about 1720 and is a roomy structure with a frontage of eighty feet and a depth of twenty-seven feet. Unfortunately, it was modernised in 1854, and a large western wing, originally the dining-hall, was demolished. At the time of the Revolution "it was a sort of baronial hall in size and character" where its wealthy merchant owner, George Emlen, "dispensed hospitality to all who came under its roof." George Emlen's town house was at Fifth and Chestnut Streets opposite the State House.

In the "baronial hall" at Whitemarsh we can fancy Washington dining each afternoon in company with his staff after that apologetic invitation noted in the orderly book under November 7, which reads:

Since the General left Germantown [Schuylkill Falls] in the middle of September last, he has been without his baggage, and on that account is unable to receive company in the manner he could wish. He nevertheless desires the Generals, Field Officers, and Brigade-Major of the day to dine with him in the future, at three o'clock in the afternoon,

This baggageless plight must have been most mortifying to Washington, for he was a great stickler for propriety of clothing.

It was while the army lay at Whitemarsh that Lydia Darrach's warning of Howe's intended attack was given. During this dreary time that "tried men's souls," there was little cause for any rejoicing such as had prompted Washington after the victory of the Northern Army at Stillwater to order, as he had on Sunday, September 28, by way of celebration, that "all the troops be paraded and served with a gill of rum per man, and that at the same

time there be discharged 13 pieces of artillery from the park." On the contrary the outlook was daily becoming more gloomy and supplies were increasingly hard to get. Shoes were failing and on November 22, there is a note in the orderly book that " The Commander-in-Chief offers a reward of ten dollars to any person, who shall by nine o'clock on Monday morning produce the best substitute for shoes made of rawhides." In these weeks that preceded the dreadful winter that was to follow at Valley Forge, the shortage of clothing was becoming acute and even as the soldiers retreated up the Skippack Pike on their way thither from Whitemarsh, Washington wrote that the road was stained "by the blood from the feet of the men in the snow."

Closing our eyes to all these horrors of long ago, we can see Dawesfield as it is to-day, in an excellent state of preservation. The estate now belongs to Saunders Lewis, a descendant of the first owner, James Morris. The Emlen House is owned by Antelo Devereaux.

PERKIOMEN TOWNSHIP, MONTGOMERY
HEIJT-PAWLING-PENNYPACKER

HE natural beauty of Philadelphia is much enhanced by its situation between two such rivers as the Delaware and Schuylkill. Into these flow many streams from the surrounding country which gave comfort and joy to the early settler. Where the two branches of the Perkiomen meet and directly within their forks are the mansion and mills famous in American Colonial history which have been known since 1747 as Pennypacker's Mills.

The Philadelphia & Reading Railway has entered the lovely valley and the town which has sprung up is called Schwenkville. Passing through several hands from the grant of William Penn, the land in the forks came in 1718 to Hans Joest Heijt, a yeoman and weaver of Germantown. He was the first occupant and built a gristmill upon the east bank of the Perkiomen and a house on the south side of the hill where about fourteen acres of meadow slope gracefully down to the stream. This was about 1720, and we hear of him again in a petition to the Governour, Patrick Gordon, in 1728, for relief from the Indians, and again in 1730, when he sold his land to his neighbour, John Pawling, and soon after took his family to the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia. Here, with some others, he took up one hundred and forty thousand acres and carried on a lawsuit with Lord Fairfax, which was decided in his favour after his death.

The next owner of the Perkiomen tract, John Pawling, was an influential settler from Ulster County, New York. His ownership was brief and uneventful. In three years he was dead, and after fourteen years the estate was gathered together from his descendants by Peter Pennypacker, the second son of Hendrick Pannebecker, a surveyor of lands for the Penns, living in Germantown.

Peter was born on the Skippack Creek in 1710, and married, in 1733, Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Dirck Keyser and his wife Margaret, of Germantown. He soon made his mills on the Perkiomen a centre for the Colonists. October 1, 1755, he advertised:

Peter Pennebacker in Skippack makes known that he has built a fulling mill at which there is a skillful fuller named William Nenny. Whoever need to have anything dyed or fulled can be served at the customary price by William Nenney.

From a scrap of an account book in his handwriting in 1755, he charges some of the neighbours with sugar, tea, coffee, and molasses as well as with rye, hay, and oats, so that it is inferred that he also added a store to furnish local supplies. Elizabeth Drinker tells in her Journal how, on the way from Ephrata, August 28, 1771, she "dined in a Mill House at Peter Pennybaker's on boiled mutton and old kidney beans" and that she “eat very heartily."

In 1754 Peter Pennypacker was elected assessor of Philadelphia County, and in the same year joined in an event which affected the future of the continent. The French and Indian War led to much speculation as to

whether the Germans would throw their influence with the French or the English, and upon the determination of this rested the future of the land. A number of the most representative Germans, including Peter Pennypacker, of Pennypacker's Mills, presented a formal address of welcome and loyalty to the recently appointed Governour, Robert Hunter Morris, and thus decided the matter in favour of the English.

It was signed "in Behalf of Ourselves and Country Men."

During the war which ensued a portion of Braddock's Army marched to Pennypacker's Mills en route to join the main body which had come up through Virginia and Maryland.

On June 28, Peter Pennypacker died and was buried in the Mennonite graveyard on the Skippack. He left a very long will and a very long inventory followed his demise. His son William received the lands on the west side of the Perkiomen where Schwenksville now stands and his son Samuel received the lands and mansion on the east side. Samuel was born on the Skippack in 1746 and came to the Mills when but a year old, there to spend the rest of his life. He attended the school of H. M. Ache, who prepared a fine bit of penwork for him in 1758, containing a prayer, the alphabet in three forms, the numerals up to one hundred, the names of the months, the date, and the inscription.

In 1768, Samuel Pennypacker married Hannah Gesbert, and there were born to them a family of eight boys. After the Battle of the Brandywine and the unsuccessful attempt to engage at Warren Tavern in the