Along with his business enterprises, which seem to have been extensive, he found time to make frequent religious visits even to distant places. It was on one of these visits that he died in the Island of Tortola in 1741. Often he combined his missionary work with his mercantile farings and his diary presents a remarkable record. One cannot suppress a smile at reading how he devoutly thanks Providence that he has a wife and children and an estate, and yet, the very next thing, off he goes preaching for two or three months. He truly was an uneasy person and could not sit long at home. Time and time again did he extend to the Indians the hospitality of Chalkley Hall, being in this respect much like James Logan of Stenton. At the time of his death he was universally esteemed and respected and, among Friends, affectionately regarded.

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Thomas Chalkley's only surviving child, Rebecca, was married to Abel James, merchant, in 1747, and from this union are descended the Jameses and many of the Morrises, Lewises, and Thompsons. Abel James, senior member of the firm of James & Drinker, was one of the consignees of the cargo of the tea ship Polly, and in this connexion the fact deserves emphasis that the opposition to the Tea Act began in Philadelphia and not in Boston as is popularly supposed. The violent measures resorted to in Boston have caused the beginnings here to be overlooked.

When the tax on tea was reduced to three pence per pound there seemed to be a general disposition to pay it. At this juncture, when the arrival of a fresh consignment from the East India Company was expected, William Bradford gathered at the Coffee House several

citizens, whom he knew to be heartily opposed to the measures of the British Government, and together they drew up a set of spirited resolutions anent the tea question. On the following Saturday, October 16, 1773, a "large and respectable town-meeting," presided over by Doctor Thomas Cadwalader, was held at the State House and the resolutions were adopted enthusiastically. The same resolutions were immediately afterwards adopted, nearly word for word, by a town-meeting in Boston (November 5, 1773), where a disposition to receive the tea had become general, from an idea that an opposition to it would not be seconded or supported by any of the other Colonies.

At the meeting of October 16, a committee was appointed to wait upon the consignees of the tea and procure their resignation. The firm that hesitated to comply with the popular demand was that of James & Drinker. Thereupon they were sent the following communication:

A CARD.

THE PUBLIC present their Compliments to Messieurs JAMES and DRINKER. We are informed that you have this day received your commission to enslave your native Country; and as your frivolous Plea of having received no Advice, relative to the scandalous Part you were to act, in the TEA-SCHEME, can no longer serve your purpose, nor divert our Attention, We expect and desire You will immediately inform the Public, by a Line or two to be left at the COFFEE-HOUSE, Whether you will, or will not, renounce all Pretensions to execute that Commission? THAT WE MAY GOVERN OURSELVES

ACCORDINGLY.

Philadelphia, December 2, 1773.

A crowd of citizens visited Abel James at his warehouse and demanded his resignation. He then and there guaranteed word and property that the tea should not be landed and pledged his little daughter Rebecca, who was perched nearby on top of her father's hogsheads, as a surety for the performance of his promise.

Meanwhile other meetings had been held and on November 27 a notice in the form of a handbill was served on the Delaware River pilots bidding them look out for the Polly, then hourly expected, and warning them not to fetch her into port. On the same handbill was a note to Captain Ayres of the Polly advising him of the dire consequences that would attend any attempt to land the tea and asking him:

What think you, Captain, of a Halter around your Neck-ten Gallons of liquid Tar decanted on your Pate-with the Feathers of a dozen wild Geese laid over that to enliven your appearance?

On December 7 this lurid admonition was reiterated on another handbill and signed by the "Committee for Tarring and Feathering." Encouraged, doubtless, by these earlier inflammatory and stubborn measures of resistance in Philadelphia, the people of Boston held their dramatic and somewhat noisy tea-party of December 16.

When at last tidings came, on December 25, that the long-expected Polly was indeed come into the river and had reached Chester, a deputation of gentlemen went down and intercepted her at Gloucester Point. This was as far as she ever got. On Monday morning, December 27, on an hour's notice, a town meeting was called at the State House-it was so crowded that the people

had to adjourn to the adjacent square-and it was forthwith resolved, among other things, that "Captain Ayres shall neither enter nor report his vessel at the Custom House," and "shall carry back the Tea immediately." He was allowed to stay in the city till the following day to secure the necessary supplies and was then packed speedily off. Thus ended Philadelphia's tea episode without any noisy outburst or tumult.

It was Abel James who built the main portion of Chalkley Hall. “When thrown out of business by the

War he kept up his spirits as long as he could find employment for half the neighbouring village of Frankford, in rebuilding" the seat his wife had inherited from her father. It is not known who the architect was, but he was probably English, as the firm was English in its connexion and Loyalist in all its later tendencies. Furthermore, the house has not the usual lines of a Colonial country house; it is of quite different type and has rather the princely breadth we find in English Georgian seats.

In Revolutionary times many interesting things happened in the vicinity and, as Chalkley Hall was on debatable ground while the British held Philadelphia, its occupants had some thrilling experiences. Once Mrs. James had provided an ample dinner for some half-starved American soldiers who had presented themselves at the Hall. While they were in the midst of their meal, the alarm of "Red Coats!" was given. The Continental soldiers hastily fled by one door while the British entered by another, and instead of pursuing their predecessors sat down and finished the viands prepared for their American

cousins. Stories are told, too, of how Mrs. James would drive through the British lines into the city and carry a young pig hidden under the seat of her chaise to some of her impoverished friends and kinsfolk whose food supplies on their own plantations had long since been diminished by unchecked British depredation.

After the death of Abel James, Chalkley Hall passed into the possession of the Yorke family and was the scene of much social gaiety, especially during the period when Philadelphia was the seat of national government. In the matter of luxury and sumptuous entertaining General Greene declared the luxury of Boston "an infant babe compared to that of the Quaker City." Like most old houses Chalkley Hall has its ghost, and the Little Grey Lady appears now and again to warn of deaths and

other momentous occurrences.

In 1817 the Wetherills became the owners of this old Frankford plantation, and right worthily sustained its reputation for the generous hospitality that had been a tradition of the house since its earliest days. Rumours have come down to us of a great feast on one occasion when covers were laid for eighty guests and each guest ate from a silver porringer. Be that as it may, a cordial and heartwhole welcome for visitors has ever been the invariable practice at Chalkley Hall with one exception.

That one exception was the poet Whittier, and he himself opposed the obstacle. He made his visit in 1838. One day a strange man was seen leaning on the gate looking steadfastly at the house. Mr. Wetherill went down the drive and invited him to enter. When he learned who the stranger was he pressed him to come in,