We have lost poor Harry!
This was the message to a Philadelphia resident—a friend from old England. The loss, for such it emphatically was, affected the Doctor and Mrs. Priestley very deeply. This particular son was a pride to them and though only eighteen years old had conducted his farm as if he had been bred a farmer.
He was uncommonly beloved by all that worked under him.
His home was just outside of the borough of Northumberland. It was the gift of his father. His interment in "a plot of ground" belonging to the Society of Friends is thus described by Mr Bakewell:
I attended the funeral to the lonely spot, and there I saw the good old father perform the service over the grave of his son. It was an affecting sight, but he went through it with fortitude, and after praying, addressed the attendants in a few words,
assuring them that though death had separated them here, they should meet again in another and a better life.
The correspondence to friends in England was replete with accounts of lectures which were in process of preparation. They were discourses on the Evidences of Revelation and their author was most desirous of getting to Philadelphia that he might there deliver them. At that time this City was full of atheism and agnosticism. Then, too, the hope of establishing a Unitarian Church was ever in Priestley's thoughts. How delightful it is to read, February 12th, 1796—
I am now on my way to Philadelphia.
When he left it in 1794 he was rather critical of it, but now after three days he arrived there. It was
a very good journey, accompanied by my daughter-in-law, in my son's Yarmouth waggon, which by means of a seat constructed of straw, was very easy.