MORAVIAN EASTER SERVICE,
BETHLEHEM, PENNSYLVANIA.
Philadelphia was prosperous from the first. New York City did not catch up to it until after the year 1810. It was early noted, as it has been since, for its cleanliness, fine buildings, and the attention it gave to education. It had a printing press in 1686, and three years later a public high school. In the year 1749, the present University of Pennsylvania was founded as a school, becoming a college in 1755, and a university in 1779. Many of the names of streets, such as Walnut, Chestnut, Pine, Mulberry, and others, were given to it when the city was laid out.
The settlement of the province was confined for a long time to the eastern section. No population was more varied. The Scotch and Irish were mainly in the central portion, the Dutch and Germans in the east and northeast, and the English in the southeastern part of the colony. There are hundreds of people to-day in Pennsylvania, whose ancestors for several generations have been born there, who are unable to speak or understand a word of English.
Maryland is the next colony in order of settlement. The Roman Catholics were among those who suffered persecution in England, and Maryland was founded as a place of refuge for them. Among the most prominent of the English Catholics was Sir George Calvert, known as Lord Baltimore. His first attempt to found a colony was in Newfoundland, but the rigorous climate compelled him to give it up. He decided that the most favorable place was that portion of Virginia lying east of the Potomac. Virginia had its eye already upon the section, and was preparing to settle it, when Charles I., without consulting her, granted the territory to Lord Baltimore. Before he could use the patent, he died, and the charter was made to his son, Cecil Calvert, in 1632. He named it Maryland in compliment to the queen, Henrietta Maria.
Leonard Calvert, a brother of Lord Baltimore, began the settlement of Maryland at St. Mary's, near the mouth of the Potomac. He took with him 200 immigrants and made friends with the Indians, whom he treated with justice and kindness. Annapolis was founded in 1683 and Baltimore in 1729.
Despite the wisdom and liberality of Calvert's rule, the colony met with much trouble, because of Virginia's claim to the territory occupied by the newcomers. William Clayborne of Virginia had established a trading post in Maryland and refused to leave, but he was driven out, whereupon he appealed to the king, insisting that the Catholics were intruders upon domain to which they had no right. The king decided in favor of Lord Baltimore. Clayborne however, would not assent, and, returning to Maryland in 1645, he incited a rebellion which was pressed so vigorously that Calvert was forced to flee. He gathered enough followers to drive Clayborne out in turn. The Catholics then established a liberal government and passed the famous "Toleration Act," which allowed everybody to worship God as he saw fit. Many persons in the other colonies, who were suffering persecution, made their homes in Maryland.
After a time, the Protestants gained a majority in the assembly and made laws which were very oppressive to the Catholics. The strife degenerated into civil war, which lasted for a number of years. The proprietor in 1691 was a supporter of James II., because of which the new king, William, took away his colony and appointed the governors himself. The proprietor's rights were restored in 1716 to the fourth Lord Baltimore. The Calverts became extinct in 1771, and the people of Maryland assumed proprietorship five years later. Comparative tranquillity reigned until the breaking out of the Revolution.
An interesting occurrence during this tranquil period was the arrival from England of George Fox, the founder of the Society of Friends or Quakers. In the assemblage which gathered on the shores of the Chesapeake to listen to his preaching were members of the Legislature, the leading men of the province, Indian sachems and their families, with their great chief at their head.
The disputed boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvania was fixed in 1767, by two surveyors named Mason and Dixon. This boundary became famous in after years as the dividing line between the free and slave States.
Charles II., in 1663 and 1665, granted the land between Florida and Virginia to eight proprietors. The country had been named Carolina in honor of their king, Charles IX. (Latin, Carolus), and since Charles II. was King of England the name was retained, though he was not the ruler meant thus to be honored. The country was comparatively uninhabited after the failure of the French colony, except by a few Virginians, who made a settlement on the northern shore of Albemarle Sound.