are in a very flourishing condition. There they keep up the institution as originally established at Ephrata, and are growing rapidly. Their singing, which is weak in comparison with the old Ephrata choir, and may be likened to the performance of an overture by a musical box, with its execution by a full orchestra in the opera house, is so peculiar and affecting, that when once heard, it can never be forgotten.

The Pequea valley, besides having been the loved home of the Delawares, is still the chosen and fruitful region of their successors, the prosperous farmers of Lancaster county. At the first settlement of the county, it was selected as the preferred residence of sundry French families of the persecuted Huguenots. They bore the names of Dubois, Boileau, Larroux, Lefevre; and some of their descendants remain there to the present day. A large quarto Bible, which Isaac Lefevre brought with him from France at that time, is now in the possession of John C. Lefevre, Esq., and held as a prized relic. The aforesaid names were also united with those of Charles De La Noe, a minister, and Andrew Dore, and some other Frenchmen, who had come out under the influence of William Penn, to form vineyards, and to cultivate grapes, "up the Schuylkill." They, however, not succeeding to their expectation, felt prepared to avail themselves of a change to the Pequea valley, which was produced by the arrival, in 1712-13 of Madame Mary Feree, a widow lady, having with her three sons and three daughters, and coming to this land to seek a peaceful asylum from the persecutions of religious intolerance abroad. She had just lost her husband, a gentleman of eminence in France, by such persecution; and reaching England for refuge, she found friendship in William Penn and Queen Anne, by whom she was aided in her embarkation for America. She became possessed of four thousand acres of the best land in Pequea, recommended by Penn's agent, in this country, to her special notice: two thousand acres of which came by grant, and the other two thousand acres by purchase. To this place all those French people went for settlement, and were there heartily welcomed by the Indian king, Tanawa. When he died, soon after, all the Huguenots attended his burial; and his grave was marked with a pile of stones, which long remained to mark the place,-on what is now called La Fayette hill, near Paradise. The church of All Saints now stands on what was the Indian burial ground.

The name of Madame Feree is still remembered and venerated in the neighbourhood of Paradise, where she settled, and gave, by grant of deed to trustees, the ground for general burial, as now used by the people there.

Isaac Lefevre, before named, had lost both his parents by the massacre in France, and he arrived at Philadelphia, a youth of seventeen, in 1686; afterwards he became the husband of Catharine, the daughter of Madame Feree, and their son, by this marriage, was the first born white child in Pequea. Philip Feree married Leah, a

daughter of Abraham Dubois. One of the Ferees became a Friend. I have been indebted for sundry of these facts, to R. Conyngham, Esq., who has made himself acquainted with them by his residence in the town of Paradise.

Harrisburg, &c.

This place, now the seat of government, was originally located and settled by John Harris, and the place was founded, in 1762, by his son, John Harris, Jun'r. The son of the latter, Robert Harris, now alive at the age of seventy years, has informed me of many facts connected with his family and the original settlement. I herein relate them, much in the manner I received them from himself, viva voce, in the year 1835, when visiting the place. Considering how recently it was but an Indian wild, and now so populous and richly settled as the growing seat of government, it cannot but prove interesting to the reader, as being in itself a proof of the varied enlargement and advancement of our prosperous country, to wit:

John Harris the first, and his wife Esther, the first settlers here, sat down as Indian traders on the frontier while the Indians were still settled in their town close by, at the mouth of the Paxton creek. Many of their graves were in Harris' orchard. They were both born in Yorkshire, England, and came out to Philadelphia as first emigrants with William Penn. He died in advanced age, in 1749. His wife survived him ten years, having married again to William Chesney, a resident on the other side of the river.

Robert has heard his grandfather and grandmother Reed, in Hanover, fourteen miles off, (where they had a stockade defence,) tell of the Indian alarms, and of the people running in for protection; they had seen some tomahawked.

The first lots in town were valued by commissioners at from 10 to £60.

From the market house back to the hills, and up to, and over the state house hill, was in woods when he was a boy.

He, Robert Harris, was born in the present stone house, in 1768. The other old house stood six or seven years afterwards, as a kind of store-house. Two hundred people at a time came there to stop to find boats, &c., to go on with. He has seen three different houses, there, one hundred and fifty feet long, filled with skins.

The fields cultivated were cleared before he was born, and were back of this house, and from the river to beyond the market house.

He thinks that John Harris saw William Penn here, or at Conois creek; he always heard that he (William Penn) visited him on the Susquehanna; and that he did much business for Penn's interest, and even talked of buying lands of him, over on the other side, down to the Yellow Breeches creek.

The wild turkeys and the deer were plenty in the revolution. They used to have as many of the former as they chose to shoot. VOL. II-P 10*

He and his father have killed as many as twenty bears seen crossing the river.

The Paxton boys assembled here; they came from Cumberland and Hanover, and even as far as Franklin. John Harris, the second, tried to prevent them. Col. Smith was their principal man, and Col. Wilson Smith, of Waterford, in Erie county, of the legislature, is his son.

Esther Harris, up near Juniata, must have been John Harris' wife; she was resolute, masculine, capable of writing, and was the best trader of the two. Would box Indian chiefs' ears if they got

drunk and unruly.

She carried her son John, born in 1726, to Christ church, in Philadelphia, to be baptized; he died in 1791, aged sixty five. He was the first born white child hereabout, and the father of the present Robert Harris.

He had not his title confirmed by Shippen until 1733, but bought long before; it was about £5 per hundred acres, at first at 50s.

There was an Indian town opposite to Harris' ferry, just where are heaps of muscle shells-they ate them much; another town was at the mouth of Canodoquinet creek, two miles above; and there was one below, about two miles, at the mouth of Yellow Breeches, or Haldeman's bridge, which was once James Chartier's landing, Indian agent.

He has heard that they could assemble here seven hundred people by firing a gun-all came over then to this side.

They had a battle at Mokonoy, six miles this side of Shamokin, John Harris, the second, was along; one hundred went up from here to inquire, they surprised the party on the return, and killed sixteen to twenty men. John Harris, the second, in crossing the river had the man behind him, a doctor, shot off.

At the old church at Paxton, under Parson Elder, three miles from Harrisburg, on the road to Reading, they used to take guns and stack them while in the church. A party of Indians came and bid themselves for a week, to attack them; they lost two as prisoners, who told the fact. They shot at some on their return; killed and wounded some. They broke Major Burnett's arm, he died five years ago only. Robert Harris has seen five hundred pack-horses at a time in Carlisle, going thence to Shippenburg, &c.

The road from John Harris', on the Susquehanna, in or near Paxton, towards Philadelphia, by way of Lancaster and Chester counties, was procured, in 1736, by petitions of sundry inhabitants in said counties.

John Harris, the first, is buried at the mulberry tree before his house, and close to the block-house on the river bank. He had seven children. This Robert Harris saw the remains of the blockhouse and stockade-were old when he was young.

The large stone house where he dwells was built in 1766, by his father, John Harris, the second.