There also: -
"In that delightful land which is washed by the Delaware's waters,
Guarding in sylvan shades the name of Penn the apostle,
Stands on the banks of its beautiful stream the city he founded.
There all the air is balm, and the peach is the emblem of beauty,
And the streets still re-echo the names of the trees of the forest,
As if they fain would appease the Dryads whose haunts they molested
There from the troubled sea had Evangeline landed, an exile,
Finding among the children of Penn a home and a country."
In that sedate and sober city was -
"the almshouse, home of the homeless.
Then in the suburbs it stood, in the midst of meadows and woodlands,
Now the city surrounds it, hut still, with its gateway and wicket
Meek in the midst of splendor, its humble walls seem to echo
Softly the words of the Lord, - 'The poor ye have always with you'"
There the sad exile's weary search was at last rewarded; the long parted
lovers were reunited, though but for a moment on the verge of the grave;
and thus was ended -
"the hope and the fear and the sorrow,
All the aching of heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience,"
The city almshouse stood, we are told, at the corner of Twelfth and
Spruce Streets; but the belief is quite general (and we incline
decidedly to that) that our beloved poet intended by his description to
portray the quaint building formerly known as the Friends' Almshouse,
which stood in Walnut Place (opening off of Walnut Street below Fourth),
and which was torn down in 1872 or 1873 to give place to railroad and
lawyers' offices.
The entrance from the street, by "gateway and wicket", as the poem says,
led through a narrow passage way; and there faced one a small, low
roofed house, built of alternate red and black bricks (the latter
glazed), almost entirely covered by an aged ivy which clambered over the
roof. The straggling branches even nodded above the wide chimneys; at
both sides of the door stood comfortable settles, inviting to rest; and
the pretty garden charmed with its bloom and fragrance. The whole formed
such a restful retreat, such an oasis of quiet in the very heart of the
busy city, that one was tempted often to make excuses for straying into
the peaceful enclosure.
In a book printed for private circulation in Philadelphia some years
ago, there is an item of interest about the Acadians. The author
narrates that she and a young companion, in their strolls to the
suburbs, where they went to visit the Pennsylvania Hospital (Eighth and
Pine Streets, now in the heart of the city), were timid because obliged
to pass the place where the "French Neutrals" were located.
These people, because they were foreigners, and there was some mystery
about them which the girls did not then understand, inspired them with
fear; though Philadelphia residents of that time testify that the
homeless and destitute strangers were in reality a very simple and
inoffensive company, when, "friendless, homeless, hopeless, they
wandered from city to city." Through the influence of Anthony Benezet, a
member of the Society of Friends, they were provided with homes on Pine
Street above Sixth, where the two little wooden houses still stand; one,
when we last saw it, being painted blue.
What a picturesque company of adventurers were those French noblemen,
who, turning their backs upon the luxuries and fascinations of court
life, sailed away to this wild and distant land, where, in the pursuit
of gain, fame, or merely adventure, they were to suffer absolute
privation and hardship; consorting with savages in place of the plumed
and pampered denizens of palaces.
After a probably tempestuous voyage across the bleak Atlantic, and a
merciless buffeting from Fundy in the spring of 1604, the prospective
Governor of the great territory known as Acadia was sailing along this
coast, which presents such a forbidding aspect from the Bay, making his
first haven May 16. At that time, we can readily imagine, in this
northern region the weather would not be very balmy. Even now the wild
rocky shore stretches along drearily - though with certain stern
picturesqueness - as far as eye can reach, and then must have been even
less attractive, as it showed no sign of habitation.
Champlain was somewhat familiar with these shores from former voyages,
and so had been chosen as pilot; but De Poutrincourt and Pontgravé,
other associates of Pierre du Guast, the Sieur de Monts, doubtless
looked askance at each other, or indulged in the expressive French shrug
as the cheerless panorama parsed before them. On that 16th of May, at
the harbor where the little town of Liverpool is now situated, De Monts
found another Frenchman engaged in hunting and fishing, ignoring, or
regardless of, the rights of any one else; and without ado this
interloper (so considered by De Monts) was nabbed; the only consolation
he received being the honor of transmitting his name, Rossignol, to the
harbor, - a name since transferred to a lake in the vicinity.
After a sojourn of two weeks at another point (St. Mary's Bay), the
explorers proceeded northward; and at last a particularly inviting
harbor presented itself, causing the mental vision of the new Governor
and his company to assume more hopeful aspect, as they turned their
course thither and pronounced it "Port Royal"!
PORT ROYAL
Here they managed to exist through the winter with as much comfort as
circumstances would admit of; but with the return of summer were on the
wing again, in search of more salubrious climate and more southerly
locality for the establishment of a colony, sailing along the coast of
Maine and Massachusetts as far as Cape Cod.
