[65]. Incorporated with that edition of the Laws of Pennsylvania, which was published in the year 1810, “under the authority of the legislature,” with Notes and References, by Charles Smith, Esq. is an article that bears a respectful testimony to the justice and clemency of the founder of that state: It is an important and very interesting Note to an act of assembly passed the 1st day of April, 1784, (entitled, “An act for opening the Land-Office, for granting and disposing of the unappropriated Lands within this State,”) containing “a connected view of the land-titles of Pennsylvania from its first settlement to the present time.” In this document the learned editor speaks of the integrity and virtuous policy manifested by Penn, with respect to his conduct towards the Indian natives of the country, to which he had acquired the dominion under his sovereign, in these terms.

“William Penn, although clothed with powers as full and comprehensive as those possesed by the adventurers from Portugal and Spain, was influenced by a purer morality and sounder policy[policy]. His religious principles did not permit him to wrest the soil, by force, from the people to whom God and nature gave it, nor to establish his title in blood; but, under the shade of the lofty trees of the forest, his right was fixed by treaties with the natives, and sanctified, as it were, by incense smoking from the calumet of peace.”

The note from which this extract is made, (and which comprizes 156 large 8vo. pages, printed on a small type,) forms a valuable treatise, historical as well as legal, of the territorial rights of the former proprietaries, and of the land-titles deduced from them by the citizens of Pennsylvania.

[66]. Germantown was settled in the year 1682. It was so called by its founders, a small colony of Germans from the Palatinate, mostly from the vicinity of the city of Worms, who are said to have been converted while in their own country, to the principles of the people called Quakers, by the preaching of William Ames, an Englishman. Germantown is now a populous village, of considerable extent; and by reason of its proximity to the capital, this place furnishes an agreeable residence to many respectable families from thence. See also Note [62].

[67]. This township derives its name (which it gave also to Mr. Rittenhouse’s patrimonial farm and his original observatory,) as does likewise the neighbouring town of Norriston, the county-town of the (now) county of Montgomery, from the respectable Pennsylvania family of Norris; of which Isaac Norris, Esq. was eighteen times chosen Speaker of the General Assembly of Pennsylvania, during the term of half a century from the time of his first election, in the year 1713. Mr. Norris held many public offices in Pennsylvania with great reputation and honour. He is represented as having been “an ornament to his country;” and this gentleman, who died in the year 1735, then held the Chief-Justiceship of the Province.

[68]. In the year 1683, Enoch Flower undertook to teach English in the town of Philadelphia. Six years afterwards, originated the Friends’ Public School in the same town, then in its infancy; and in 1697, this school was incorporated, on the petition of Samuel Carpenter, Edward Shippen, Anthony Morris, James Fox, David Lloyd, William Southby, and John Jones, in behalf of themselves and others. In the year 1708, this corporation was enlarged and perpetuated by a new charter, under the name of “The Overseers of the Public School, founded in Philadelphia, at the request, cost, and charges of the people called Quakers.” It was further extended in the year 1711; when the three first named gentlemen, together with Griffith Owen, Thomas Story, Richard Hill, Isaac Norris, Samuel Preston, Jonathan Dickinson, Nathan Stanbury, Thomas Masters, Nicholas Waln, Caleb Pusey, Rowland Ellis and James Logan, were appointed Overseers.

As this was the earliest considerable school established in Pennsylvania, as well as the first institution of the kind, in the province, the names of its promoters deserve to be held in remembrance, among the Patrons of learning and useful knowledge in this country.

From this view of the origin of schools in the capital of Pennsylvania, it will be perceived, that the means of acquiring even the rudiments of literary instruction must have been difficult of access in country places, for some considerable time after the periods just mentioned. This is one of the most serious grievances to which the settlers in new and unimproved countries are subjected.

[69]. Margaret, who intermarried with Edward Morgan; Esther, with the Rev. Thomas Barton; David, the subject of these Memoirs; Andrew, who died in his minority; Anne, who intermarried with George Shoemaker; Eleanor, who intermarried with Daniel Evans; Benjamin, yet living; Jonathan, who died in his minority; and Mary and Elizabeth (twins,) of whom the latter died in her minority, unmarried: Mary, who is living, has been twice married, but without issue; her first husband was Thomas Morgan. David had no sons; and two of his three brothers having died young and unmarried, the only persons, descended from our philosopher’s father, Matthias, who now bear the name of Rittenhouse, are the surviving brother of David, namely, Benjamin, and his sons. Benjamin has been twice married; first, to a daughter of General John Bull; and, secondly, to a daughter of Colonel Francis Wade: By both marriages he has male issue; and, as it is believed, two of the sons by the first wife are married.

[70]. “There is,” says a late ingenious writer,[[70a]] “a strong propensity in the human mind to trace up our ancestry to as high and as remote a source as possible.” “This principle of our nature,” he observes, “although liable to great perversion; and frequently the source of well-founded ridicule, may, if rightly directed, become the parent of great actions. The origin and progress of individuals, of families, and of nations, constitute Biography and History, two of the most interesting departments of human knowledge.”