# The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian/06 Litterateur and Book-Hunter

CHAPTER VI
Litterateur and Book-Hunter
MY great-grandfather, Matthias Pennypacker, had a reputation for vigorous and apt expression. Since his day the faculty has manifested itself in a number of his descendants. Judge Henry C. Conrad, of Wilmington, Delaware; Charles H. Pennypacker, the burgess of West Chester; Elijah F. Pennypacker, Canal Commissioner of Pennsylvania, with Thaddeus Stevens; Dr. Nathan A. Pennypacker, member of assembly in 1866, and my father, have shown the gift of speech in more than the ordinary measure. My brother, Isaac R. Pennypacker, who wrote the accepted life of General George G. Meade, has written poems which caught the attention of Longfellow and were included in his Poems of Places and other verse which Edmund Clarence Stedman said was superior in merit to his own efforts.
I began to write in my childhood and to make speeches in my early youth. At twenty-four I wrote an epic poem upon the war, giving in sombre and gloomy tones the incidents of the sad careers of Josiah White and his sweetheart, with the scene laid at Phœnixville along the French Creek and the Schuylkill River. I give below a piece of early occasional verse, a tribute to my mother and a sonnet to Lloyd Mifflin, written within the last few years. Some of my translations of German hymns may be found in Brumbaugh's Christopher Dock, in my Pennsylvania in American History, and a translation from the German verse of Pastorius was set to music by the Orpheus Club of Philadelphia and sung two winters at the Academy of Music.
​To the verse above mentioned I select another to be included in this narrative. The Haslibacher hymn written in the sixteenth century and published in the Ausbund, a hymn book of the Mennonites which has gone through eight editions in America and is still used among the Amish of Lancaster County, always made a strong impression upon me because of its dramatic power and simplicity. It has many of the features of the ballad literature and of the Nibelungenlied. I translated it from the German when at Harrisburg, in the midst of my first session of the legislature, as a sort of relief from the onerous pressure of new and difficult official duties. The translation preserves the rhyme, meter and versification, and to a certain extent maintains the spirit of the original:
Xanthippe
(Sola)
* The tea of yarbs that cured my mother must
* Have lost its virtue, opodeldoc don't
* Appear to do no good, and what betwixt
* The rheumatiz and Socrates I feel
* A-worried nigh to death. He is the most
* Provoking man alive I do believe.
* While I am down upon my knees, and me
* All stiff and crippled, scrubbing off the floor
* And trying hard to keep things neat and clean
* He's gone with Alcibiades and them
* Old loafers wandering around the streets
* To talk about Philosophy. There's lots
* Of work to do in Athens he might get.
* If he would only try, and give up these
* Ridiculous notions. Then we might live just
* As nice as other folks. There has not been
* A carpet on this floor for seven years,
* And when I tell him, as I sometimes do,
* He says, “The Gods require no carpet and
* Xanthippe we but imitate the Gods.”
* As if that consolation were to me! ​
* What use it is to dream about old books
* And such like rubbish when the flour's all gone
* And me and his poor children have not got
* A decent thing to wear, I do not see.
* Now there's Epaminondas' pants. If I
* Have patched them once, I've patched them forty times
* Until the stuff's so thin the thread won't hold
* And yet he goes a-sneaking through the house
* His eyes half shut, his thoughts intent upon
* Elysium or some other place, and can
* Not see the boy's ashamed to turn his back
* Toward any one. No wonder that I scold
* But 'tain't a bit of use. He pays no more
* Attention than a post. I might as well
* Be pouring water in the Hellespont.
* He all the while that soft and sheepish smile
* Will wear upon his face and count the flies
* Along the wall until I stop to get
* My breath, and then he walks away without
* A word. I get so mad, it makes me feel
* As if I were Erymneus. 'Tother day
* When I for fully half an hour had been
* A-telling him about the ham we want,
* He stared and slowly said, “Yes, Critias,
* The cycle system must be right.” I up
* And snatched the basin of hot water that
* I had to wash the dishes with and poured
* The slops upon his old bald head. He wiped
* His face and muttered, “When the thunders cease,
* Then comes the rain.” He'll be the death of me,
* I know.
My Mother
* The Spartan mothers in the days of old,
* So runs the story, were entire content
* To see their sons who forth to battle went
* Return with maims and wounds, were they but bold;
* Or slain, if that no mark of shame they bore
* To show they faltered when they met the foe;
* Such gifts these Grecian mothers could bestow—
* Such sacrifices as a crown they wore.
* My mother wears a crown of greener bay,
* And offers better gifts by far than they, ​
* For that herself is her whole sacrifice.
* In all her life of one and seventy years
* No act of hers has caused another fears,
* No word of hers has dimmed another's eyes.
* From oft the crest I peer a-down the vale
* Toward which her feebler footsteps now descend,
* Toward which my own path must henceforward trend,
* And try through shadows to forecast the tale;
* Or looking backward to that further time
* When I was but a child, and she in prime,
* Recall her tender touch and soft caress
* And all her gentle ways and kindliness.
* In that long journey (may it lengthen yet)
* She e'er has kept within the narrow way.
* No thought of self has tempted her to stray;
* There's nothing she would have her sons forget.
* Oh, mother! if I too should reach thy age
* Like unto thine may my then written page
* Be clean and pure—may virtue be instilled,
* And every duty be as thine fulfilled.
* March 23, 1886.
Lloyd Mifflin
* The sceptre once with dread to man was fraught.
* That day has gone—the kings have lost their sway—
* The priest no longer rules but kneels to pray,
* And o'er the earth the mightiest power is thought.
* A sylvan poet bends to touch his lyre
* Where Susquehanna waters woo the isles,
* And fields of dawn grow green with nature's smiles.
* He sweeps the strings that glow with more than fire.
* In busy marts the trader stays his gain;
* The shepherd drops his crook in Arno's vales;
* Miletus waits to hear forgotten tales;
* While listening sorrow hides her inmost pain,
* The harp long mute by Scio's haunted leas
* Is swept again by classic melodies.
Hymn
A beautiful spiritual hymn concerning Haslibacher, how he was led from life to death.
In tone “Warum betrübst du dich mein Hertz.”
​From the archaic German in the Ausbund, a Mennonite Hymn Book published in Switzerland about 1620 and in Pennsylvania reproduced eight times.
Translated into English verse by Samuel W. Pennypacker, March 8th, 1904.
| 1. | We sing in such way as we can |
| | The fate which happened an old man. |
| | He came from Haslibach. |
| | Haslibacher was he called, |
| | Out of Kilchori Summiswald. |
| 2. | The dear Lord suffered it to be |
| | That he was punished grievously |
| | Because of his belief. |
| | They caught him at his home, I learn, |
| | And took him to the town of Berne. |
| 3. | And there in prison he was cast. |
| | In pain and torture was held fast, |
| | Because of his belief. |
| | But pain and torture did not scathe |
| | And steadfast kept he to his faith. |
| 4. | On Friday, as I understand, |
| | The learned priests who ruled the land |
| | Went to his prison cell, |
| | Began to argue that he ought |
| | To yield the faith he had been taught. |
| 5. | The Haslibacher listened long |
| | While they disputed hard and strong, |
| | Then made this quick response: |
| | “I will not my belief resign, |
| | While life is in this body mine.” |
| 6. | Upon a Saturday again |
| | Appeared anew these learned men |
| | And angrily they spoke: |
| | “If now this faith you do not doff |
| | You soon will have your head cut off.” |
| 7. | The answer came both short and quick: |
| | “To my belief I mean to stick, |
| | I hold it steadfastly, |
| | If God approves, naught can alarm |
| | And he will save me from all harm.” |
| 8. | And that same Saturday at night |
| | An Angel of the Lord with might |
| | To Haslibacher came, |
| | And said: “The Lord me here did send |
| | To strengthen you to meet your end.” |
| 9. | “To give you help that will avail |
| | If in your faith you do not fail |
| | But stand both fast and firm. |
| | That faith is pleasing to the Lord. |
| | He holds your soul in good accord.” |
| 10. | “Although you will be driven hard |
| | And then must perish by the sword, |
| | Be not thereat alarmed. |
| | There I shall be right at your side |
| | And all the pain you may abide.” |
| 11. | While Monday's hours were passing o'er |
| | The learned men came still once more |
| | To Haslibacher's cell, |
| | And what they wanted was in brief |
| | He should surrender his belief. |
| 12. | “If not,” said they with the same breath, |
| | “Tomorrow you will suffer death.” |
| | Then Haslibacher said: |
| | “Before my own belief I scoff |
| | You may indeed cut my head off.” |
| 13. | That Monday night in darkness deep |
| | The Haslibacher lay asleep. |
| | About the midnight hour |
| | He dreamed it was all light, and they |
| | Had come to take his head away. |
| 14. | The Haslibacher then arose, |
| | A brilliant light did all disclose, |
| | A book before him lay— |
| | An Angel of the Lord then spoke: |
| | “Read what you find in this dread book.” |
| 15. | He found as then he turned to look |
| | This marvel writ within the book, |
| | “When they cut off your head |
| | Three signs will God disclose to view, |
| | To show the wrong done unto you.” |
| 16. | And after he had read it all. |
| | Again the night did 'round him fall, |
| | Again he fell asleep, |
| | And never did he wake once more |
| | Until they oped his prison door. |
| 17. | They bade to him a pleasant morn. |
| | He thanked them with no touch of scorn. |
| | And then to him they said: |
| | “You first the Godly word shall hear |
| | Then eat a meal, the last while here.” |
| 18. | “From my belief I do not part, |
| | The Godly word is in my heart, |
| | My cause I give to God, |
| | My soul is darkened by no lie |
| | And innocent I wish to die.” |
| 19. | Then to an Inn they took their way, |
| | Good meat and drink before him lay, |
| | The headsman by his side, |
| | That he should be in sorest dread |
| | And from his faith be thus misled. |
| 20. | The Mennist to the headsman spoke: |
| | “Your meat and drink my courage woke, |
| | You will upon this day |
| | Pour out an innocent man's blood, |
| | But that is for my soul's great good.” |
| 21. | He further said: “God will you show |
| | Three signs that you may easily know |
| | And every man can see; |
| | My head cut off will lie awhile |
| | Then leap into my hat and smile.” |
| 22. | “The second sign will be as clear |
| | And on the sun itself appear. |
| | Now to the third give heed; |
| | The sun will be as red as blood, |
| | The Stadel Brun be a red flood.” |
| 23. | The judge turned to the lords, indeed: |
| | “Do you to these three signs give heed |
| | And see if they occur, |
| | If all of this should happen so |
| | Your souls may yet encounter woe.” |
| 24. | The meal had now an end at last. |
| | They wished to bind his two hands fast. |
| | The Haslibacher spoke: |
| | “I pray you Master Lorentz so |
| | You me permit unbound to go.” |
| 25. | “Prepared and ready I can be, |
| | My death in truth rejoices me, |
| | And I am full content; |
| | And God will mercy still bestow |
| | On those themselves who mercy show.” |
| 26. | As he was to the scaffold led. |
| | He took his hat from off his head, |
| | Right there before the crowd. |
| | “I pray you Master Lorentz that |
| | You let me here put down my hat.” |
| 27. | Then down he fell upon his knee |
| | And offered prayers up two or three, |
| | And longer yet he prayed. |
| | “What cause is mine the good God sees, |
| | Do with me now whate'er you please.” |
| 28. | The headsman then cut off his head, |
| | It leaped into his hat and bled. |
| | The signs could all men see. |
| | The sun became as red as blood, |
| | The Stadel Brun ran a red flood. |
| 29 | Then said an aged man thereat: |
| | “The Mennist's mouth laughs in his hat.” |
| | Then said an old gray man: |
| | “If you had let the Mennist live |
| | It would you lasting welfare give.” |
| 30. | The lords together whispered then |
| | “No Mennist will we judge again.” |
| | An old man spoke aloud: |
| | “If as I wished it had been done, |
| | The Mennist had been left alone.” |
| 31 | The headsman said in saddest mood, |
| | “To-day have I shed guiltless blood.” |
| | Again an old man spoke: |
| | “The Mennist's mouth laughed in the hat, |
| | God's punishment will follow that.” |
| 32. | He who this little hymn has made |
| | Is for his life in prison laid. |
| | To sinners sends he love; |
| | A man brought pen and ink to write |
| | He sends to you a last good night. |
I never had any instruction in German. After I had been admitted to the Bar, Dr. Oswald Seidensticker, of the University of Pennsylvania, one day told me that George M. Wagner, a hardware merchant on Callowhill Street near Fifth Street, had the manuscript account book of Francis Daniel Pastorius, kept in 1702, and in it was an account with Hendrick Pannebecker. Eager to know what it contained, I went to examine the book, but being written in German script, I was unable to read it. At
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store, but the script was two centuries old; he was matter of fact and absolutely devoid of imagination and he could not read it. I determined not to be baffled in that way, bought a German Grammar and Dictionary and went to work, and at the end of about a year I went to the store and made a copy of the entry. With like material I began the study of Dutch and I have carried both languages with me through my later life. When in Holland in 1897, I spent a day with a citizen of Utrecht who accompanied me to Gorcum. He did not know a word of English and I had the satisfaction of hearing a Dutchman say of myself on the train: “If he were here for three months, he could talk Dutch.” When Ashenfelter returned from an abode of sixteen months in Guayaquil, where he became secretary to the United States Consul, had the yellow fever, smuggled cocoa and secured, together with a profit of $1,500, a knife cut across the chin and a bullet wound in the leg, I began to study Spanish and to use it in conversation with him. I proceeded so far as to read Don Quixote and other Spanish literature, and it caused me very little difificulty.
In 1863 I began the practice of keeping a sort of record of my reading, giving the name of the author, the title of the book, the number of pages and the excerpts of those thoughts which impressed me as most pleasing and forcible. This practice I have continued ever since and it has resulted in four manuscript volumes which have been of great service as well as satisfaction, furnishing me with ready quotations for papers and addresses from my own study.0n one ​occasion while I was Governor a representative of the North American, a worthless sheet published in Philadelphia, came to Pennypacker's Mills to pry into some action of the government supposed to be then in contemplation and asked me for an interview. I had learned by experience that whether I saw him or not an interview would appear in the paper, since the discipline of the office required that something must be brought back in his bag. Therefore, I told him I would give him an interview. He took out his pencil and memorandum book and made ready, and I proceeded:
“Celerity ought to be contempered with cunctation.”
“Won't you please repeat what you said?” he asked.
“Certainly. Celerity ought to be contempered with cunctation.”
“Would you object to spelling that last word for me?”
“Not at all. C-u-n-c-t-a-t-i-o-n.”
He went back to the city, hunted up his dictionary and wrote two or three columns, and the paper has not yet entirely recovered from the shock.
While dabbling occasionally in verse and other forms of literary expression, especially in my young manhood, my chief study, apart from professional activities, has been in the way of historical research. My father set me the example by writing, in 1843, at the request of the
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County, Pa. I used this material, adding to it, and published, in 1872, The Annals of Phœnixville and Vicinity. Recently Mr. Albert Cook Myers prepared for the Pennsylvania History Club a bibliography of my printed books and papers. They number in all about eighty, and in the course of years I have come to have an extended reputation and a clientele for this kind of production. The Hendrick Pannebecker, given away in the family, on those rare occasions when it is offered for sale brings $25. The Weedon's Orderly Book, published at $5, sells for $10, and the Settlement of Germantown, which was put on the market at $3.50, has produced as high as $74 for a single copy. The publisher buys back every copy he can get and is willing to pay for it $15. Taking all of these books together, however, they have never paid me anything, but they were not written with the expectation of profit and I have had the satisfaction of elucidating by original research some of the interesting characters in the annals of the state. I have made Peter Cornelius Plockhoy and Christopher Dock known over the world. I have clarified and enhanced the reputation of both David Rittenhouse and Anthony Wayne. I have furnished material out of which many subsequent writers have constructed their books. Some years ago Daniel K. Cassel, a well-meaning but illiterate and entirely untrained old man, concluded he would like to write a history of the Mennonites. He came to me and coyly suggested that he would be helped if I should prepare a chapter for him. I told him that I had no time to devote to the task, but that if he found anything serviceable in my published papers I should not interfere with his making use of them. When his book appeared I found, much to my surprise and amusement, that half of it was made up of these papers—text, notes, and citations from authors in other languages which he was unable to read, word for word, as I had written them. One day he came ​to my office and said: “The subscription price of my book is a dollar and a half, but I got a good deal of information from you, so I will sell you a copy for a dollar.” He was entirely sincere and the joke upon me was too manifest not to be enjoyed. I was not willing, however, that the value of my work should be measured at fifty cents and, therefore, I paid him the full price, much to his relief.
In November, 1867, I heard Charles Dickens read in Musical Fund Hall selections from his novels, including the chapter upon the death of little Paul Dombey and extracts from the Pickwick Papers. He had his hair twisted into a sort of curl; he wore a velvet vest and carried an unnecessarily heavy gold watch chain, and on the whole gave the suggestion of a want of thorough breeding, perhaps even of commonness. He read with something of a cockney accent, but with considerable dramatic effect.
Among the observances of the Centennial Celebration in 1876, a Congress of Authors from over the country assembled in Independence Hall on the Fourth of July, and each author there deposited a sketch written by himself of some one of the worthies of the Revolution. Mark Twain was one of those who participated. It was the only time I ever saw him, and I remember him as a slim man with a light complexion and a large mustache, wearing a white, or nearly white, suit of clothes. I wrote a paper upon Colonel Samuel John Atlee, who commanded the Pennsylvania Musketry Battalion in that war.
On the sixth of October, 1883, the Germans of America celebrated the two hundredth anniversary of the coming of the Germans to Germantown, which was the beginning of that great immigration, and I made the address at the Academy of Music before an immense concourse of people. It was translated into German and republished at Hamburg. One day the German Consul of Philadelphia came to my office, bringing to me in person the official thanks of Prince ​Bismarck. The Germans have always shown me great favor, electing me one of the Archive Committee of the Deutsche Gesellschafft and an honorary member of the Canstatter Volksfest Verein and of the Maennerchor, and when they erected a statue of Schiller in Fairmount Park, I delivered the oration.
I have certain physical peculiarities. When a rabbit is seen sitting upon his haunches it will be observed that he is continually spreading wide his nostrils. No doubt this power was a physical advantage to animals enabling them to increase their scent and thus learn of the presence of enemies or prey. I have the power of voluntarily using the muscles which dilate the nostrils. I likewise have control of the muscles which spread the toes of the feet, thus, to some extent, making them prehensile. Darwin, who spent much time in gathering facts from which like inferences may be drawn, had not discovered these and I wrote him a letter calling his attention to them. He replied in an autograph note expressing recognition of the value of these facts in elucidation of his theory.
One of the descendants of Edward Lane, a beautiful woman, became the wife of Lieutenant A. J. Slemmer, who, at the outset of the War of the Rebellion, acquired fame through his command of Fort Pickens in Florida, which was one of the two forts, the other being Fort Sumter in South Carolina, retained by the North in the seceded states. Soon afterward Slemmer died and she went over to England and there married Professor Jebb, the celebrated Greek scholar connected with Oxford University. Then she sent for her niece, and this niece married George, the son of Sir Charles Darwin. At the time of the dinner given by the American Philosophical Society to celebrate the two hundredth anniversary of the birth of Franklin, Sir George Darwin, who was there with many other scientists, came over to me and said: “My wife, who is here, tells me that you and she are cousins.” She sat in the ​gallery and when I arose to speak to a toast I made a reference to her presence.
A third physical peculiarity is the fact that I have five incisor teeth in the lower jaw. One day I said to my colleague on the Bench, Judge Mayer Sulzberger:
“Judge, did you know that I was a monstrosity?”
“No. What peculiar phase of monstrosity do you exhibit?”
“I have five incisor teeth in the lower jaw.”
“There is nothing strange about that; look at mine.”
And he had five incisor teeth on the lower jaw. Monstrosities were a majority of the court.
For many years I corresponded with Dr. J. G. DeHoop Scheffer, of Amsterdam, the historian of the Reformation in the Netherlands and one of the most learned scholars of Europe. When in Amsterdam in 1890 I called on him and found him a very genial old gentleman, with white hair, living in a house which indicated the presence of every necessary comfort. I presume at his suggestion I was elected a member of the Maatschappij Van Nederlandsche Letterkunde of Leyden. When our correspondence began I said to him that my acquaintance with Dutch was limited, but that if he would write in either French or German I could get along comfortably. He gave no attention to this suggestion, but wrote to me in English.
The Comte de Paris, the Bourbon claimant of the throne of France and an aide-de-camp upon the staff of General George B. McClellan, when he was engaged in the preparation of his history of the War of the Rebellion, wrote to me a letter or two concerning the manufacture of the Griffen Gun at Phœnixville. That is as near as I have ever come to association with royalty, except that I once dined at the Hotel Bellevue with the present King of the Belgians. He had come over here to view the country, no doubt, as a means of enlarging his scope and preparing him for his prospective duties. I chatted with him for a ​while in French and found him polite but very much like other people who are met at dinners.
When I came to the bar my dear good mother said that she had only two ambitions for me which she would like to have gratified. She would like me at some time to reach the bench and she would like to see me a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania. No doubt, in her early married life, my father coming recently from the medical school, had impressed her with the dignity and importance of the board of trustees who in their formal visits to the college seemed to him to be both grave and august. When John Welsh, who had been at the head of the Centennial Exposition, and had been Minister from the United States to England, died, in 1886, I was elected to take his place on the board of trustees. Generally these places are filled by selections from among people of large means and of social consequence, but somehow it happened. It has been a satisfaction to me, as I have gone through life, to know that all of the institutions with which I have been associated and many of the persons with whom I have been upon friendly terms have secured advantages from the association to a greater extent than could have been reasonably anticipated. The University is no exception, and even in the way of financial aid, it has received more through my efforts than from many others of very large resources. One day on going down Sixth Street I met a lawyer who told me he had come from an argument before an auditor claiming a fund which had been the assets of a defunct hospital. I hastened to the auditor, claimed the fund for the University of Pennsylvania, and, although the testimony had been closed, succeeded in getting a hearing. The auditor awarded the fund to me, and on exceptions and argument his report was confirmed by the court of common pleas. Although through too much earnestness I gained the antipathy of Lawrence Lewis, Jr., who had expected to get the sum for an institution which he ​represented, I carried a check for nearly six thousand dollars to the trustees in triumph. In numerous papers I pointed out the relations which had existed between the state and the University and did much to bring about their restoration. When I became Governor, by the Act of May 15, 1903, an appropriation of one hundred thousand dollars was made for the maintenance of the University, thus setting a precedent which has been followed since. It has gradually come about that in almost all of the efforts of the institution before the legislature and the councils of the city I have been called upon to be a spokesman. Before I became a trustee the University always traced its origin to a pamphlet written by Franklin in 1749, but I succeeded in proving that it really began with a charity school for which a building was erected in 1740, thus adding nine years to its life at the other end and making it antedate Princeton. Since my presentation of proofs to the trustees the catalogues have all borne the date of 1740. When I entered the board of trustees, at the head of the institution sat the Provost, Dr. William Pepper, in his time and in various lines of work one of the most capable men in the city. As a physician, he had a large and lucrative practice. Short in stature, with little flesh, with light eyes and a nose curving slightly, he had a bland smile and a most persuasive manner. Politicians gave him the credit of rivaling the ablest in political skill. As a physician he entered the sick chamber, smiled on the woman patient, gave her confidence, made her better and charged her $500. Mrs. Haldeman, of Harrisburg, daughter of Simon Cameron, always kept his portrait hanging in her parlor. Indefatigable and persistent, he was ever at work and died young. He could go to sleep whenever he chose and sitting in his carriage talking would say, “Excuse me for five minutes,” and drop off into a nap from which, at the appointed moment, he aroused. The original American Pfeiffer came among the German peasants to Lebanon ​County and going from there to Philadelphia about 1790, built a brewery, made a fortune and founded a family. Nothing of his antecedents is known, but both physical and mental traits in his descendants suggest a Hebrew lineage. Dr. Pepper was the real founder of the present great fortunes of the University, and under his management it advanced with huge strides. Charles C. Harrison, short, stout, with dark eyes, succeeded him and has devoted the efforts of a lifetime to the benefit of the institution. He is more direct in his methods, stronger in character and intelligence and possesses a larger fortune which, with continuous generosity, he devotes to the same object. I know no other instance of such self-sacrifice for the sake of general good. Under his direction the institution has made still greater progress in all ways, and has taken again its former place in the foremost rank of American universities.
Among the trustees those in my time who have taken the most active interest in the work have been Dr. S. Weir Mitchell; Samuel Dickson, chancellor of the Law Association; Joseph S. Harris, president of the Philadelphia and Reading Railway; Joseph G. Rosengarten; Samuel F. Houston and J. Levering Jones.
Dr. S. Weir Mitchell has won success in medicine in the treatment of nervous diseases and in literature in the production of novels. Among American historical novels Hugh Wynne is probably unexcelled. A tall, gaunt and homely man with a thin beard and mustache, he is autocratic, assertive and full of egotism, but, nevertheless, companionable and entertaining. He wrote to me a long autograph letter, which I still have, in a scrawling hand, about the construction of Hugh Wynne, in which he says the old narrow-minded Quaker father was an attempt to delineate the traits of a Presbyterian he had known. Once when he had completed an address at the Academy of Music he brought and gave to me the proof with his ​manuscript notes. It has been said that we look somewhat alike. Physically he is extremely nervous, having little control of his hands, so that the query arises as it did about the frog, why he does not cure himself, but such queries lead to the deeper mysteries and are unanswerable. No man has been more important in the literary, professional and social life of the city than Mitchell. The letter to which I have referred, giving the author's explanation and estimate of Hugh Wynne, his most successful book, follows:
November 4, '97.
Dear Judge,—I take my large paper because of having more to say than I can with comfort get into note paper.
I wish, first, to say how much pleasure your letter gave me; it is despatched from a critical standpoint, so remote from that of the newspaper critics that, forme, it is a quite precious and thought-compelling document. To take it in detail, I shall like, some time, to see your treasures and talk over these for days. Next, yes, Mt. Hope is a pen-slip, to be amended, as in the second edition have been many minor errors of name, place or date.
No, Mr. Wolfe, Mr. Webb, Mr. Howe, are in the Virginians and Esmond for Gen'l W., etc. It was usual unless the men were on duty. Even now, it is our army usage to address, in social life, all men under a major in rank as Mr.
Ardmore, Bryn Mawr are recent names and as to this I hesitated long. To use them brought the matter in hand within the realizing capacities of the dullest, and I was trying to make a great story leap into life again—an intended error in name or time did not affect me as a novel writer.
In Quentin Durward the wild Boar of Ardennes is killed fifteen years before the true time of his demise and of quite other fashion. As to Conshohocken and Norristown people who criticise and many they be that forget that H. W. presumably wrote these authentic memoirs circa in the 1820's when Norristown and Conshohocken had nominal existence.
H. W. is an autobiography with the limitations of that rarely used form. With the ego one can get a sense of personal product. Without it we lose this charm. In Esmond, Thackeray shirked it and made his hero tell his tale in the third person nearly throughout. Hence there is in Esmond no sense of its being a man's tale ​of himself. It was a mistake with the third person. Th'y ties himself to the limitations of the first. I mention Esmond because H. W. is frequently compared to it or to Th'ys solemn failure, The Virginians. All this is to point out to my kindly critic why in an autobiography I could not broadly paint those wonderful Quaker people. My, or the old father John W. is the only picture from the life in my book. It is not as a Quaker that he is drawn. The original was a Presbyterian. I cut out some of my Quaker matter as making the book too long, but in Pemberton, Howell and Wetherill I think I have within my space done dignified justice to Friends; so say at least some who have read it. One in Germantown told Mr. S. he could not read fiction, but that perhaps H. W. was in a manner an allegory?
I read last night the to-be-read parts of your book. What a strange and interesting story — 3,000 from the lines of two. In 1783 came hither Jn. Cadwalader. Up to 28 years ago there had been 77 males of his name.
With my salutation of repeated thanks, I am
                      Yours truly,
                         S. Weir Mitchell.
In March, 1872, I was elected a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, which then occupied as its hall the building 920 Spruce Street owned by the Pennsylvania Hospital, which had been erected for the accommodation of West's painting of Christ Healing the Sick. Ere long I became a member of the council and vice-president, and in 1900 was elected to the presidency. This event marked an innovation in the conduct of the Society. Up to my time the president had always been selected from among families long identified with the life of the city and had always dwelt south of Market Street. Soon after my election and through my intervention the Society received from the state $150,000, which enabled it to erect a commodious fireproof hall at 1300 Locust Street. No more useful expenditure of the moneys of the state could have been made, since here are preserved the records of its achievement which were scattered and lost from Harrisburg ​and have been laboriously gathered together by the Society. Its collections of books and manuscripts are in many respects the richest in the country. At the dedication of the new hall in 1910 I made an address tracing its origin and development which has since been printed. The institution has been a marvelous instance of steady progress in resources and accomplishment. When I became a member John William Wallace was the president, a man of broad culture, who early in life attracted attention at home and in Europe by his book upon The Reporters of law cases. He had been reporter for the Supreme Court of the United States. He wrote attractively and presided at the meetings gracefully. A descendant of the Bradfords, the early printers, he saw to it that during his regime the books printed by them were sedulously collected. When he died, Brinton Coxe succeeded. A descendant of Dr. Daniel Coxe, one of the proprietors of West Jersey, and, coming of a family which had made a fortune from coal lands, he was much a gentleman of leisure. He had written books of value and was generous in his gifts. He had dark eyes, side whiskers and a kindly manner, but it was nervous torture for him to appear in public, and he fumbled through to the end of what little he had to say. He was succeeded by Dr. Charles J. Stillé, of an old Swedish family, who had been provost of the University of Pennsylvania and had the benefit of wide literary experience and cultivation. His Life of Wayne, written in old age, and too hurriedly, is disappointing, but his Life of William Smith and his pamphlet upon How a Free People Conduct a Great War are both admirable studies. He left a large bequest to the Society. But its success did not at all depend upon the efforts of its presidents. Whenever human institutions thrive, whether they be political, literary or theological, it is because there is connected with the organization some person of intelligence who has its interests at heart, who is willing to work with head and hands, who is ready ​to sacrifice himself, if need be—and generally he has to—and who selects and sets aside the ostensible heads with a view to the welfare of the cause. The vestryman of the church never becomes a bishop and the boss of the party never reaches the presidency.
An insignificant looking little man named John Jordan, Jr., retired from business, with dark eyes, weighing about one hundred and twenty pounds, with a low voice, wearing a wig, and possessing a will, who could not make a speech and never wrote a book, guided the fortunes of the Society. What he said was done. If money was needed he gave it. If he saw a description of a rare book in a catalogue it was bought. He belonged to the Moravian Church and hence it happens that our shelves smile with the richness of the collections of the literature of the followers of John Huss and Ludwig, Count Zinzendorff. At every dinner of the Society his memory is toasted. After him came Frederick D. Stone, ruddy, stout and sandy. He had failed in business, but he had capacity, nevertheless. He had no pecuniary resources, but he had a keen scent, was specially well informed with regard to events of the Revolutionary War and was ever alert in watching for opportunities to aid the institution. He selected the members of the council and the officials, and men who were loud in their denunciations of Quay and Hanna submitted quietly to the domination of Stone.
A more striking figure than either was Charles R. Hildeburn. He came out of a drug store and was substantially without education. He was young, thin and had no stomach which could digest. He was ever on the wire edge of nervous overthrow. He did not chew tobacco, but he ate it. He could not bear stimulants and used them to excess. Violent and domineering, he quarreled with everybody. He worked until four o'clock in the morning and slept with difficulty. But he had unbounded energy and appreciation of imprints, typography and the importance of a ​book, seen for the first time, which amounted almost to genius. He did much to enhance the value of the collections and in his Issues of the Press of Pennsylvania, in the production of which I aided him materially, he produced a book which is a marvel of research. One day he came to consult with me. We differed about the date of an imprint or some such trifle. He called me a liar, and I ordered him out of the office. He could not help yielding to impulse. He died in young manhood and is likewise gratefully remembered.
On the third of April, 1888, Colonel Oliver C. Bosbyshell, who was one of the First Defenders to reach Washington on April 18, 1861, Dr. Herman Burgin, Horace Burgin, Major J. Edward Carpenter, who took part in Keenan's charge at Chancellorsville, Robert P. Dechert, William C. Houston, Charles Marshall, John W. Jordan, J. Granville Leach, William Brooke Rawle, Richard M. Cadwalader, William Wayne and myself, met in the dingy little office of Herman Burgin and organized the Pennsylvania Society Sons of the Revolution, composed of the descendants of those who participated in the War of the Revolution. It has since grown to a membership of over a thousand and every year gives a reception on the twenty-second of February, attends a service at Christ Church on the anniversary of the beginning of the encampment at Valley Forge, and makes a pilgrimage to some revolutionary field in June on the anniversary of the evacuation of that camp.
I have made addresses before the members—once in the State House, twice at Valley Forge, once at Pennypacker's Mills and once at Neshaminy, and, as chairman of a committee, raised most of the moneys they now have with which to erect a statue to Anthony Wayne. In the Decennial Register of the Society, published in 1898, are copies of an original map of Valley Forge which I secured in Amsterdam, and of the music of one of the dances of the ​Meschianza, also discovered by me, both of them of great interest because of the light they throw upon that struggle.
I still remember the day when, being than a child seven years of age, perhaps, I picked up in the garden a piece of white flint of curious shape and took it to my father to make inquiries. I recall with complete distinctness, after so many impressions made since have disappeared, its shape, the corner of the garden in which it lay, and even the time of the day. He explained to me that I had found an arrow head made by the Indians and he pointed out to me the details of manufacture and the method of use. A very slight incident often is not only the beginning of habit, but the turning point of character. A career is often fixed by the most trivial of occurrences. If any fact, no matter how comparatively unimportant it seemed, could be omitted from the past, the whole history of the world would be changed. If three hundred years ago a young man had not, upon a summer evening, gone out to the garden gate, George Washington would never have been born, and the colonies perhaps would have remained dependencies. If a Dutchman had lost instead of making a profit on a negro slave three hundred years ago there might have been no Battle at Gettysburg.
John H. Converse once told me that when he was a young man, anxiously seeking an opportunity in life, he was offered a clerkship at a small salary in Chicago and had made all of his arrangements to go there gladly. At the last moment some unexpected event occurred to prevent, and he remained in Philadelphia to become, eventually, the head of the Baldwin Locomotive Works.
I never overcame the tendency which started when my father enabled me to understand the significance of the piece of quartz I had picked up, and all through my boyhood and young manhood, upon occasion, I hunted through the fields, which had been plowed for corn, for the implements lost or thrown away by the Indians, and ​my somewhat extensive collection is preserved at Pennypacker's Mills. Once, on the high ground on the opposite side of the Schuylkill from Phœnixville, I found a cache of fifty-six stone blades, six inches long and two and a half inches in width, made of argillite, blue within, oxydized and green without. At Green Hill, a romantic spot a mile below Phœnixville, overlooking the river, now being torn to pieces and ruined by a brickyard, was the site of an Indian village where the implements were numerous. I found there on one occasion a hammer, neatly fashioned, of quartz, which gave evidence that in their work the Indians were not without the artistic sense.
When I went to the city to live, where there were no such opportunities, I naturally enough turned to the gathering of books, with the result that when I went to Harrisburg in 1903 I left locked up in my house, 1540 North Fifteenth Street, in Philadelphia, over ten thousand volumes. In the main they were books relating to Pennsylvania and early imprints of the province and the state. It was the most complete collection of material of that kind which any individual had ever possessed, and in some respects was unequaled by any public library. The Boston Public Library has made it a policy to collect the books printed by Franklin and had succeeded in securing about eighty, while I had about two hundred and fifty. There were also the most complete collections of the publications of Ephrata, of the Sowers in Germantown, and of Robert Bell in Philadelphia, to whom must be accorded the credit of introducing literature into America. Sower printed the Testament in German seven times, at Germantown, before it appeared anywhere in America in English, and I still possess the only complete set of these Testaments. My library contained a full representation of the imprints of the inland towns of Pennsylvania, a copy of the Nuremburg Chronicle of 1493, a fair set of the Sessions Laws of Pennsylvania, the early magazines and newspapers, the finest known ​set of The Portfolio, the fullest collection of Vorschrifften, representing the art of the Germans of the state, the best collection of the literature of the Mennonites and the Schwenkfelders, an Aitken Bible, the first American Bible in English, a set of original war maps of the battles of the Revolution, the autobiography in manuscript of Benjamin West, his original study of the Death of Wolfe, an autograph portrait of West and a portrait of Franklin by West. These are sufficient to indicate its importance.
After I had been separated from my books for over two years, and since they prevented any other use of the house and were subject to the danger of fire and thieves, I selected about two thousand volumes, including the large mass of family literature, the local books and those relating to the Mennonites and Schwenkfelders, and sold the rest. Those sold were described in eight catalogues making four large octavo volumes which form a full record of original sources for the history of Pennsylvania. My collection of Frankliniana has been called by Tregaskis of London “unrivalled.” Certainly it was more comprehensive than that of Henry Stevens, for which the Government of the United States paid $35,000. The ownership of these books gave me the opportunity to understand Franklin in one phase of his work, with the result that my estimate of his achievement is far from the conventional standard. He was a job printer. He printed solely for gain and nothing that can be regarded as a contribution to learning or literature came from his press. He printed the Votes of Assembly and the Sessions Laws, the opportunity for doing which he secured through political influence, and when Benjamin Lay paid him for printing one of the earliest books against slave-keepers, it appeared without his imprint because it was an unpopular effort. His most important work in the way of his art was the part he took in publishing Sewell's History of the Quakers, but that was given to him by Keimer, the generous old ​enthusiast of whom he speaks so slightingly in his autobiography. He was the genius of worldly wisdom. He remained with the Quakers so long as they retained power and left them when they lost it. He secured the favors of women without marriage. He gave to the Pennsylvania Hospital the outlawed debts of his firm, which had no value because uncollectible, and gained a reputation for philanthropy. The Library Company of Philadelphia has been called the Franklin Library, although it contains the really valuable collection made by James Logan, and its records show that Thomas Bond bought and gave to it Franklin's newspaper and Franklin gave to it practically nothing. He claimed to have founded the University of Pennsylvania, because he wrote a pamphlet, although he endeavored to prevent Dr. William Smith, the provost and real founder, from getting money in England for its support. He claimed to have founded the American Philosophical Society, although its minutes show that he never read a scientific paper before it and while president even failed to attend the meetings.
My books came to me in all kinds of ways, and from over the earth, and I became known to the dealers and writers not only at home but in Amsterdam, London and Berlin. Some of the incidents which occur in the search for out-of-the-way treasures are both romantic and dramatic. Gus Egolf, short and stout, with a wen on the back of his neck nearly as large as his head, a keen dealer in old furniture and old books, lived and still lives in Norristown, where he has a store. Often I went “incog” in an old suit and broken hat with him to the sales of the German farmers in the country and I have bought as many as a three-bushel-bag full of books at a sale. The auctioneer would hold them up at a window, half a dozen at a time, and knock them down for a few pennies. There was little or no opportunity for preliminary examination and often the purchase proved to be of little value, but every once ​in a while there turned up a Franklin, an Ephrata or a Sower imprint. In this way I secured nearly all of my Schwenkfelder literature. Of the Reformers, Luther was a charcoal burner; Calvin was a peasant; and among them all the only man of long lineage and high culture was Caspar Schwenkfeld von Ossing, a nobleman of Silesia. He taught a system of sweet and pure theology which, carried through the Mennonites of Holland to England, led to the origin of the Quakers. His treatises were published in quarto form, as they were written, from about 1526 to about 1560, and are much in demand in the libraries of Europe. But since nearly all of his sect came to Pennsylvania in 1734, these books are found here almost exclusively. In my library are over ninety of the original issues and almost all of them. The sect being comparatively few in numbers, their literature was almost entirely produced in manuscript after they came to Pennsylvania—neatly written, often beautifully illuminated, strongly bound and carefully preserved. The Schwenkfelders arrived on the 24th of September (1734), and set that day apart as an annual day of thanksgiving or “Gedächtniss Tag,” and they have maintained its observance ever since, and in this respect stand alone. Their books, their woolen spreads, their handsomely carved and inlaid furniture, and the sweet faces of the women in their plain caps and dresses all tell of inherited cultivation. At their sales all were invited to dinner, whether or not anything was bought, and everything on the table—from ham and eggs to molasses pies—was tempting. In the cities I have often seen people acting on the assumption, and even heard them boasting, of their ancestral achievement with very little evidence in proof, and I have gone to a Schwenkfelder home where lay on a table, without ostentation, a folio manuscript written by some learned and devout forefather three hundred years ago. Among them I found an early edition of Savonarola, an early edition of the ​Imitation of Christ, a copy of the Anabaptist translation of the Prophets by Ludwig Hetzer and Hans Denck, four editions of the hymn book of the followers of John Huss, which is a great rarity in Europe, a manuscript of the hymn written by George Weiss for the first Gedächtniss Tag in 1735, many manuscripts written upon the paper made at the Rittenhouse Paper Mill on the Wissahickon, the earliest in America.
Among the Mennonites along the Skippack, a thrifty and more numerous but less literary people, I found a copy of the first German edition of the Fundamentum of Menno Simons, published in the Palatinate in 1575; the two editions of the Schulordnung of Christopher Dock (the earliest American essay on pedagogy); the Geistliches Magazien of Saur (our earliest religious magazine); a copy of the work of Henry Funk, the Mennonite preacher on the Indian Creek in Montgomery County, Pa., printed by Armbruster in Philadelphia in 1763; but most important of all, the great Martyr Book of Van Braght, the most imposing literary production of colonial America, printed at Ephrata in 1749. I wrote an essay upon it and made it widely known. Henry Funk and Dielman Kolb of Skippack supervised the translation and I was fortunate enough to find the specially bound copy which belonged to Funk with his autograph in it and likewise the copy which belonged to Jacob Kolb, brother of Dielman, and the copy retained in the cloister at Ephrata by “Bruder Amos.”
There had been a long-standing controversy in Holland over the dates of the birth and death of Menno Simons, the distinctive Reformer of the Netherlands, one set of scholars contending for 1492-1559 and the other for 1496-1561. When I first became interested in the subject I wondered how it arose, since in the Dutch edition of his works in folio, published in 1681, there appeared his statement of when he left the Roman Catholic Church and how old he was at the time. Later I discovered, however, ​that in the earlier edition of 1646 this statement did not appear, thus proving that somebody had inserted it later. In the controversy one of the authorities relied upon was Gerhard Roosen, a noted preacher who died in 1711 at Hamburg, aged a hundred years, and whose grandmother had known Menno personally. One day I received a letter from a man out in Ohio saying he had an old Menno Simons book which he would sell to me for two dollars. Though this was the only description and nothing could be told about condition and little about substance, it was not much to risk and I wrote to him to send it to me by express. When it arrived, behold, it was a copy of the 1646 edition of the works of Menno which had belonged to Gerhard Roosen. In it Roosen had made a number of notes in manuscript and among others one which told of a visit he had made in 1649 with Peter Jans Moyer and Tobias Govertz van den Wijngaert to the grave of Menno, that he was born in 1492 and died in 1559 and was buried in his own cabbage garden. I sent the information, thus remarkably and accidently discovered, to Dr. Scheffer, of Amsterdam, who embodied it in an article printed in the Doopsgezinde Bijdragen, and in this way in America was settled an uncertain question of the remote past in Europe which their libraries and scholars could not determine.
In the shop of David McKay, on Ninth Street above Walnut, lay a pile of religious and, therefore, seemingly pecuniarily valueless books which had just come in from the country. But among them I found a fine copy of Truth Exalted, the first book printed by William Bradford in New York, which, in the judgment of experts, had displaced the Laws, before regarded as the first, and the latter had brought at auction $1,600. McKay sold it to me with two or three other books for a dollar.
In the auction room of Davis and Harvey in a corner lay a heap of books which had the appearance of rubbish. ​Out of it I picked an old Dutch book. Said Henkels, “If you want that, take it along.” It proved to be the first book in Dutch in America, a catechism of the Reformed Church written in Albany, printed by Bradford and before unknown.
William Brotherhead had a second-hand book store on South Street west of Broad. From his shelves I selected a little volume of poems by Edgar Allan Poe, printed when he was a cadet at West Point by Elam Bliss, which had been thrown away by the Cadwalader family and for which I paid sixty cents. I had no knowledge of Poe editions and was not seeking it, but there is an instinct born within which guides a man in these pursuits. The day was one of idleness and I went from there to the auction rooms to look over a library offered for sale. At the time George P. Philes, a very wise man in his knowledge of books, and others of the craft were gathered in an inner room, and as I wandered about I overheard the conversation. One of them said: “I wonder whether that second edition of Poe will ever turn up again?” The remark caught my attention and I stepped closer.
“Is it a scarce book?” I inquired.
“Did you ever see a copy?” came the query instead of a response.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I have one in my pocket.”
I produced it and astonishment gathered over their faces.
“Do you know what that book brought in the Brinley sale?” asked Philes.
“No, I don't know what it brought in the Brinley sale.”
“One hundred and fifty dollars.”
“I am very glad to hear it.”
At this time there was a man in town named Frank E. ​Marshall, who had been a flour merchant, as sharp as a scythe-blade, who had turned his attention to books, book-plates and autographs. At a sale appeared a letter written by James Wilson, the Philadelphia lawyer who did the most in preparing the Constitution of the United States in 1787, and became a Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States, to George Washington, introducing to him Colonel Ephraim Blaine, the grandfather of James G. Blaine. I wanted the letter. Marshall bought it for thirty-three dollars. Soon it became noised about over the town in this narrow sphere that I had found the Poe and it was not long before Marshall, who was in a heat over the pursuit of material relating to Poe, came to me to try his luck. I said to him, "Marshall, you and I understand the situation perfectly. We never make the useless inquiry what was paid for a thing. I do not care for the Poe and you have some things I should like to have. If you will make up enough of them to equal in market value the Poe, you may have it. He finally gave me the Wilson letter, a copy of the Philadelphia edition of the Yellow Plush Papers, which, strange to say, is the proof that the first publication of a book of Thackeray occurred in Philadelphia, The Simple Cobbler of Agawam and two or three Franklin imprints, and carried off the book he wanted.
At a sale at the house of a Schwenkfelder family named Kriebel, in Montgomery County, I bought a quantity of material which was sent to my office at 209 South Sixth Street and there, after selecting whatever appeared to be of importance, the residuum of imperfect and more recent papers was thrown on a shelf and there lay for years. It was then carried up to my office at Broad and Chestnut streets and likewise left neglected. It was then taken to my home and piled on an upper shelf. One rainy Sunday afternoon I was turning it over, when the peculiar words concerning a turtle dove singing in the wilderness caught my attention and suggested Ephrata. Thoroughly aroused, ​I examined it critically and found a date too early for the Dunkers of Ephrata. Then I found some initials and recognized the chirography of Johannes Kelpius. Comparison made the inference certain. The hymn book of the Hermits of the Wissahickon with hymns written by Kelpius, Seelig and Koster lay before me and one of the most important discoveries I ever made occurred amid the waste in my own library.
I made a visit to Samuel Pennypacker, a farmer living at the upper end of The Trappe, who entertained me at dinner sitting on a long bench before a table without cloth or napkins, and with the food for the family in one large dish in the center. He gave to me an old Bible which he said was of no use to him and which had been thrown with some other stuff into a worn-out clothes basket in the garret. It proved to be the Bible which belonged to my great-great-great-grandmother's grandfather, printed at Heidelberg in 1568, containing a family record and many interesting manuscript notes, which has now been in the family for ten generations and much antedating every other family possession.
I sadly wanted a letter of Washington written at Pennypacker's Mills and sought for it long and earnestly. Once it seemed to be within my grasp. The letters of Israel Putnam, taken out to Ohio by Rufus Putnam, were found in a garret there and published in a Chicago newspaper. Washington had written to him to send on a reinforcement of a thousand men from Peekskill. Fearing his letter had miscarried, he wrote again in almost the same words. Here were two letters almost in duplicate, and the second one was dated at Pennypacker's Mills. I groveled before the owner, offering him money, another letter of Washington of greater importance, and whatever inducements I could think of, but he was obdurate and my efforts were all in vain. Moses Pollock kept a book store in the second story of a building on the south side of Commerce Street ​west of Fifth, a Hebrew, nearly eighty years of age, with rare intelligence and abundant information. Business had long swept away to other parts of the city and only a select few knew of his existence. Having sufficient substance, he made no effort to sell and ever rejoiced when the customer departed, and regretted when he took anything along. One of the sorrows of Pollock's life was that he had sold the Bradford Laws to Dr. Brinley for $16 and had seen it later produce $1,600, and he explained the transaction to me rather pathetically that the book had lain around his store for thirty years and no one ever wanted it. In the rear of his office was a fireproof in which he kept locked up rarities which no one ever saw. One day something softened his heart and he opened this fireproof and brought out a bundle of papers which he put down on the table before me. I proceeded to open and examine them. There were some Cincinnati pamphlets, some Franklin imprints and along with some other papers, a folio letter of Washington written from Pennypacker's Mills to John Hancock, telling him of the council of war held in the house which determined to fight the Battle of Germantown. The time had come. Said I:
“Pollock, I must have that letter. You can make any bargain you choose, but I must have that letter.” And throwing myself upon his mercy, I explained to him the reasons. I said further:
“I have an important letter of Washington which I will bring down and show you.”
My letter was a fine folio in which the General told the Commissary of Prisoners that Cornwallis was not to be exchanged. After seeing it. Pollock did not need to be informed of its military consequence. Said he:
“You have a couple of books I should like.” My reply was:
“You can have them."
I gave him the letter about Cornwallis and the two books ​and went away with the other letter rejoicing. The story has a sequel. When Pollock died his things were sold and among them was my Cornwallis letter. It brought $850. Mine lies in a drawer in the house, like a corner-stone which could not be sold or removed, and has cost me $850 beside two books.
Brotherhead, in 1898, published a little book upon the book-sellers and book-hunters of the city in which he gives the following kindly, but not altogether complimentary, description of myself:
* ↑ Written by request in early life for a public entertainment given at Phœnixville at which were represented a number of historic women.
* ↑ “I have examined three note books in his own handwriting which contain the record of his literary studies. They begin in October, 1863, and close, without omission of a single year, in 1916. They combine the features of common-place books, anthologies, quotations of striking passages both in prose and poetry, with careful lists of the authors read, the number of pages contained in each, arranged under appropriate headings. They embrace Greek, Latin, French, German, Dutch, Italian and Spanish as well as English books, carefully summarized. In 1863, he read a total of 21,130 pages of which 5,336 were in law and 15,794 in general literature. In the former, Coke-Littleton, Blackstone, Kent, Sir William Jones, Burlamaqui, and Williams alternated with Voltaire, Rousseau, Des Cartes, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Goethe, Spenser, Byron, Dryden, Pope, Wordsworth, Tennyson, Chaucer and Swinburne. During the succeeding years he fell but little below this average. Even while he was Governor, oppressed with the affairs of state, he refreshed himself with literature, reading the Bible from cover to cover for the fourth time; in 1904 reading 27,934 pages, of which 1321 were in German, 48 in Dutch, and 216 in Italian. In 1906, while still in office, he ran the figures up to 31,578 pages, of which 779 were in German and 1002 in French. His list for that year includes all of Shakespeare's English historical plays, Henry IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, King John, Richard II and Richard III. In that year, as in former ones, he filled pages with quotations from what he had read. In 1910 while at Pennypacker's Mills, he filled 89 pages with extracts from Latin, French and old English authors. In 1916, while sick and suffering, he read Poe, Macaulay, Bayard Taylor's novels Joseph and The Story of Kennett, the Life of Menno Simons, Charles Francis Adams's Autobiography, Trollope and Koster's Secrets of German Success. Through all the years, at frequently recurring intervals he returned to Bunyan, Milton and Thomas à Kempis.” — Samuel W. Pennypacker: An address delivered before the Philobiblon Club, October 26, 1916, by Hampton L. Carson, Esq., Philadelphia: The Philobiblon Club, 1917.