SOCIETY NEWS and ACCESSIONS During the Last Quarter of the Eighteenth Century Philadelphia Was the Lead- Ing Port in America
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SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS During the last quarter of the eighteenth century Philadelphia was the lead- ing port in America. She built more ships, had more tonnage on the high seas, and imported and exported more goods than any other port. While the mari- time history of New England has been fairly well documented by Professor Morison and others, that of Philadelphia has been almost wholly neglected, save for monographs by Professor E. P. Cheyney and Mr. Harrold E. Gil- lingham. Very few of the records of famous Philadelphia shipyards have been preserved in libraries and, until the sources are brought to light and made accessible to scholars, this neglect of the very important maritime history of Philadelphia is likely to continue. On November 15, the Council of the Society, recognizing the importance of this subject and recognizing also the valuable work being done by Mr. Marion V. Brewington, appointed him Curator of Maritime Records for the Society. Mr. Brewington, who for several years has devoted the few leisure hours left over from business duties to a study of naval history during and after the Revo- lution, has achieved a high reputation for scholarship and has published in THE PENNSYLVANIA MAGAZINE OF HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY an interesting arti- cle on the State ship General Greene. It is hoped that Mr. Brewington's ap- pointment will serve to emphasize the need of preserving records pertaining to the maritime history of Philadelphia. "Quakers in Minnesota," by Thomas E. Drake, published in Minnesota History for September, 1937, reports the story of the Friends in that state from the arrival of the "first friend" in St. Anthony on the "12th day of Fifth Month 1851" to the present time. "The Story . including as it does a full cycle of development from small beginnings to maturity and then to slow decline, has in it most of the elements which go to make up the larger story of western Quakerism in the nineteenth century. It shows the character and influence of the westward trend of rural Quakerism: the settling of new lands and estab- lishing of new meetings, the move to still newer lands, and the consequent decline of the older meeting groups. It shows the effects of the western experience on the essential character of Quakerism, its gradual abandonment of its older doctrines, and its adoption of the habits of worship and the mode of life of the surrounding churches and people. It shows as well the contribution the Friends have made to the life of the West. Quaker piety and Quaker industry, Quaker honesty and Quaker charity, have all entered into Minnesota life in good measure." The Ohio State Archaeological and Historical Quarterly for July, 1937, contains "A Surveyor on the Seven Ranges," by B. H. Pershing. This account of the surveying of the Old Northwest in 1786 is based on the diary of Major Winthrop Sargent, one of the surveyors. His comments on the towns and citizens of Pennsylvania are interesting, if uncomplimentary. Lancaster 113 114 SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS January was characterized as an "unsociable Town." He wrote, "The People of this Place, tho' neighborly amongst themselves have never been noted for civility to strangers." At Carlisle, at Hannastown, at Pittsburgh he was equally dis- pleased. Returning to the last named town several months later, he confirmed his earlier impressions: "When I first came to this Place (in July last), although I made but the stay of a single day, I acquired a sufficient knowledge of the inhabitants and their manners to found an opinion not very favorable and which is confirmed in this visit, but I did not know them so totally destitute of any kind of hospitable civility as I am now authorized to pronounce. Their whole labor is at the Billiard Table." In the Maryland Historical Magazine for September, 1937 more of the "Letters of James Rumsey," edited by James A. Padgett, are published. The majority of these letters are from Rumsey to Thomas Jefferson and deal with the efforts of the former to obtain a grant from the French government for his steam boat, then building in England. The etiquette and costume pre- scribed for one who is "to pay a french Visit . are things," wrote Rumsey, "that at first, I had no idea was a necessary Connection of a Steam boat." In other letters he makes pertinent remarks on the subject of patents; and comments unfavorably on the experiments the Rumsean Society of Philadelphia was proposing to make with his "improved Barkers mill" on the grounds that such an experiment, if unsuccessful because of lack of knowledge of the work- ings of the mill, "will Carry Conviction to the public, that it cannot become usefull . Expecially as my Opponants, will not fail to Set Every misfortune that my Schemes meet with, in the most disadvantageous point of view." J. G. D. Paul has edited for the same magazine "A Lost Copy-Book of Charles Carroll of Carrollton" containing copies of letters (1770-1774) to Edmund Jennings, William Graves, Charles Carroll, the Barrister, and the Countess d'Auzoiier. The letters to Carroll are filled with Maryland gossip both social and political; those to Jennings and Graves touch upon the world of art and letters and upon imperial problems, and, with the exception of the last one to Graves, dated August 15, 1774, give evidence of the common interests and the similar opinions of British politics held by men of like minds on both sides of the Atlantic. The chat about books—books bought, literary prejudices, new publications—are of great interest to bibliophiles. Mr. Carroll's dictum, "Money cannot be laid out better, in my opinion than in the purchase of valuable books," will be echoed by booklovers everywhere, whether or not they are able to gratify their tastes to the extent of an annual expenditure of £30 or its equivalent. A description of the papers of the Maryland Colonization Society, which attempted to re-establish free Negroes in a colony in Liberia, also appears in this issue of the Maryland Historical Magazine, The Discoveries of the World from their first originall unto the Yeere of our Lord 15$$ by Antonio Galvano, translated by Richard Hakluyt is dis- 193^ SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS 115 cussed by Zoltan Haraszti in the September, 1937, number of More Books, published by the Boston Public Library. "Heerein is orderly declared who were the first discoverours of the world since the time of the flood: by what waies from age to age the spicerie, drugs, and riches of the East were conveied into the West. ." The Discoveries becomes an interesting piece of Americana when Galvano speaks of "a Venetian . called John Cabota who hauing knowledge of such a new discouerie as this was . acquainted king Henrie the seuenth . wherewith the saide king was greatly pleased, and furnished him out with two ships and three hundred men: which departed and set saile in the spring of the yeere, and they sailed westward til they came in sight of land in 45 degrees of latitude towards the north, and then went straight northwards till they came into 60 degrees of latitude, where the day is 18 howers long, and the night is very cleere and bright. ." This statement that Cabot sighted land at 45 degrees north would seem to suggest that Galvano had seen the map, supposedly made by Sebastian Cabot and no longer extant, which bore the legend "prima tierra vista" above the island of Cape Breton. Galvano, born in Lisbon in 1503, was a "true Portugall" of the sixteenth century. He went to Mozambique and India, and was governor of the Moluccas from 1536-1540. But he "found neither favour, nor yet honor, but onely among the poor and miserable, to wit, in a hospitall, where he was kept seventeene yeeres vntill the hower of his death." On December 6, 1782, Benjamin Franklin wrote to Vergennes: "I have the honour of returning herewith the Map which your Excellency sent me Yester- day. I have marked with a Strong Red Line, according to your desire the Limits of the thirteen United States, as settled in the Preliminaries between the British and American plenipotentiarys." About sixty years later Jared Sparks came upon this letter in the French Archives and began to search for the map so marked. The hunt has been continued from that day to this. Sparks originally supposed the map used by Franklin to have been a d'Anville but subsequent investigation made it appear more probable that it was one of "Le Rouge's French edition of Dr. John Mitchell's map of North America of J755'" This supposition becomes all the stronger in the light of the discovery of a map, which fits in with all the documentary evidence, in the Archivo Historico Nacional. The pertinent facts are assembled by Lawrence Martin and Samuel Flagg Bemis in the section of the New England Quarterly for March, 1937, devoted to "Memoranda and Documents" and the conclusion reached is that "Franklin's Red-Line Map was a Mitchell." In the Summer, 1937, number of the Colophon there is an article, beauti- fully illustrated in color, by Henry S. Borneman on "Pennsylvania German Bookplates." These bookplates "were not the productions of professional artists whose work was intended for a particularly trained class. They represent the general practice of the art of handwriting and illumination and are the fruits of the appreciation which the Pennsylvania Germans generally had for . manuscripts as a means and form of art expression." Il6 SOCIETY NEWS AND ACCESSIONS January When Dr.