* Mrs. Reed was a daughter of Dennis de Berdt, a London merchant, and for some time agent for the colonies. De Berdt's house was the resort of many Americans in England, among whom was Joseph Reed, who afterward became his daughter's husband. They were married in London in 1780. Her father became a bankrupt, and died soon afterward. Esther accompanied her husband to America immediately after her marriage. The Revolution soon broke out, and, as Mr. Reed was an active participator in its earliest hostile scenes, the young wife and mother was kept, almost from her first residence in America, in a state of excitement and alarm. Fragile in body, and of nervous temperament, her health suffered; and, a few months after she became an active member of the association of ladies for the relief of the American army, she went down into the grave. She died on the 18th of September, 1780, aged thirty-four years.
** La Fayette contributed this sum in the name of his wife. In his letter to Mrs. Reed inclosing the amount, he remarked, "Without presuming to break in upon the rules of your respected association, may I most humbly present myself as her embassador to the confederate ladies, and solicit in her name that Mrs. President be pleased to accept her offering."
M. De Marbois, the French secretary of legation, in a letter to Mrs. Reed on the occasion, said, "You have been chosen, madam, for that important duty, because, among them all, you are the best patriot, the most zealous and active, and most attached to the interests of your country."
*** Equal to nearly one hundred dollars in specie.
**** Mrs. Ellet's Women of the Revolution, i., 53. Life and Correspondence of President Reed.
* (v) Travels in North America, i., 197. The marquis, in his account of his social intercourse in Philadelphia, mentions a visit to Mr. Huntington, the President of Congress. "We found him,'' he says, "in his cabinet, lighted by a single candle. This simplicity reminded me of that of the Fabricius's and the Philopemens.
Mr. Huntington is an upright man, and espouses no party." Mr. Duponceau relates that Mr. Huntington and himself often breakfasted together on whortleberries and milk. On one of these occasions Mr. H. said, "What now, Mr. Duponceau, would the princes of Europe say, could they see the first magistrate of this great eountry at his frugal repast?"—Watson, i., 424.
Contributions of Clothing for the Soldiers.—Germantown.—James Logan.—Speech of Logan, the Indian Chief.
were great and timely. The aggregate amount of contributions in the city and county of Philadelphia was estimated at seven thousand five hundred dollars in specie value. Added to this was a princely donation from Robert Morris of the contents of a ship fully laden with military stores and clothing, which had unexpectedly arrived. * During the cold winter that followed, hundreds of poor soldiers in Washington's camp had occasion to bless the women of Philadelphia for their labor of love.
On the morning of the 29th of November, I left Philadelphia for Germantown, about six miles distant, accompanied by Mr. Agnew, who journeyed with me to Whitemarsh, Barren Hill, Valley Forge, and Paoli. It was a delightful morning, the air a little frosty. The road from the city to its ancient suburban village passes through a pleasant, undulating country, and was swarming with vehicles of every kind a greater portion of the way. The village of Germantown extends along a fine Macadamized road for nearly three miles, having no lateral streets, and, though so near a great commercial city, few places in the United States present more striking appearances of antiquity. Twenty or thirty of the low, steep-roofed, substantial stone houses, with quaint pent-eaves and ponderous cornices, built by the early inhabitants, yet remain, and produce a picturesque feature in the midst of the more elegant modern mansions of a later generation. ** It was first laid out and a settlement commenced under a grant to Francis Daniel Pastorius in 1684. He purchased six thousand acres from William Penn, and the whole was settled by Germans. James Logan, the confidential secretary of Penn, had a favorite country house upon a hill at the southern end of the village, which is still called Logan's Hill. ***