The Colonial History to the War of the Revolution

Samuel Levis was issued an order on the loan-office for £515 11s. 9d., in payment for fifty-eight servants for mustered by the officers in Chester County. Other claims for damages suffered by similar enlistments were urged and paid; in one instance it was alleged that ten servants were taken from the iron-works at Coventry and Warwick, and those establishments were obliged to cease operation for a time, because skilled labor had been marched away as recruits.

On Dec. 22, 1741, the Governor presented to Council a petition from the justices of the county of Chester, setting forth that great abuses had been "committed" in the county by the use of defective weights and measures, and that they, the justices, at the instance of some of "the substantial Inhabitants," as well as an address from the Grand Inquest, had "directed the purchasing of Standards of Brass for Weights & Measures, accordingly to his Majesty's Standard for the Exchequer." They therefore prayed that "the Governor would be pleased to appoint an Officer to keep the said Standards, and to Seal and Mark all Weights and Measures within the said County."¹ Isaac Taylor was the favored one who received the appointment, and the standards, we learn, cost the county £17 12s. 11d.²

² Futhey and Cope's "History of Chester County," p. 49.

On March 29, 1744, war was declared between Great Britain and France, and on the 11th of June of the same year Governor Thomas issued a proclamation³ in which he not only announced the hostile position of the two nations but strictly enjoined and required all persons in the province capable of bearing arms "forthwith to provide themselves with a Good Firelock, Bayonet, and Cartouch-Box, and a sufficient Quantity of Powder and Ball," that they might be prepared to attack the enemy or defend the province from invasion. The Governor also urged the fitting out of privateers, not only as a war measure highly beneficial the State, but "may bring great advantages to the Adventurers themselves." The Assembly, however, in which the Society of Friends largely predominated, took no step of a decided military character; but Franklin, by his pamphlet, "Plain Truth," aroused the public to a knowledge of the defenseless condition in which the province then stood. A meeting of citizens was called, a regiment was formed in Philadelphia, and money was raised by a lottery to erect a battery below thatcity, on the river. "These military preparations were necessary to intimidate a foreign enemy, and to curb the hostile disposition of the Indians which had been awakened by several unpleasant rencontres with the whites."⁴

⁴ Gordon's "History of Pennsylvania," p. 245

The crown having, on April 9, 1746, ordered that four hundred men should be raised in the province of Pennsylvania, to be part of the forces designed for the immediate reduction of the French Canadian colonies, Governor Thomas, on June 9th of the same year, issued his proclamation⁵ to that effect, and under it four companies were recruited, commanded respectively by Capts. Trent, Perry, Deimer, and Shannon. The latter, John Shannon, of New Castle County, Del., was commissioned June 25, 1746, as captain, and authorized to enlist one hundred men.⁶ Professor Keen informs us that the company was to be recruited on the Delaware River.⁷

⁷ "Descendants of Joran Kyn," Penna. Mag. of Hist., vol. iv. p. 108.

That the men were collected in New Castle and Chester Counties the names on the roll fully establish, and aside from that inferential proof, we have positive evidence that the organization was quartered in the borough of Chester, for in January of the following year the petitions of James Mather, David Coupland, John Salkeld, and Aubrey Bevan, then tavern-keepers in that town, were presented to the Assembly, asking payment "for the diet of Captain Shannon's company of soldiers," while Dr. Gandouit, a practicing physician in Chester at that time, also petitioned for payment for medicine furnished by him, as well as professional attendance on the sick soldiers.⁸ These companies were ordered to Albany, where they went into winter quarters. From a letter from Capt. Trent to Governor Thomas, written from Albany, Oct. 21, 1746,⁹ we learn that the troops were badly provided with blankets, and that the officers had been compelled to purchase a number for them, paying therefor in a draft on the Governor. He stated that had they not supplied the troops with those "articles the whole body would have deserted. The weather was extremely cold, and as many as thirty men had already deserted from Capt. Shannon's company, giving as their reason the want of proper covering, and that they might as well take the chance of being killed in trying to make their escape as by remaining, to surely die. He related that one of Shannon's men, "when the snow was knee-deep, in attempting to make his escape, got frost-bit, and his companions, fearing to undergo the same fate, left him, when he miserably perished." The following month the captains of the four Pennsylvania companies united in an appeal to the Governor to supply the troops with necessaries, for "we have been making as near a calculation as possible of our provisions, & find, with the utmost frugality, we have not more meat than sufficient to serve till the 19th January, & as to our Bread & Rum, it falls far short of that time."¹⁰ The troops, after being kept in cantonment until Oct.31, 1747, were discharged by proclamation of the Governor, wherein he declared the reason that "the late in

¹⁰ Ib., p. 681