River Delaware.

At early morn I thought thee fair,
At noon thou hadst the freshest air,
Thy evenings only could compare

With Eden s lovely bowers.

And most enchanting was the grace
That marked the ladies of the place,
In walk, in form, in mind, in face,

Like mother Eve of old.

Your melons were for flavour rare,
Your cream and strawberries sweetest
were,

Your luscious peach, and juicy pear,
The rich and poor partook.

By pebbly shore and lofty tree,
Our good old bathing place I see,
Where school-boys all with loudest
glee,

To dive, and swim, repair'd.
Lightly that batteau seems to glide,
In such a one I loved to ride,
With helm in hand, her course to
guide,

While briskly blew the breeze. 'Twas sweet to leave the tiresome book,

A dozen silvery fish to hook,
Then take them home to plague the
cook,

To clean and fry them all.
My tale of pleasure is begun,
We also sometimes got a gun,
Through mud and mire all day to

run;

To shoot a bird or two.
Sometimes we hired a boat to speed,
On a ducking trip where wild ducks
feed,
But less ducks than duckings we got
indeed,

On Neshamony's marshy flats.
How spreads this river like a bay,
I've skated on it many a day,
While Bristol boys have had a fray,

And feats of skating show'd.
Keenly the crowded wharf I view,
And cannot see one face I knew,
But good Ben Shepherd's ever true,
At every varying tide.

I could have sprung from off the deck,
To give his hand a hearty shake,
For him, and for his city's sake,
My dear old Burlington.

Sadly my memory loves to trace
The kindly smile of many a face
Gather'd ere this in the resting place,
With those of ages past.

The lapse of almost forty years
Has ended all their joys and cares,
We hope they are the happy heirs
Of immortality.

No steamboat then in stately pride,
Made rapid way 'gainst wind and
tide,

A shallop then its place supplied,

The goodly sloop May Flower.*
Thy sister cities have the fame,
Of battles fought, and warlike name,
Thy ancient records lay no claim
To bloody tales like these.

Thy precincts show no battle-field,
Where haughty foes were forced to
yield

And many a brave one's fate was
seal'd

In death upon the plain.
Ere Trenton saw the deadly fray,
Thou wast not idle in thy way;
Bold spirits suited to their day,
Withstood a tyrant's rule.

In thy Town Hall these patriots sate,
And there resolved to share .he fate
Of every suffering sister state

With them to stand or fall.

I cannot see Saint Mary's fane;
To think how oft I've heard in vain
It often gave me heartfelt pain
Good Dr. Wharton preach.

Meekly as one who plainly saw
Himself condemn'd beneath the law,
He sought by love, not fear, to draw
His hearers to the Lord.

St. Mary's lifts no towering spire,
For passing travellers to admire,
Fit emblem of the Holy Sire

Who fill'd her desk so long.

This packet belonged to Captain Myers, a well known skipper.
VOL. II.-3 K

40*

I hear my fellow travellers say
There is a locomotive's way,
Where school boys used to fight and
play,

In Dr. Staughton's time.
And woodman's axe, with sturdy
stroke

Has long since fell'd the lofty oak,
Where my poor neck I nearly broke,
To gain a squirrel's nest.

St. Mary's has a pastor new,
Young, and New Jersey's bishop too,

He needs must stand in public view,
May God save him from pride.
May he a shepherd's duty know,
To lead his flock where fountains
flow,
And where perennial pastures grow,
Beneath the sacred Cross.

This steamer goes as if it flew,
The city fades before my view-
We turn, I bid a long adieu

To thee, sweet Burlington.

William Castell, in his Book of Discovery, published in 1644, says of the Delaware river and people, to wit: "There is another river not fully discovered, but bigger than the former, (the North river,) called the South river. It lieth west by south, towards Virginia. The entrance into it is very wide, having Cape May to the east, and Cape Henlopen to the west. The chief inhabitants lying on the east side of the river. To the east are the Sicones and the Naranticones; on the west are the Miquans, the Senenquaans, and many more."

Joshua Fisher, of Lewistown, Delaware, made the first known Bay-chart of the Delaware. The one from which all of our subsequent ones have been copied. It bears the imprint of London, 1756.

The Pea Patch island, now a subject of dispute, is given therein at about its present distance from New Jersey, showing no appearauce of having ever been annexed to that shore. How early it may have been drawn, is not now known; but it must be inferred to have been several years earlier than 1756, because the position of Cape Henlopen is therein ascribed to the joint observation of Joshua Fisher, and Thomas Godfrey. The latter we know died in 1749, and had brought out his quadrant, and lent it to Mr. Fisher for trial in his surveys of the Delaware, as early as 1730.

A large chart of the Delaware bay was published in London in 1779, called Debarre's chart, from the surveys of Lieut. Knight.

It is worthy of remark, as testing the accuracy of Godfrey, that his position of Cape Henlopen, differs only ten miles from that now scrupulously ascertained by the United States' recent surveys. The shoals and oyster beds, as laid down in Fisher's chart, though generally in the same localities as now ascertained by the United States' survey, are very different in their lengths and breadths -and especially those nearest the main land on both sides of the bay; the present surveys, showing much more of extended shoals near the main land, than have been given in Fisher's chart. In some instances, shoals then marked are now gone; and in other cases, new ones are formed.

River Schuylkill.

RIVER SCHUYLKILL.

THIS name, given it by the Dutch, is said to express "Hidden river," it not being visible at its mouth as you ascend the Delaware. From the Indians it bore the name of Manajung, Manaiunk, and in Holmes' map it is called Nittabaconck. It is told as a tradition that the Indians called the river the mother, and that what is called "Maiden creek," a branch of the Schuylkill above Reading, was called Onteelaunee, meaning the little daughter of a great mother. The letter of Governor Stuyvesant, of 1644, to Colonel Nicolls, says they discovered the Varsche Rivierte--the little freshwater river, in 1628.

I have heard it conjectured that the flat ground of Pegg's marsh, and the low ground of Cohocsink swamp, are the beds of the Schuylkill, which may have passed there before Fairmount barrier gave way-one channel having come from Fairmount to Pegg's swamp, and the other from the Falls of Schuylkill by Cohocsink. The particulars of this theory may be read in my MS. Annals, p. 352, ` 353, in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania.

In the year 1701, William Penn writes to James Logan, saying, "Pray see the utmost of poor Marshe's project of navigating flats up Schoolkill and Susquehanna above the falls; he assuring me he could make the experiment for 40s. be it 50s. or £3. it were a mighty advantage."

In 1722, the common council this year appointed a committee to examine a route to Schuylkill through the woods, and to fix upon the site of a ferry at the end of High street, whereupon it was resolved to address the assembly for an act for the same.

The same year the corporation of Philadelphia made a causeway on both sides of the ferry, and appointed boats, &c. The ferrymen were to dwell on the western side, and to ferry persons over at one penny, horses 1d., cows and oxen 14d., cart or wagon 6d. to ls., This one became of sheep d., &c. The upper and lower ferries were then called Roach's and Blunston's, on private account.

course

"the middle ferry."

In the year 1762, we see by a minute of the council that they then leased "the middle ferry," for three years, at £200. per annum.

I am not able to say when the floating bridges were first introduced; but we know the British army made one across the Schuylkill when they held the city, which I believe they destroyed when leaving it, as it is known that Joseph Ogden built and kept a new bridge at the middle ferry, soon after they were gone.

Mr. Kalın states, that at the first building of Philadelphia, they erected sundry houses upon the Schuylkill side, which they after

wards removed to the Delaware side, on finding settlements there did not take.

The river scenery and banks of Schuylkill were once picturesque and beautiful-such as I have elsewhere described the "Baptisterion," at the end of Spruce street. Benjamin Franklin, too, said it was his custom when young to go out there with his companions, Osborne, Watson, Ralph, &c., to take a charming walk on Sundays in the woods then bordering on the river. There they used to sit down and read and converse together; now how changed the scene to a busy, bustling coal mart?

"Receding forests yield the labourers room,

And opening wilds with fields and garlands bloom!"

It is even now within the memory of aged men, when it was a great fishing place. Old Shrunk assured me he had caught as many as 3000 catfish of a night with a dip-net, near the Falls. Penn's letter, of 1683, speaks of Captain Smith, at Schuylkill, who drew"600 shades at a draught."

In the year 1759, there appeared in the Gazette a writer from Berks, who greatly urges the advantages to be produced by clearing and opening the river channel. Some of them were then set upon by a subscription.

The 4th of July, 1824, being Sunday, the long desired era arrived of opening the canal from Reading to Philadelphia. Many witnessed the operations near Reading with great gratification. This is "the consummation devoutly to be wished!"

A fact occurred in November 1832, which goes to confirm the theory before advanced, that the Schuylkill once passed from the Falls by the way of the Cohecksink creek. In making a coffer dam, (the first one on the eastern side,) to form the foundation of the railway-bridge at Peters' island, they came at the depth of thirty feet of excavation to the stump of a tree completely embedded in the soil, thus evincing that the course of the river has been changed from its original channel.-See Poulson's Gazette, of Nov. 26, 1832.

I have in my possession, a copy of a curious old deed of the 2d of May, 1681, from Peter Peterson Yocum, a Swede, to Niels Jonason, for two hundred acres of land to begin at a creek on the west side of Schuylkill above Arromink, called the little Quarnes fall, and thence, up along the river side to the Great-hill, being part of the original tract of 1100 acres granted by patent of Governor Lovelace at New York to Captain Flans Modens, i. e. Moens. [The Great hill, may be understood to be Conshohockin now-and the Quarnes, (Quarries,) the Little falls.]

The place called Swedesford, had a work of defence cast upon its margin by the Americans, in the time of the Revolution. It was the crossing place then of the army.

Near there was the Swedes' church, since rebuilt by the Episcopalians; the grave ground is well filled with Swedes, who very much