived, his feet were severely frost bitten. From then on, he always had foot circulation problems, according to his wife Helen.

Back in Delaware, Gene got a job with Contintental Fiber in Newark, DE where he ended up as a maintenance machinist, and welder. He was there about 9 years. After leaving Continental Fiber, Gene was welding at Sun Shipyards in Chester, PA. He was living in Upland PA, prior to WWII.

Gene & a young lady named Velma West co-habitated, but never married (her choice). They had a son named Donald, and Gene came home from work one day to find Ms. West, the baby and most of the contents of their apartment gone. She left the baby with her mother’s sister, Stella Fisher Brown and Bob Brown in Nottingham, after swearing them to secrecy and vanished. This was Gene’s brother Bob and sister-in-law Stella. Later Velma arranged for her other Aunt, Helen Fisher McCartle and her husband Skip McCartle, to take Donny and raise him. Gene and his wife Helen did try to adopt Don when they were first married, but the mother would not give up rights to the child.

Gene did not know Don's whereabouts until Don was 19. At that time, Don wanted to marry, but needed parental consent (since he was under 21). That was when he was told how to contact his father, since no one seemed to know where his mother was. He showed up one Sunday afternoon with his fiance, Louise; and Gene signed the consent forms & introduced Don to his other children as their half-brother.

Cathie Brown, who provided this information, was about 11 at the time. Don & Louise visited Gene and Helen often early in their marriage and they went to visit them on occasion. The relationship deteriorated over time, but Cathie believes Gene kept in contact with Don the longest. Around 1993 Don & Louise moved to Colorado, where they still live. Cathie ended up locating Don and his family. They live in Buena Vista, CO and are listed. Gene’s brother Bob may be the best source of additional information When Cathie talked to Louise in March of 2002 she was told Don's mother passed away about a year ago.

At the start of WWII Gene was drafted back into the Army. He had left his draft registration in Oregon, instead of transferring it to Chester, where Sun Shipping would have gotten him a welding deferment so he could continue building ships. He went into a Pipe Engineers Unit, the 787^th Engineering Company in the European Theater. D-day plus 6 he landed in Europe and his unit built pumping stations and 4 inch and 6 inch pipes to supply the Army with their fuel needs. They could fuel up a fuel tank in about 2 hours. He went from Cherbourg through Paris and into the Frankfurt area of Germany. He was also in Antwerp, Belgium.

Gene’s wife, Helen Teresa Bloschock, had been sent by the Federal Government from her home town in Pennsylvania to work at Triumph Explosives in Elkton MD, as part of the war effort. She worked in the Tracer Department, using a press to build tracer bullets. She poured powder into a shell, used a 300 lb. Press to press the bullet into the cartidge. Her bullets were made for the Navy. She at least twice had presses blow up on her. The first explosion bruised her so badly that her left arm was in a sling for a week. Still, she had to be at work the next day. She worked rotating shifts. The government required women to work 7 days a week throughout the war.

Helen had met Eva Yvonne Barna because they lived with the same landlady in Newark Delaware, Mrs. Loyd, whom they called Mom Loyd. They also worked in the same munitions factory, Triumph in Elkton. Helen was born in Shenandoah PA, and lived in Maple Hill PA, near there. Her father John Bloschock was a Stable Boss in the coalmines there. He took care of the mules that were used to pull coal cars underground. Although they had first met because of the government assignments, Helen’s father John knew Eva’s father Pete Barna from working in the coal mines in the Pennsylvania coal regions. In the 1990’s Helen told of an old family secret: her maternal grandfather had been a member of the Molly McGuires.

After the war, Gene went back to Sun Shipping, but was laid of within 3 months, so he got a job at Pullman’s in Wilmington, DE. In June of 1943 Gene had married his wife Helen, so they moved after the war to Shipside in Wilmington, Delaware. Shipside was an ex- army barracks converted into white projects for ex-military personnel. The apartments had 2 bedrooms, a bathroom, a large walk in storage closet, and a combination living room eat-in kitchen. Many shipyard workers also lived there. There was a fishpond towards the back railroad tracks, and berry bushes along the road to Maryland Avenue.

In 1946 Gene and Helen bought their house in Collins Park off New Castle Avenue, near the Delaware River. He could drop his boat in the Delaware, and fish whenever he was not working. He often hunted or fished with his brothers Jake and Bob. He also went fishing, crabbing, and clamming with his brother Stan.

When Bob was 10 years old or so, in 1923, was farmed out (plowing the fields), in the summer to a farmer named "East" Blackburn for whom Ada Wason was housekeeper. It was not uncommon for parents to "farm out" their children in those days. The child was fed and sheltered, and the parents received most of the earnings. Bob would drive the cattle from Kirk’s Bridge to Quarryville, or to Cochranville, and turn them into a meadow. During the day he’d protect them from wild dogs and such. In the evening, he’d drive them back.

At age 12 or 13, Bob was farmed out to "Cleave" Phillips, working horses, milking cows, and whatever else he was strong enough to do. He earned $15.00 a month in the summer, and $7.00 a month in the winter, when he spent half the day at school. He also received room and board. He remembers receiving money and buying his own clothes.

During harvest time a man could earn $1.00 a day plus dinner, but not supper. At age 14 Bob was working for Les Phillips, "batching it" on a farm for $20.00 per month in the summer and $10.00 a month in the winter when Bob was back at school part of the day. Batching it meant there were no women on Phillips’ farm, so the man and the boy had to cook and clean as well as farm.

His parents, David and Emma Brown, lived in Nottingham PA, so Bob went to his 1^st year of High School in Oxford PA by walking 1 mile to the train station so he could take the train to Oxford. Although his father David was a Quaker, his mother Emma raised the children as Presbyterians while living in Nottingham. Later when the family moved, she raised the younger children as Methodists.

At age 16 Bob worked for Horace Pennell. He went to high school for 2 months, and had a "falling-out" with Pennell, and quit one morning at 4:30 AM. He went back to Phillips farm and was rehired. That weekend his dad showed up and told Bob to go back to Pennell’s farm, or he’d "kick his butt back there". Bob refused, saying "Start kicking if you think you are man enough". Bob’s father turned and left.

From age 17 to 21, Bob worked for his father on Uncle Kirk’s farm. He earned $35.00 a month. During his teenage years, Bob was the pitcher for a local baseball team on the Southern Chester County Baseball League, along with his brother Gene. Bob was so good that he was invited to try out with the New York Yankees.

In 1934, one month shy of age 21, Bob joined the Army. His brother Gene tried to join also, but had infantago, and the Army rejected him until it was cured. Bob went to Staten Island, NY, then was placed in the Army Tank Corps. He trained in a 7 ton tank from WWI, probably not the M3 Lee or Stuart which had been developed in 1935. He remembers a 37 MM cannon or 30 cal. Machine gun on them, but he says usually not both on the same tank. He left the Army as a tank mechanic.

The Army Corps beat working on the farm by a mile. Farmboys found they could

stay in bed till nearly 6a.m., which to them was like sleeping late. No hogs to slop, cows to fetch nor milk, chickens to feed, eggs to candle, no manure to shovel onto the spreader. No wood to split, and haul, no horses to curry and feed. Before breakfast they had to make their bunk and shine their boots.

Men had to shave, and with warm water. Breakfast was strong on calories, with fruit juice, cereal, eggs, bacon, fried potatoes, and strong coffee. Lunch and supper were strong on chops, chicken, potatoes, ham, pies; and more exotic foods like steak, fried eggplant, and many foods you only saw in restaurants. Of course there wasn’t usually any catfish, possum, rabbit or squirrel, but the men were expected to adjust. The Army cooks had a saying, "You can have all you want, but you gotta eat what you take." Not like on the farm, where you had 13 kids grabbing the food before it got to you. In the Army you didn’t go hungry.

They went on "long" marches of 10 to 20 miles which were called "hard" marches. The Platoon Sergeant would tell them that long walks were to harden them. The country boys didn’t tell the Sarge that it was like the walk to school or to town. A short march might be about as far as to their mailbox at home. And the city guys would get sore feet and they’d all ride back in trucks.

Oddly enough, the Army would give you medals for shooting. The farmboys thought that was pretty strange, since the bulls-eye was almost as big as a squirrel, and didn’t even move. And it didn’t’ shoot back at you, the way feuding families did back home. All you had to do was lie there and hit it. Plus, you got to eat whether you hit it or not, which is why those city boys didn’t starve to death.

You didn't load your own cartridges; they not only came in boxes, but in something called clips. So you could load and shoot 8 bullets before you had to reload. And they paid you $20 bucks a month to live this really good life. In those days that was a lot of money.

After 3 years in the Army, Bob got out, went home to Nottingham PA, and got married to Stella Fisher. His uncle, Kirk Brown, was the Township Road Supervisor. Uncle Kirk got him a job as a driver of the new township dump truck.

Stella Fisher, later to be Bob’s wife, had been dating a fellow named Henry Greer. However her father hated Henry, and thought him to be "no good". So when Stella became pregnant, her dad wouldn’t let them marry. She was 16 when she had the baby. The baby was named John Henry Fisher.

So, Stella’s father raised John, and even after she married Bob, John wanted to
stay with his grandfather Fisher. Grandpop Fisher treated John like he was his son. According to family, John was quite spoiled as a child. By the time he was in his late teens he had had some run-in’s with the law. He would later meet and marry Ruth Brown, Bob’s sister. See Ruth Brown for details.

Bob lost his job driving the dump truck, when local politics changed. He took a job as a Test Cow Milker at Frewvale Farms at Kirkwood PA. This job meant testing how much milk by weight a cow could produce for one year. This lasted a year or two. He had to milk 15 cows 3 times a day by hand plus feeding them and cleaning up the area afterwards. The job was so demanding that Bob went down to 138 lbs., so he left to work in the fiber mill with his brother Eugene.

From the fiber mill, he went with Gene back to the Sun shipyards in Chester PA as welders around 1940 or so. Bob worked in the Pipe Shop and went to night school in Chester to study welding in Sun Ship’s own welding school. During WWII, Bob was already married to Stella Fisher and had two children, Bobby and Joanne, so he stayed at Sun Ship and built ships for the war effort. After WWII ended, Bob worked for the Pulllman company in Wilmington from 1948 to 1957 as a welder with Gene. From 1957 to 1960 he welded for Chrysler Tank Plant. From 1960 60 1967 he welded for National Lead, at the foot of West Street in Wilmington. Then he worked for Electric Hose and Rubber for 5-1/2 years before retiring.

Stella died of sugar diabetes after losing both legs to it. They had lived in The Cedars, off of Route 41 and Kirkwood Highway, behind Bob’s parents’ house. Bob died years later, at the Christiana Hospital in Stanton DE, at age 89 on September 14, 2002.

Married Joe Conrad, and lived just a few hundred yards from Brick Meeting House in Calvert MD. Joe made wood forms for cement work.

Married Bill Roten. Later in life she learned to do oil paintings. She’d buy old milk cans, clean them up, and paint country scenes on them. She’d acquire flat pieces of slate, old wood saws, etc. and paint whatever suited her fancy. She’d give them away to family or sell them locally at flea markets and such.

Her daughter Donna remembers her mother speaking of playing basketball when young. Liz, like her brothers, was athletically inclined.

Bill Roten worked in the construction trades. I am under the impression he was an ironworker, but his children will have to provide accurate information for this history.

His middle name was in honor of his paternal grandfather. He married Eva Barna at the beginning of WWII. He had pulled straight A’s in grade school and high school, and had been a star athlete on the high school basketball and baseball teams. At 5’6", and 145 lbs, he was smaller than many of his older brothers, but quick. His junior or senior year he came down with spinal meningitis, and was put in Lancaster Hospital. His brother Bob went to give him a blood transfusion. In those days they pumped it directly from Bob to Stan. Stan recovered.

After high school, college was not an option, so he worked at various times in a machine shop and for Bellanca Aircraft. He often visited his uncle who owned an automotive repair shop, and enjoyed the problem solving required. At Bellanca he developed an interest in electricity. However WWII soon intervened.

In the Army, after basic training, he was sent to Fort Riley, Kansas. There he took the "Enlisted Communication Course, Class No. 34, from March 15, 1943 to June 10, 1943. Later, during training in the desert in California, he developed a corneal ulcer, and almost lost his eye. Not being able to afford dental care as a civilian, he had developed an infection in a tooth, and it had spread to his eye. Prior to this he had had 20/20 vision. However the Army hospitalized him for 3 months.

Out of the hospital, he was sent to Fort Sill in Oklahoma to teach Radio Communications as a Staff Sergeant. His wife moved there while he was stateside, and one day he came home with a copy of the military news. His old unit from California had been in a battle in Europe, and most of the people he had known were casualties.

From Ft. Sill, he was sent to Ft. Smith in Arkansas, where his unit trained to go to Italy. Only at Ft Smith a couple of months, he was shipped to Italy, and his wife moved back to Delaware to stay with her in-laws. There she got a job as a guard and machine gun operator at the New Castle County Prison. She was trained on a 50 caliber machine gun in one of the 4 watch towers. There was an old quarry behind the prison where guards were take to practice their gunnery. After the word got out that she tended to shoot low, across the hips, at the silhouettes, no prisoners tried to escape her side of the prison when she was on duty.

In Italy he saw duty with the 530^th Field Artillery Battalion, which had been assigned to the Fifth Army, to give heavy artillery support to the II Corps . This unit served in the Po Valley (10 Sept. 1944 to 4 April 1945) and the North Appennies (5 April to 8 May of 1945). He served as a Communications Chief, which would have been radio and telephone communications. (Based on information in his Honorable Discharge papers).

The Fifth Army was initially commanded by Lieutenant General Mark Clark. Its first mission was to carry out an amphibious assault at dawn on September 9, 1943 on an Italian beach called Salerno. The Fifth suffered heavy casualties, but succeeded. It seems likely that this battle is where Stan’s old unit lost so many men.

The long, hard Italian campaign began at Salerno, and continued northward up the Italian boot, eventually linking up with troops from the Seventh Army on the Austrian-Italian border on May 4, 1945. In 602 days of continuous combat the Fifth Army suffered 109,642 American casualties, 19,475 of whom had been killed in action.

Stan’s discharge papers mention both the North Apennines, and Po Valley campaigns. How many other parts of Italy he served in is unknown, if any. The Fifth Army succeeded in taking Italy.

The 530^th FAB was a 155mm gun battalion, which was the general support weapon for a division. The M1 155mm howitzer was an excellent infantry support weapon, with good range and excellent accuracy. Known as a "Long Tom", it combined long range, accuracy, and hitting power with a mobile carriage. All 155mm howitzer battalions in the European Theater of Operations seem to have been truck-drawn.

The U.S. artillery had the benefit of communications equipment used to support the fire control system. Individual forward observers operated close to the front lines and used powerful radios and a network of telephone landlines, to direct their field artillery. The highly redundant signals system meant that, even when all other contact with front-line units and their headquarters was lost, the artillery communications net usually remained open.

The fire-direction system had been developed at the U.S. Field Artillery School at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. It was designed for rapid engagement of targets, but also allowed the coordination of fire from many artillery units in many widely separated field positions. (http://www.militaryhistoryonline.com)..It seems likely that Stan Brown functioned as a forward observer, based on the following story.

Stan wrote his wife often, as soldiers do. He wrote of shelled out farmhouses, and of mountainous terrain. One night he and another soldier were in a crumbling stone farmhouse with no roof, when the other guy decided to light a candle to write to his wife. Stan pointed out that from the nearby mountain German artillery gunners would see the candle light, and shell the farmhouse. The man refused to put out the light. Stan had to threaten the guy with bodily harm before the man agreed to douse his light. When the Germans surrendered in Europe, Stan had the opportunity to travel before coming back to the USA.

Arriving back at Delaware, he learned he could use the GI Bill to further his education. He discussed going to get a degree as an Electrical Engineer with his mother. Emma didn’t realize that the European and Asian industrial infrastructure was completely destroyed, and that it would take decades to rebuild it. She didn’t realize that the world would be buying American made products during that time. So she advised Stan to become an electrician instead. She felt that he could always get a job as an electrician, but Engineers would be laid off as the US economy dropped to pre-WWII levels. So he joined the Delaware Electrical Union, and was trained as an electric motor repairman.

The military also offered cheap housing, by converting no longer needed army barracks into cheap apartments. Stan and Eva moved into a place called Shipside on Maryland Avenue on the west side of Wilmington Delaware. He would work during the day, and go to school in the evening. While there, his corneal ulcer came back, and he was treated at the VA hospital where the Wilmington Airport is now located. At that time, many Reserve and National Guard Units were still stationed there. The Army Doctor who treated him noted that while in the service in California he had treated a man with the same condition. The VA Hospital treated him free under his military benefits, but he almost lost his eye again.

Meanwhile Congress passed a bill giving each veteran $300.00, which was a lot of money in those days. He and his wife used the money to pay bills that had stacked up during his hospitalization. The milkman, breadman, coal delivery man and the family doctor (John Glenn) all charged Eva less than she thought she owed.

Neighbors told her years later that many were so poor that they stole coal out of her outside coal bin. Sometimes her brother-in-law, Tony Gutowski, who lived in the coal regions (Kulpmont, Pa.) would come down and cut wood for her and Stan to use when they couldn’t afford coal.

Once he had completed his 4-year apprenticeship, he quickly made foreman of his shop. He was in a service business, repairing industrial types of electric motors, and was always "on-call" for emergency repairs. Eventually he moved out of Shipside, and into a house in Cranston Heights near Kirkwood Highway and Newport Gap Pike. After 8 years there he moved his family to a development at Limestone Rd, near Stanton Delaware.

The family did many things together, buying produce directly from farms to "can" peaches, tomatoes, etc., and to freeze fresh corn. They fished along the Delaware River, in ponds in Hockessin, and went crabbing and clamming along the southern Delaware coast. Each summer he had Eva’s family visit for a week. They’d all go fishing and crabbing and get a couple bushels of crabs, cook them and eat them. At the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal there would be catfish. Local ponds held sunfish, blue gill, crappie, and bass. In season, there’d be watermelon fresh from some nearby farm.

In the summer there was in-season berry picking, some eaten on the spot, but most taken home, to be turned into jellies. Blackberry jelly, blue-berry jelly, strawberry jelly, red raspberry jelly, black raspberry jelly were are made and jarred for winter storage. Some might be cleaned and refrigerated, to be added to breakfast cereal.

At least once a month he’d take his wife and kids to her hometown to visit her side of the family in Kulpmont Pa. However, as the coal industry died, he and Eva brought various members of her side of the family to Delaware to stay with them while they found jobs in Delaware factories. The men would save their money, usually only paying for board, i.e., what they ate, so they could eventually put a down payment on a house, and bring their family where the jobs were. I can think of at least 8 families who benefited from Stan and Eva’s kindness in this regard. Most of his family lived where work could be found, so that wasn’t an issue.

Family was important to both Stan and Eva. They stayed in touch with and visited both sides of the family. Her family dinners were legendary. After he built his swimming pool, summertime was for family get-togethers of outdoor eating and swimming.

Until the day he died, Stan disliked salted meats. He spoke of growing up when salt was the most common meat preservative.

Dave drove for General Eisenhower in England during WWII. His back had been injured by debris during one of the German bombing raids on England, and when Dave got out of the hospital, he was assigned to drive the General. He also drove for General Patton.

There is a story about how he got the job driving Patton. To test him, the Army put him in a vehicle, and asked him to drive over a cliff. They had the car rigged with chains so it wouldn’t go over, but didn’t tell him that. When he obeyed the officer’s request to drive over the cliff, he passed the test, and got on the list of men who drove for Patton.

After the war Dave moved down south where his wife was from. He got a job mining coal. This is what his daughter Donna Jean Brown Plymale wrote about him:

"What I remember is My Dad worked in the coal mines for about 30 years. I can still remember going to grandma Brown's in the summer for vacation. We always spent time with Aunt Liz. She would come to W.Va. and visit us. My parents were good people. They raised us in church. I still belong to the same church. My mom died in July 31, 1976. She went for an operation and she never came out of it. Dad started to drink again after she died. But thank the Lord he made things right with the Lord before he died in August 11,1985. Dad never talked much about his job in the mines. I know he had Black Lung when he died. S o many people liked my dad and mom. I miss them still and I know if I hold on to God's hand that I'll see them again. "

Paul and Dave, when still living on the family farm were fun loving characters. On more than one occasion, their sister Ruth remembers, they would place live mice in the kitchen flour containers. These were large milk cans their mother Emma used to store the flour, because she knew mice couldn’t get into the cans. The boys thought it pretty funny when she’d open the lid, only to be startled by the mice.

Apparently they didn’t think much about mouse urine and feces that also ended up in the flour. The family was sufficiently poor that Emma couldn’t waste the flour, so she’d have one of the boys retrieve the mice, and any droppings, and she’d use the flour. Perhaps she figured the cooking would kill any germs from the mice.

Paul got a job with Diamond State Telephone on a Construction Crew, which put up telephone poles, and also ran underground cables. He worked his way up to Engineering, and made 2^nd level management. He loved playing bridge and golf. He became a noted bridge player. After retiring, he and his wife Helen moved to Florida near a golf course. It was there that he passed away.

Ruth married John Fisher. (See Bob and Stella Brown) John and Ruth lived on various farms where John worked. I remember visiting them in the summer for a week’s vacation. We’d pick berries from bushes along the roadside. Fish and swim in the local creek. John took us older kids with him as he worked the farm. We’d collect eggs at the hen houses, and candle them. The eggs with damaged or unformed shells were taken by to the farmhouse for Ruth’s use in cooking. After the cattle were brought into the barn and hooked up to the milking machines, we’d collect the milk and dump it into the pasteurization machine. The ice cold milk that came after the pasteurization process was completed and the milk cooled down was delicious. We’d also have to clean the barn of straw and manure left by the cows. That got shoveled into a manure spreading wagon, which was hooked up to a tractor, and taken out to fields that needed fertilizer. If you were old enough John would let you drive the tractor.

In the evenings, once the work was done, the kids would gather in a cow field, and make bases of dried cow patties, so we could play baseball. A farm boy bit of humor involved using a fresh cow patty for 2^nd base, then advising a city kid to "slide for second". The unfortunate kid could clean up down at the creek, and the rest of the kids learned to be cautious. Catching pop-ups, and grounders, required caution in any case.

John was at various times a truck driver, a farmer, a tractor trailer repairman, among other things. I remember him driving to southern Delaware and loading his pickup truck with melons, which he’d then sell in New Castle County by the side of the road. I also remember him selling crates of frozen chicken to family and friends.

Unfortunately, just before he died, John Fisher was in prison for allowing a friend to store stolen merchandise in a garage that John rented. He knew what was going on. He died from a brain aneurysm, possibly caused by the fact he was diabetic with the beginnings of heart disease. His mother Stella Fisher Brown had also died from diabetes, so there may be a genetic factor which his children would want to keep an eye on.

Ruth has had to work most of her life. She has been a devoted and loving mother.

Married Helen Bishop, daughter of a minister. He learned electronics and repaired tube type radios and TV’s. He and Helen bought a home near the Elk River, and he took up scuba diving. He also taught his brother Stan to dive. I remember them practicing in Stan’s swimming pool.

At some point he got into programming robotics for one of the automobile plants in northern Delaware.

Married Jessie Inez Pinson, known by her middle name. When he was 6 years old, and going to 1^st grade, Bill had been walking to school. An inexperienced, 17 year old truck driver, came over a hill too fast, and ran over young Bill. It wrapped him up in the wheel well of the truck. He was severely injured, and lost parts of fingers on one hand, and lost the feeling in one leg.

For years he was in and out of the Dupont Children’s Hospital at Rte 202 in Wilmington, DE, while doctors tried to heal his leg. They would blindfold him and stick needles in various parts of his leg, trying to determine if the damaged nerve was healing. His sister Ruth remembers as a little girl, attacking the doctors after witnessing one such test. She was pretty sure they were trying to hurt Bill.

Eventually the Bill decided to have that leg amputated, because by the time he was in college, he was "spending 3 months without crutches, and 6 months with them, because the leg had no feeling.

It doesn’t seem to have slowed Bill down much. He learned to play the piano with the injured hand and played the organ at church as well. This writer remembers Uncle Bill teaching me both parts of a beginner’s song on the upright piano in his bedroom.

He also baby sat my brother and I from time to time, and introduced us to the "poor man’s milkshake", made of milk, vanilla, and banana’s. He knew how to entertain little kids.

Bill went to the University of Delaware, where he got his degree in Chemistry. At one point he was at the University of Georgia where he met and married his wife. I suppose he got his Masters there. By the time I was in college in the early 1960’s he was teaching at the University of Syracuse. He may have gotten his Doctorate there. However, he and Inez moved back to and settled in Georgia, where they still reside.

Anna Mary Griffith (1849 – 1917), wife of Alvin Brown (1845 – 1916), was the daughter of William Miller Griffith (1823 – 1867) and Susan Hutton Pugh (1824 – 1913). Susan, daughter of Lewis Pugh and Mary Hutton, was sister to Evan Pugh (1828 – 1864).

Evan Pugh was instrumental in the founding of, and was the 1^st President of, the Pennsylvania Agricultural College, now known as the Pennsylvania State University, in February of 1860. It was intended to serve the farmers of southeastern PA. Evan and his wife never had any children. (Evan Pugh of Pennsylvania State University and the Morrill Land-Grant Act – M. T. Riley)

However, his sister Susan must have told her daughter Anna Mary Griffith about "Uncle Evan’s" efforts to found the college. Whether it was intended by Evan or not, the family story became that Evan intended all his and his siblings’ descendents to receive a free college education there. At the least, Evan Pugh’s belief in the need for education was passed down the family line.

Of Anna Mary’s children, it has been said that David Chalkley Brown went to an Agricultural College, and received a 6 month certificate. One of his sisters became a nurse, and one became a teacher. In those days, one could receive college "certificates" in a year or less.

One or more of Chalk’s brothers and sisters, or one of Chalk’s uncles (who is not clear), seem to have offered to put his children through college on 2 conditions. The first was that said niece of nephew would get their degree in either teaching or nursing. The 2^nd condition was that they would then help their younger siblings financially to go to college. As far as I can determine, only Jake Brown may have taken this offer. However, he was named after an Uncle, and some family members have suggested that his Uncle Jake put him through college. Since one of Chalk’s sisters was a nurse and the other a teacher, that version makes sense due to the 1st requirement.

By 1970, when Doris Cooney Cauffman told me of the free education, no one seemed to know exactly who had founded a college, or when. It was thought that anyone who successfully discovered this family ancestor would be able to apply. I suspect that over time, the story of "Uncle Evan" and the offer by Chalk’s brothers and sisters, and their uncle Jacob Lewis Brown became mixed together.

Unfortunately, whoever paid for Jake Brown’s education, the offer no longer exists.