The Wichita daily eagle., 1891-10-24

not Quaker-BuriaI Place OF EvaBge-
I line and Gabriel.
Longfellow's "Evangeline" has a pecu.
! liar interest to US as PennSylvanians, fol
/ the author laid the leading events of the
story in Philadelphia. 1t is there Evange
! line and Gabriel landed, and to that city
| Evangeline returned after her fruitless
search for Gabriel:
In that city also they die, and tradition
! points out the little Catholic church
| Trinity, at the northwest corner of Sixth
and Spruce streets, where they were buried
Whether Evangeline or Gabriel ever
really existed, except as we find them il
| the imagination of the poet LongfelloW
| in this story, we know not; but that many
| of the Acadian neutrals or exiles, as they
| are often called, arrived in Philadelphia, is
we'll authenticated by many acts of ouI
provincial assembly. Perhaps a short refer
ence to their history will enable us better
to understand and enjoy this poem, which
is certainly as pathetic and sweet as any in
the language.
DRIVEN FROM HOME.
A French Catholic settlement of about
1000 souls had long existed in Nova Sco
! tia, located on the Bay of Fundy. When
| in 1713, that country was surrendered to
! the English. it was stipulated by the treaty
of Utrecht that one year be granted the in.
habitants to remove their effects, but they
not being willing to lose the fruits of many
years labor, chose to remain and become
subjects of Great Britain, ON condition
that they might be exempt from bearing
arms against France. This request they
| understood to be granted on taking the
oath of fidelity to Queen Anne, and it was
also renewed some years after to King
George II, who again allowed them this
exemption.
They rendered assistance, however, to
the English government on all occasions,
being willing to erect forts, make roads.
build bridges, etc. The only thing they
could not do was to bear arms against
their countrymen and destroy with their
own hands relations and friends. In this
way they lived in this secluded corner OF
| America, inofensive and peaceable farm
ers, until the French and Indian wars
broke out and stirred up strong feeling
against them as Catholics When the Eng.
lish government which was smarting no
doubt from reyerses, including Brad
dock s defeat, which occurred on our own
soil of Pennsylvania in July, 1855. gave the
order, for state policy no doubt, but yet
unfeeling, to remove them from the coun-
try, the reader to make the new popula-
tion that was flowing in more loyal and
English in character. On the 5th of Sep
tember. 1755, about 1900 in all-say 500
men, $50 women and 1850 children-were
by this order taken from their farms and
homes, put on shipboard, and 255 houses,
27G barns, l65 outhouses and IL mills were
burned.
The population was distributed among
the English colonies. Some were landed
in New England, but not quite half OF
them on the 10Th Of November, 1855, say
two and half months after their embark
alton, arrived in the Delaware river in
three sloops, the Hannah, the Three
Friends and the Swan. Five days after
Governor Robert Hunter Morris made
their arrival the subject of special mes
sage to the assembly, then in session,
which was tinctured with the prevailing
anti-French and Catholic feeling of that
day-feeings which our late reverses had
intensified and engendered, and he ad-
vised that they should not land in the city,
and did guard them ON Province island,
below the city; they numbered over 300.
FRIEND INDEED.
The assembly fortunately was composed
of many Friends or Quakers, and those
beautiful features of their character
charity, liberty of conscience and tolera-
tion-were on this occasion nobly displayed,
and Anthony Benezet, a Huguenot Quaker,
who had prosperous school for the educa-
tion of young women, and after whom a
street was named, was appointed by the as
sembly to at once purchase blankets, shirts,
stockings and other necessaries, which
amounted to over 91,000 and this was
charged to the public account. A few
of the neutrals, rather than lose their ma
tionality, took the military road across the
mountains of our state, reached the Ohio,
and constructing flatboats foated down
the Ohio aud Mississippi and Joined their
French countrymen in Louisiana.
In February, 1856, bill was introduced in
the assembly and approved March the same
year, to disperse the neutrals into the coun-
ties of Philadelphia, Bucks, Chester and
Lancaster, to give them, as the act recites,
an OPT Iortunity of exercising their own
labor and industry. It does not appear
that many left, for Watson, in his Annals
of Philadelphia" says: "These poor peo-
pie became completely dispirited. They
wept over the story of their wrongs and
described the comfortable farms and homes
from which they had been dragged with
bitter regrets.
Anthony Benezet was their kind friend.
He educated many of their daughters and
his charities were constant and unremit-
ting. They were provided quarters in a
long range of one story wooden houses,
built on the north side of Pine, between
Fifth and Sixth streets, and there made a
French town in the midst of our society,
and lived spiritless and poor. and became
finally burden so that the authorities 70
awaken them in 1857 ordered the overseers
of the poor to have their children bound
out. Our record TO them is good, for it ap-
pears that from the time of their arrival in
November, 1853 TO the termination of our
colonial government, or the commence
ment of the Revolution, 1776, q 500, or
81 900, was expended and charged 70 the
public accoj {, and when 70 this is added
private chai ", always large in our ia
ieored land. we may well feel proud, espe-
ciaily as it Vas 70 the French Catholics,
with whom we were then at for the
possession apparently of our es.-A- +.