As he passed up the streets in Cheapside, to his surprise he ran into the fair figure of his bride, the deserted Maria Cox-Penn. He was again very much in love, and she ready to forgive. They spent the balance of the day together, enjoying a fish ordinary at a noted restaurant in Bird-in-Hand Court. Over the meal it was arranged that Maria should follow her husband to America; meanwhile, he would provide a home for her over there under an assumed name, until he became of age, when he would defy his family to again tear them asunder.
None of John Penn’s family had the slightest suspicion of anything out of the usual when he presented himself in their midst, and he returned quietly to Lille, where he remained until the ship was announced as ready to take him to America. He arrived in New York during a terrible tornado, in November, 1752. At Philadelphia he evinced little interest in anything except to take a trip into the interior. As he had plenty of money, he could accomplish most anything he wanted, and was not watched. On his way to the Susquehanna country he traveled with an armed bodyguard, as there were even then renegade Indians and road agents abroad. A number of less distinguished travelers and their servants were, for safety’s sake, allowed to accompany the party. Among them was a man of fifty-five, named Peter Allen, to whom young John took a violent fancy.
It was not unusual, for Peter Allen was what the Indians recognized as a gentleman, although he was only a cadet, or what we would call nowadays a “poor relation” of the proud Allen family, the head of which was William Allen, Chief Justice of the Province, a man about Peter Allen’s age, and for whom Northampton or Allensville, now Allentown, was named.
Peter Allen had built a stone house or trading post, which he called “Tulliallan” after one of the ancestral homes of the Allen family in Scotland, on the very outpost of civilization, twenty miles west of Harris’ Ferry, where all manner of traders, hunters, missionaries, explorers and sometimes Indians congregated, where balls were held with Indian princesses as guests of honor, and the description of this place fired John Penn’s fancy.
The idea had flashed through his mind that Maria could harbor there unknown until he became of age, and some day, despite the silly family opposition, she would become the Governor’s Lady. John Penn went to Peter Allen’s, and not only found a refuge for his bride, but liked the frontier life so well that it was as if he had been born in the wilderness. Mountains and forests appealed to him, and his latent democracy found full vent among the diversified types who peopled the wilderness.
Peter Allen had three young daughters, Barbara, Nancy and Jessie, whom he wished schooled, and John Penn arranged that Maria should teach them and, perhaps, have a select school for other children of the better sort along the Susquehanna. Peter Allen was secretly peeved at his family for not recognizing him more, and lent himself to anything that, while not dishonorable, would bend the proud spirit of the Proprietaries and their favorites, one of whom was the aforementioned “Cousin Judge” William Allen.
John Penn returned to Philadelphia, from where he sent a special messenger, a sort of valet, to London, who met and safely escorted Maria to America. She landed at Province Island on the Delaware, remaining in retirement there for a month, until John could slip away and escort her personally to Peter Allen’s.
The girl was bright, well-educated and sensible, and found the new life to her liking, and her young husband loving and considerate.
It was in the spring of 1754 when they reached the stone house at the foot of the Fourth or Peter’s Mountain, and during the ensuing year she taught the young Allen girls and three other well-bred children, and was visited frequently by her husband. She assumed the name of Mary Warren, her mother’s maiden name, which proved her undoing. All went well until representatives of the Penns in London learned that Maria Cox-Penn was missing, and they traced her on shipboard through the name “Mary Warren,” eventually locating her as the young school-mistress at “Tulliallan.”
The next part of this story is a hard one to write, as one hates to make accusations against dead and gone worthies who helped to found our beloved Pennsylvania; but, at any rate, without going into whys and wherefores, “Mary Warren” mysteriously disappeared. Simultaneously went Joshua, the friendly Indian who lived at the running spring on the top of Peter’s Mountain, and Arvas, or “Silver Heels,” another Indian, whose cabin was on the slopes of Third (now called Short) Mountain, near Clark’s Creek.