Volume 20, No. 2 Autumn Number, 1931 Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association OUR PAST AND OUR FUTURE By Amelia Mott Gummere We are here today to do honor to a little group of fearless Englishmen who came to America in 1677 on the invitation of William Penn. Their dauntless Quakerism has so lived and flourished in the two centuries and a half which have intervened, that on this very spot of hallowed earth which saw their earliest struggles in the wilderness—struggles of both flesh and spirit— their followers gather today, representing numbers then undreamed of. This anniversary would be unworthily observed did we confine ourselves to retrospect only. History will always repeat itself in a way; yet every generation must rewrite history. As new facts become available, the old facts must be re-interpreted . Upon this depends, not only progress, but our very existence. Let us then first glance in retrospect at the doings of these Fathers, and then seek to discover the heart of their Quaker message for us today. Not lightly had the courageous two hundred and thirty boarded the "good shippe Kent"—a frail vessel of but a little over 100 tons—and had taken their leave of old England with the lightly uttered blessing of the Merry Monarch, Charles II, still echoing in their ears. More than one of them had suffered and seen their loved ones die in the loathsome gaols of the time, not because of their evil deeds, but because of their belief in the Inner Light. England, however, never executed a Quaker legally, although the deaths from imprisonment are in the thousands. That remained for Puritan Massachusetts, which, in putting to death four of the Quakers by their criminal law, seventeen years before, had placed on record the only martyrs for their faith that America has ever seen. With two of their leading settlers buried at sea, 57 58 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION the little company landed near Raccoon Creek, after touching at Newcastle, where the excellent fishing, hunting, and wild fruits and grapes furnished a refreshing change from the salt and dried foods of the voyage. The commissioners, going up the east bank of the Delaware, had preceded the rest, and decided upon Lower Matiniconk Island, now Burlington, formed by a small tidal stream parallel with the Delaware, chosen for greater protection from the Indians. In the now drained swamps are fields of waving grain, doing away with the "mosquetto fly" of which the settlers so bitterly complained ! Although these Englishmen were furnished with a royal Charter , they were not willing to take the Indian lands without paying for them. Having with them several Swedes and Dutch who acted for them as interpreters (Lasse Cock, Peter Rambo, Henry Jacob Falkenburg, Israel Helwies), they arranged to pay the original owners for their land. The Friends had been told in England what to bring, for this is what was demanded, and paid: "30 matchcoats, 20 guns, 30 kettles, and one great one, 30 pair hose, 20 fathom duffeld, 30 petticoats, 30 narrow hoes, 30 bars of lead, 15 small barrels of powder, 70 knives, 30 Indian axes, 70 combs, 60 pair tobacco tongs, 60 scissors, 69 tinshaw looking glasses, 120 awl blades, 120 fish hooks, 2 grasps red paint, 120 needles, 60 tobacco boxes, 120 pipes, 200 bells, 100 jewsharps, 6 anchors of rum." There were powwows about hunting rights and landmarks, and other things, including the sale of rum by Swedes and Dutch, which was working such havoc among the red men, and finally there was held a great Indian conference on this spot, where eight Sachems under the chief Ockanickon met Friends, and with four wampum belts in token of good faith, renewed with the whites their first pledges. Ockanickon is the Chief who showed such kindness to the settlers, and who came to their meetings. His charge to his nephew and successor before his death is on record, witnessed to by six Friends and the interpreter Falkenburg. On his death, just after the first Yearly Meeting was held, he was buried at his own request, in this graveyard, where a boulder and tablet have recently been placed in...