# The Knickerbocker/Volume 13/Number 5/Christopher Marshall's Remembrancer

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Christopher Marshall's Remembrancer.—Mr. Christopher Marshall, whose ancestors came to America with William Penn, resided in Philadelphia, from the age of thirty until his death, in 1797, at the age of eighty-seven. He was a member of the Society of Friends, but his devotion to the liberties and rights of the colonies procured his excommunication from a body which denied the lawfulness of defensive warfare. In his sixty-fourth year, he commenced a diary ; and from five volumes of this 'Remembrancer,' covering the period from January, 1774, to September, 1781, the compiler of the work under notice, Mr. William Duane, Jr., has selected many new facts in relation to public affairs, and the progress of the revolution, with so much of the private history of the author as throws light upon the manners of the times.
It is pleasant to trace the brief and fresh records of such eventful occurrences as the Battle of Bunker's Hill, Washington's passage of the Delaware, the burning, by the provincials, of the light-house at the entrance of Boston harbor, and the pulling up of the piles that were the marks for the shipping, etc. Here, an account from Boston informs us, that 'Burgoyne is in a deep, settled melancholy, walking the streets frequently, with his arms folded across his breast, and talking to himself;' and again, that 'General Gage is often out of his head, and that he and Admiral Greaves have publicly quarrelled, so that he told Gage it was a cowardly action to burn Charlestown.' Then we have accounts of certain public rebukes, administered by the committee of safety at ​Philadelphia, to sundry citizens, for refusing to take continental money, with advertisements, calling upon 'the ladies' to come to the American manufactory, at the corner of Market and Ninth streets, and get cotton, wool, or flax, 'thus casting their mite into the treasury of the public good,' and exhibiting that distinguishing characteristic of an excellent woman, as given by the wisest of men: 'She seeketh wool and flax, and worketh diligently with her hands. She layeth her hands to the spindle, and her land holdeth the distaff.' There is a quiet, dry humor in some of our journalist's entries: such, for example, as the annexed, which sounds oddyl enough, as recorded of a sober Friend: 'Took a walk down town, to see Benj. Betterton, who, last First Day, in a jovial humor, jumped over a man's shoulder, and broke his leg about the small.' What would our present neighbors of the drab city say, to see Friends jumping over one anothers' shoulders, and breaking their legs, 'in a jovial humor,' on Sunday! An other amusing incident is thus pithily recorded: 'Account came, that while Parson Stringer, with his eyes shut, was at prayer with Andrew Steward, in the dungeon of our prison, the said Steward took that opportunity to walk up stairs, go out at the several prison doors into the street, and without any ceremony, walked off with himself without bidding Robinson, the prison-keeper, farewell, although he was sitting at the front door, on the step, when he passed him!' This looking out for his temporal safety while the worthy clergyman was attending to his spiritual welfare, is a striking proof of the condemned criminal's forecaste and presence of mind. Aside from the interest of many of its details, the little volume in question must prove valuable as a historical record, of convenient reference.