scenery. Brantewein (brandy) is a word of Teutonic origin, which might have been used equally by the Swedes and Dutch to express its brandy-coloured stream. Certain it is, that at all early periods, after the river lost its Indian names of Minquas, and Suspecough, it was written Brandywine. Since the county sustained the separation of Delaware county, the county town has been located at West Chester, a very growing place and possessing a genteel and intelligent population. At this place, are the original records of Chester county, and of course affording to the curious inquirer the means of exploring the antiquarian lore of the primitive days. As our business is to show to the present rising generation the great difference between the present and the remote past, when all was coarse and rustic, we shall subjoin some scraps of information illus trative of such change, to wit: Mr. William Worrell, who died but a few years since, an inbabitant of Marple township, at the advanced age of nearly one hundred years---says, that in the country there were no carts, much less carriages; but that they hauled their grain on sleds to the stacks, where a temporary thrashing-floor was made. He remembered to have assisted his father to carry on horseback one hundred bushels of wheat to mill in Haverford, which was sold there for but 2s. a bushel. The natural meadows and woods were the only pasture for their cattle; and the butchers of Philadelphia would go out and buy one, two, or three head of cattle, from such as could spare them, as all their little surplus. He recollected when there were great quantities of wild turkeys; and a flight of pigeons which lasted two days! Only think of such a spectacle! They flew in such immense flocks, that they obscured the rays of the sun! One night they settled in such numbers at Martin's bottom, that persons who visited them could not hear one another speak, by reason of their strong whirring noise. Their weight on the branches of the trees was so great as to break off numerous large limbs! He never saw coffee or tea until he was twenty years of age; then his father brought some tea from Philadelphia, and his aunt did not know how to use it, till she got information first from a more refined neighbour. On another occasion a neighbour boiled the leaves and buttered them! In going to be married, the bride rode to meeting behind her father, or next friend, seated on a pillion;-but after the marriage, the pillion was placed with her behind the saddle of her husband. The dead were carried in coffins on the shoulders of four men, who swung the coffin on poles, so that they might proceed along narrow paths with most ease. Another ancient inhabitant, William Mode, who died on the west branch of the Brandywine, in 1829, at the age of eighty-seven years, said he well remembered the Indians-men, women and children, coming to his father's house to sell baskets, &c., and that they used to cut and carry off bushes from their meadow, probably for mats to sleep on. The deer, in his boyhood, were so plenty, that their tracks in the wheat field, in time of snow, were as if marked by a flock of sheep: at one time his father brought home two of them on his sled. Wild turkeys in the winter were often seen in flocks, feeding in the corn and buckwheat fields. Foxes often carried off their poultry; once their man knocked one down near the barn. Squirrels, rabbits, rackoons, pheasants and partridges abounded. Samuel Jeffrey, too, a man of eighty-seven years, who died at West Chester in 1828, said he could well remember when deer were plenty in the woods of Chester county, and when a hunter could occasionally kill a bear. He also had seen several families of Indians still inhabiting their native fields. N. Marcer died in 1831, aged one hundred and one years. This county still contains some of the oldest inns known in the annals of our country. Thus, Powell's Journal, of 1754, speaks of his stopping on the way to Lancaster, at "the Buck," by Ann Miller-at "the Vernon," by Ashton, (now "the Warren")" the White Horse," by Hambright-"the Ship," by Thomas Park-"the Red Lion," by Joseph Steer-and "the Wagon," by James Way, &c. Chester county is also distinguished as being the theatre of some important events in the revolution,--such as "the battle of Brandywine," the "massacre of Paoli," and the winter quarters of our army at "the Valley Forge." The battle ground of the Brandywine, near where La Fayette was wounded, may be still visited at the Birmingham meeting-house of Friends. There, if you see the gravedigger turning up the grave ground, you may possibly see the bones of some British soldier at only two feet under the ground, with fragments of his red coat, his stock-buckle, buttons, &c.! You may even be shown some old gold coin, found concealed once in the great cue of a buried Hessian! If you ramble down to "Chadsford," not far distant, you may still see remains of the little redoubt which disputed the ford; and there, as a relic of silenced war and bloodshed, pick up an occasional bullet or grapeshot. The county was at one time much disturbed, and made withal remarkable, by a predatory hero in the time of the revolution. He was usually called "Captain Fitz," but his real name was James Fitzpatrick. He roamed the country in stealth, as a "British refugee," making his attacks upon the chattels of the "stanch whigs," and seemingly delighting in his perils and escapes. His whole character made him a real Rob Roy of his time. At last he was seized and executed. The state of the American army at the Valley Forge, in the drear winter of 1777-8, was an extremely perilous and suffering one. They were kept in necessary fear from so superior a force as Howe's well appointed army; whereas, ours was suffering the need of almost every thing. An officer, an eye-witness, has told me, that a sufficiency of food or clothing could not be had; that so many men were without whole shoes, that several actually marked the snowy ground with their bloody footsteps; some, while on duty as sentinels, have doffed their hats to stand in, to save their feet from freezing; of salt beef or pork, they could not get a supply, and fresh beef was wholly impracticable to get at all; of vegetables they got none. One wooden or pewter dish answered for a whole mess; and one horn tumbler, in which whisky rarely entered, served for several. Much of their diet was salted herrings, too much decayed to bear separation; but were dug out of the cask en masse. Sugar and coffee were luxuries not seen; and paper money, with which they were paid for such severities, was almost nothing! If such were the calamities of war, and such the price they paid for our self-government, oh! how greatly should we, their descendants, prize the precious boon! Maddened be the head, and palsied be the hand, that should attempt to despoil us of a treasure so dearly purchased! A public journal of Philadelphia, of August, 1778, thus describes the circumstances of the conduct and capture of the aforesaid Captain Fitz, saying, "The celebrated bandit of Chester county was taken and brought to Philadelphia in August. He had been made prisoner by Robert McPhee (McAfee) and a girl. Fitz entered the house of McPhee's family while they were at tea, armed with a rifle, a sword, and a case of pistols, saluting them as friends; upon their saying they did not recognize him, he swore he would soon be better known, as 'Captain Fitz, come to levy his dues on the cursed rebels.' He soon demanded his watch and buckles, and soon after ordered them all up stairs before him, whilst he should search for his money. When he had got up stairs, he, thinking he was safe, began to arrange his shoe buckle on the edge of the bed, when McPhee (McAfee) signing to the girl, Rachel Walker, a young woman, they sprang upon him, and so held him that he could not escape." The reward was 1000 dollars, which was divided between them, and Captain Fitz was hung. While in Philadelphia he broke his hand cuffs twice in one night. At Chester, afterwards, he filed off his irons and got out of his dungeon, and would have escaped but for the extraordinary vigilance of his jailer. His real name was James Fitzpatrick, he was hanged at Chester: was a blacksmith. The New London Academy, of New London, though not much spoken of now, furnished, in colonial days, some of the leading scholars, such as Dr. Francis Allison, Charles Thomson, Gov. Thomas M'Kean, Dr. John Ewing, Dr. Hugh Williamson, M. C.; Dr. David Ramsey, historian; the Rev. James Latta, &c. The "battle ground of Brandywine," so eventful in our revolutionary period, will ever tend to consecrate it as a place of remembrance, and by some as a place of visitation. To those who may choose with us "to wander o'er the bloody field to book the dead," we shall here furnish such notitia, and notes by the way, as will serve as a companion to others: "Our direction was to the forks of the Brandywine, on Jeffrey's ford, the point at which Lord Cornwallis crossed the river on the 11th of September, 1777—the day of the battle, known by the name of the river on the banks of which it was fought. "It was near the close of July of that year, that the British army, under Sir William Howe, and their Hessian auxiliaries, under Gen. Knyphausen, embarked from New York on the meditated invasion of Pennsylvania. The squadron had a long and unpleasant passage. Finding the Delaware too well prepared for defence, to allow of a very favourable ascent of that river, the British commander bore away for the Chesapeake-thence ascended Elk river into Maryland, as far as that stream was navigable, at which point the army disembarked, and on the 23d of September took up its march for Philadelphia. In the mean time General Washington returned from Jersey, for the defence of that important city, and public opinion seemed to require the hazard of a pitched battle. The American commander, therefore, marched upon the Brandywine to intercept the advancing foe, and crossed the river with a part of his forces. The British forces advanced until they were within two miles of the Americans; but, after reconnoitring the enemy on the night of the 8th of September, General Washington, apprehending the object of the enemy to be to turn his right, and, by seizing the heights on the north side of the river, to cut off his communication with Philadelphia, changed his position by recrossing the river, and taking position on the heights near Chadd's ford, several miles below the forks. "From the dispositions of the enemy, it was supposed that he would attempt to cross with his whole force, at this place; but while the Americans were making preparations to receive them at this point, Lord Cornwallis, at the head of the enemy's column, took a long circuitous march to the left, until he gained the forks, and crossed at Trimble's and Jeffrey's ford, without difficulty or opposition. Continuing east from the ferry, about three quarters of a mile, he took a road turning short down the river to the right, in order to fall upon the right of the American forces. The movement was a partial surprise upon the American commander, who, however, as soon as he was apprised of it, took all possible measures to provide against the effect, by detaching General Sullivan, with a.l the force he could spare, to oppose Cornwallis. General Sullivan took an advantageous position, on commanding grounds, near the small Quaker meeting house of Birmingham, his left extending towards the Brandywine, his artillery advantageously disposed, and both flanks covered with woods. Wayne's division, with Maxwell's light infantry, remained at Chadd's ford to keep Knyphausen in check, while the division of General Greene, accompanied by the commander-in-chief, formed a reserve at a central position between the right and left wings. "In the interesting excursion we are now describing, we took the track of the division of Cornwallis, where it turned south after crossing the forks of the river. It was at two o'clock in the afternoon; and such was the deliberation of the British troops, that they stopped for dinner upon the brow of a hill, about midway between the corner and the position occupied by the Americans. An old resident, yet living near the spot, and who was forced into the service of Cornwallis, affirms, that it was a merry though a brief dinner frolic amongst the officers. The American forces being no where even in sight, though scarcely two miles distant-another hill intervening to cut off the prospect-the young officers felt but little apprehensionprobably supposing that the "rebel Yankees" would hardly make a stand even when they did come in sight. Among the gayest of the gay, as a volunteer in the suite of one of the British generals, as tradition informs us, was a sprightly and chivalrous descendant of the Percies-not the Lord Percy who brought the ill-fated British detachment back from Lexington, at the commencement of the revolution, (who was the last duke of Northumberland, and died in 1817,) but a younger one still. He was a noble and generous youth, and had volunteered on the present occasion, as an amateur, to see how fields were won. He wore a splendid uniform, and rode, like a Percy, a noble steed richly caparisoned. The column resumed its march at half-past three, and by four o'clock ascended the intervening hill before mentioned, which brought them in full prospect of the American troops, in battle array, and coolly awaiting the onset. Instant dispositions were made for battle. As the young Percy came over the brow of the hill, he was observed suddenly to curb in his impatient steed, and the gay smile upon his lively features, changing at first to gravity, soon became sad and pensive, as he glanced his bright eye over the extensive rolling landscape, now rife with animation. It was a glorious spectacle. The wide prospect of gentle hill and dale, with forest and farm-house, the bright waters of the Brandywine, just appearing in one little winding section in a low and beautiful valley on the right, formed of itself a picturesque view for the lover of the simple garniture of nature. But enlivened, as it now was, by the presence of two hostile armies, both eager for the onslaught on that side the American line resting upon their burnished arms in order of battle; and on this the brisk note of preparation, the displaying of columns, and other manœuvres necessary to the sudden change of position and circumstances "The neighing steed, and the shrill trump, Pride, pomp, and circumstance of glorious war,' all combined to make up a scene which it would hardly be supposed would have damped the ardour, or clouded with gloom the fine features of a young officer, whose proud lip would at any other moment have curled with scorn, and his eye kindled with indignation at the remotest intimation of a want of firmness in the hour of trial. Yet, with a subdued and half-saddened eye, the young Percy, who but a moment before was panting to play the hero in the contest, paused |