Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1881-02-04
The Quaker Origin of Wilmington,
Delaware.

Dame Elizabeth Shipley had dream
She was living at the time-which was
in the year of grace 173O-at Ridley
Township, near the good town of Phila-
delphia. Her husband, William, who
was of honest, plodaing English couu-
try folk, was not one that dream would
lie upon; for such natures as his are OF
hard, dry substance, in which flowers
of Imagination do not bloom freely, and
from which the dews of night pass
readily in the open daylight. But Eli.
zabeth's dream lay upon her mind the
next day, and she told it to her hus-
band. 1t was thus: She was travelling
on horseback, along high-road, and
after time she came to a wild and tur-
bulent stream, which she forded with
difficulty; teyond this stream she
mounted long and steep hillside;
when she arrived at its summit great
view of surprising beauty spread out
before her. The hill wherein she stood
melted away in the distance into broad
savannah, treeless and covered with
iuxuriant grass. On either side of the
hill ran stream-upon one, the wild
water-course which she had Just crossed j;
upon the other, snake like river that
wound sluggishly aloEg in the sunlight.
Then for the first time she saw that a
guide accompanied her, and she spoke
to him:
"Friend, what country is this that
thou hast taken me to-"
elizabeth Shipley," answered he,
beneath thee lieth new land and a
fruitful, and it is the design of Divine
Providence that thou shouldst enter in
thereto, thou and thy people. and ye
shall be enriched even unto the seventh
generation. Therefore, leave the pla e
where now thou dwellest, and enter
into and take possession of this land
even as the children of Israel took pos,
session of the land of Canaan" He
finished speaking, and she turned to
look, he vanished, and she awoke.
William Shipley babe his wife think
no more of her dreams, for if one pulls
up blue beans after they have sprouted,
ones pot is like to go empty. So, meet
ing with no encouragement, after some
days the sharpness of her dream became
dulled against the hard things of every
day life.
A year passed, and Elizabeth received
Divine call to go and preach at a
meeting Of the Society of Friends held
in that peninsula that lies between the
Delaware and Chesapeake bays. It was
in the spring time. when the meadows
were clad with bright green, when the
woodlands were soft with tender leaves.
unfolding timidly in the generous
warmth of the sun, when the birds
sang, when the cocks crowed Justify,
when the wren chartered under the
caves, and all the air was burdened
with the sweetness of the apple bios
SONS, among which the bees swarmed
with drowsy hum. So she set forth on
her journey, jogging southwark along
the old Kings Road. She passed many
streams Of sweet water untainted with
lime, where the little fish darted here
and there as her old gray farm-horse
went splashing across their pebbly
reaches. After a journey of sixteen or
eighteen miles she came to O roaring
stream that cut through recovered
highlands, and came raging and rush
ing down over great rocks and boold-
ers. The cawing of crows in the woods
and solitary eagle that went sailing
thr6 ugh the air, was all the life that
broke the solitude of the place. As she
he STATED on the bank before entering
the rough, looking ford, marked ut each
end by sapling pole to which red
flag was fastened, the whole scene
seemed strangely familiar to her. After
she had crossed the stream she began
ascending hill up which the highway
led, that feeling strong upon her which
one has ut times of having lived through
such scene before. at the top of the
hill she came to clearing in the forest
where an old Swede had built him hut,
and begun to till the land. Here the
woods unfolded like curtain, and be-
meath her she saw the hill melt away
into level meadows that spread far to
great river sparkling in the sunlight
away in tho distance. Upon one hand
ran a sluggish river curving through
the meadows; on the other, the brawl-
ing stream she had just crossed. She
sat in silence looking at the scene, while
the little barefoot Swedish children
gathered at the door of the hut, looking
with blue-eyed wonder at the stranger;
then clasping her hands, she cried
aloud, " Behold, it is the land of my
vision, and here will 1 pitch my tent!"
Over the wooded hill-sides and across
the grassy savannahs which Dame Ship.
ley saw first in her dream and afterward
in the reality, now spreads busy and
populous city, of which she and her
husband were the chief founders. The
smoke from factory chimneys streaks
the air with black ribbons of vapor; on
the breeze came the clatter, the. rattle,
and the hammering of the great ship
yards that now lie along the banks of
the slow-running, snake-like river that
she saw in her dream; while beside the
other brawling stream stand cotton,
wooden, paper, flour and powder mills.
Everywhere is the busy excitement and
teeming rush of close population. That
unc "a cnwar khoE tho cnoI on1 this