Lancaster daily intelligencer. [volume] (Lancaster, Pa.) 1864-1928, 1885-02-26

| in that alley during the Revolution |
went and looked, and you can see them
there for yourself gentle reader, il you have
such curiosity, when the weather is better
and the walking not so sloppy
| r. T.-l7S-
| w. M.-l7SL
| T. 7. C.--l7S2.
and others OF later date and less distinct.
l take it for granted this last inscription
was the work of Thomas z. Cope, sou of
| Caleb Cope, the Quaker burgess who occu-
pied that house during the Revolution. He
| likely cut ii with knife or scratched it with
nail there more than hundred years ago
His father, the elder Cope, was then a man
| in the prime of life, having been born in
| Chester county in 1885, he removed to this
| city in its youth, to practice his profession of
| surveyor became borough regulator, and
was burgess about the time of the outbreak
of the Revolution. His principles made him
| a non-resistant and the patriotic public rc.
| garded him aS a Tory. But he outlived this
| reputation and long before he removed with
his family to Philadelpha-where he died
| nearly fifty years after Independence was
| achieved-he had regained the entire respect
| of his fellow citizens His son, Thomas =.
| Cope, became leading citizen and merchant
| of Philadelphia one Of the chief patrons and
association, and his portrait now hangs above
| the central desk of the librarian of that in
| stitution, in its building on Tenth above
| Chestnut street, Philadelphia | raised my
| eyes from a book there the other day, and
| thought il queer coincidence that the first
| thing they met was that keen, sharp, fresh
complexioned, bespcctacled Quaker tace /;
the figure dressed in snuff-colored raiment
with the name inscribed on the frame of the
picture-of the same initials on the bricks
| of the old house in Lime street.
80
For had been coming over that rare and
interesting collection of American antiqui-
ties by John Jay Smith, which is kept under
lock and key in the Philadelphia library.
One of its most interesting features is the
Cope-Andre literature and its illustrations.
1t was a disappointment in a love affair
that drove John Andre from mer-
camille to military career, and sent
him into the British army before he was
% years old. He was captured by Gen.
! Montgomery in Canada in the late fall of l175
and may have been one of the company of
eight officers and 2i2 privates of the seventh
Royal Fusileers, who with thirty women
and as many children, were brought
as prisoners of war to this good town in
| December of that year. Lancaster was a
noted station for the lodging of prisoners OF
| war, being convenient to the capitals, and
| yet, like York, Carlisle and Reading, a from
tier town, not so close to the scene of military
operations as TO he considered unsafe for the
| detention of military prisoners. At one time
: i'll III, when As many as 1000 We're gathered
here, and the farmers We're busy harvesting
their crops, and the non .resistants were
numerous and powerful sentiment of 10y
atty TO the crown pervaded the community,
grave apprehenSiOnS were felt of danger from
possible outbreak, not unsupported by
| assurances of local aid. 1t never came, how.
t | ever. Poorly enough off the prisoners were
: | sometimes. The privates came here sorely
| lacking breeches, shoes and stockings the
government agent one day cut off the r5itions
from the women and children and when he
would not give them bread or meat they
, | appealed-never in vain-tO that bluff patriot
Matthias Slough for relief from starvation.
The men were kept at the barracks, sur.
rounded by a stoCkade; and the British
officers loaged at public houses.
~
1t was Judge Yeates who wrote the parole
, paper of John Andre and the original is in
the possession of Simon Gratz, esq, of Phila-
delphia. Being paroled it was his privilege
TO lodge where lie could afford to, and he
found shelter under the roof of Caleb Cope
and congeuial associations with his iamil "
l | That II was not popular thing for the qua
| ker to give even this sembanCe of aid anC
| comfort to the enemy, may be Judged frOir
= the fact that the mob smashed all the win
| dOws out of the Cope mansion. The citizen,
. ! who had tolerated, if not encouraged, such
demonstration, redeemed themselves some
| WHAT however DN afterwards klDerallN assist
, ing Cope to reconstruct his house when it had
| been accidentally damaged by tire.
-
, Beside Andre there lodged with Cope a
British officer prisoner, Lieut. Col. Edward
Marcus Despard, Irish by birth, whose fate
was somewhat cOincident with that of Andre.
/ Being exchanged he returned to the army
and served in the Revolutionary war until
l779, when he was.transferred to Jamaica
| .rA oh in,
on the Mosquito coast from Spain and was
invested with considerable executive power
in Honduras. He seems to have exercised
II in such a manner as TO create popular dis
satisfaction, and in 1870 was recalled to Eng
land. He demanded examination and pre-
ferred some claim against the government
1t was not needed he became seditious, wa
arrested and released, and in his frenzy of
rage and disappointment he headed a
mad conspiracy to murder his king and
| seize the bank, the tower and the govern
ment With nine of his crazy associates he
| perished on the scaffOld in 1903. From what
| Cope had seen of his disposition while he
lodged in Lancaster, he had predicted for
| Despard some dire fate, as the result of his
lmpetuous, unconciliating temper. But Caleb
Cope and none of his family who so loved
| the gentle, accomplished and genial Andre
| ever anticipated that he would perish by the
| ignominious, unsoldierly death to which in
after years his Lancaster host could never
refer without an outburst of tears.
|
| Andre seems to have been a young man of
rare TALENT personal accomplishments and
| graces of manner. In the volume of Smith,
| TO which reference has been made, there is
reproduced and preserved in colored litho-
| graph, very dainty sketch which Andre
made for the Copes of an old place, probably
his homestead, in England. The picture was
saved by the elder Cope, ''in memory of the
artist and of my affection for that
| gifted and deceived, that noble-mind-
| cd and generous man.. " And in
furnishing this plate for Mr. Smiths collec-
| ton, Mr.. Thomas y. Cope writes of his rec
| ollectiOn OF Andre, at his fathers house in
| Lancaster " was at that time a small boy
| but well remember Andres bland manners
| sporting with us children as one of u.s. more
| particularly attached to John" 1--WE often
| played marbles and other boyish games with
| him." 1t is easy tn believe that when the
Lancaster lads on Lime street, century ago,
cut their names into the bricks they recalled
the story of their playmate of a few years
earlier and his tragic fate then so recent
~
Young John Cope received every en-
couragement and instruction from Andre in
the art of painting, for which he showed great
fondness and in which Andre was no mere
dabster. DIR. Benjamin r. Barton, too, who
became famous draughtsman, got his first
inspiration from the British prisoner of war