Sharp County record., 1881-03-10
The Quaker Origin Of Wilmington, Del
aware.

one was llNlbS "0 INV n. n
in the year of grace 173O-at Ridly
Township, near the good town OF Fhll-
adelphia. Her husband, William, who
was of honest, plodding English country
folk. was not one that dream would
lie upon; for such natures as his are OF
hard, drv substance, in which flowers
Of IMAGINATION do not bloom freely, and
from which the dews of night pass read
ily in the open daylight. But Eliza
beth's dream lay upon her mind the
next day, and she told it to her husband
II was thus: She was travelling on horse
back along high-road, and after time
she came to wild and turbulent stream,
which she forded with diliculty; beyond
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
wbereon she stood melted away in the
distance into a broad savannah, treeles>
and covered with luxuriant grass. On
either side of the hill ran a stream
upcn one, the wild water-cOurSe which
she had just crossed; upon the other, a
snake-like river that wound sluggiShly
along in the sunlight. Then for the
first time she saw that guide accom-
panied her, and she spoke TO him.
" Friend, what country is this that
thou hast taken me tO?"
elizabeth Shlpley," answered, he
"heneath thee lieth q 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 now leave the
place where now thou dwellest, and
enter into and take possession Of this
land, even as the children Of Israel took
possession of the land of Canaan" D." He
finished speaking, and as she turned to
look, he vanished, and she awoke.
William hipley bade his wife think
no more of her dreams, for if one pulls
up blue beans after they have sprouted,
ones pot is like to 60 empty. So,
meeting with no encouragement, after
some days the sharpness of her dream
became dulled against the hard things
ofevery-day life.
A year passed, and Elizabeth re-
ceived Divine call to 60 and preach
at meeting Of the Society of Friends
held in that peninsula that lies between
the Delaware and Chesapeake bays. 1t
was in the spring time, when the
meadows were clad with bright green,
when the woodlands were soft with ten
der 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
line, 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 roaring
stream that cut through tree-covered
Mhlands and came raging and rushing
down over great rocks and bowl
ders. The cawing Of crows in the
woods, and solitary eagle that went
sailing through the air, was all the
life that broke the solitude of the place.
As she hesitated on the bank before en-
tering the rough-looking ford, marked
at each end by sapling pole to which
a red rag was fastened, the whole scene
seemed strangely familiar to her. After
she had crossed the stream she began
ascending q hill up which the highway
led, that feeling strong upon her which
one has at times of having lived through
such a scene before. At the top of the
hill she came to a clearing in the forest
where an old Swede had built him hut,
and begun to till the land. Here the
woods unfolded like a curtain, and be-
meath her she saw the hill melt away
into level meadows that spread far to a
great river sparkling in the sunlight
away in the distance. Upon one hand
ran a sluggish river curving through the
meadows; on the other, the brawling
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 l pitch my tent"
Over the wooded hill-sides and across
the grassy savannahs which Dame Ship
ley saw first in her dream and after
ward 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 come 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,
woolen, paper, flour and powder mills.
Everywhere is the busy excitement and
teeming rush of close population. That
was the sower, that the seed and this
the fruit that grew from 1.-THE city ol
Wilmington, the metropolis of Della
ware-Howard Pyle, in Harper'S Maga-