Part 21

After Mr. Barton left the county of York, he became established in Lancaster, where he officiated as rector of St. James’s church in that borough, and missionary to the large and respectable country-congregations of Caernarvon and Pequea, nearly twenty years.

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“I was,” said our young philosopher, “obliged to ride hard to reach Lancaster, the evening after I left you; and being somewhat tired myself, as well as my horse, I determined to go to the Dunker’s-Town, where I staid the remainder of that day and the night following. I was there entertained with an epitome of all the whimsies mankind are capable of conceiving. Yet it seemed to me the most melancholy place in the world, and I believe would soon kill me were I to continue there; though the people were exceedingly civil and kind, and the situation of the place is pleasant enough. From thence I went homewards, through Reading; where I was agreeably surprised, the number and goodness of the buildings far exceeding my expectations.

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Footnote 78:

Although commonly called Dunker’s-Town, the proper name of this once noted village is Ephrata. The little community which formerly resided there, usually styled Dunkers, date the origin of their sect about the year 1705. The original members of this religious society, in Germany, Switzerland, and some other parts of Europe, having been persecuted and banished from their homes, assembled themselves in the duchy of Cleves, under the protection of the king of Prussia: and from thence they migrated to Pennsylvania, mostly between the years 1718 and 1734, a few of them only remaining behind. See also the next note.

Footnote 79:

The proper name of this place is Ephrata; and the very singular religious society to whom it belongs, are denominated Seventh-Day Baptists.

The society is said to have originally consisted of about twenty families who migrated from Germany to Pennsylvania, about the year 1718 or 1719; part of whom settled at this place, and founded the village of Ephrata (the head-quarters of the sect,) which is situated about thirteen miles, north-eastward, from Lancaster, on a little stream called the Cocolico-creek. These people hold the doctrine of an universal redemption, ultimately, denying the eternity of future punishment; that war and judicial oaths are unchristian; and that it is not justifiable to take interest, for money lent. They keep the seventh day of the week as their sabbath, and baptize by submersion; whence they derive their name: they also inculcate the propriety of celibacy, and of maintaining a community of goods; but when any of them marry, and acquire property independent of the society in Ephrata, they are obliged to retire from thence and reside elsewhere. The men generally wear their beards, and clothe themselves in a habit not unlike that of the Carmelites or White Friars: the women dress like nuns. Both men and women observe great abstemiousness in their diet, living chiefly on vegetables, and submit to some privations and corporal severities, besides, in their religious discipline; they lie upon benches, with a wooden block instead of a pillow: but though meek, humble, and even timid, in their deportment, they are very civil to strangers who visit them.

The society of Ephrata is supported by cultivating their lands, conducting a printing-press, a grist-mill, a paper-mill, a saw-mill, a tan-yard, &c. and the women are employed in spinning, knitting, sewing, making paper-lanterns and other toys, &c.

The village consists of about ten or a dozen buildings; and is mostly composed of the cloisters and convent, two churches, and the mills. One of their places of worship adjoins the sisters’ apartments, as a chapel; another belongs to the brothers’ apartments: and to these churches, the brethren and the sisterhood respectively resort, every morning and evening, sometimes, too, in the night, for the purpose of worshipping; much of which is made up of soft and melodious chanting, by the females. There is said to be one other place of worship, wherein all the members of the society, within the bounds of the settlement, meet once a week to celebrate worship publicly.

Such, indeed, was the pleasant, sequestered little village of Ephrata, at the time our then very young philosopher visited it; and such was the condition of that little-known sect of Christians, while the society continued under the direction of their second and last president, the late Mr. Peter Miller. This venerable old German, who had been bred to the priesthood in some one of the Protestant churches of his native country, became a convert to the principles of this obscure ascetic sect, over which he long presided with much reputation, after the death of its reputed founder, CONRAD BEIXLER, his patriarchal predecessor. But, though possessing a good share of the old scholastic learning, with a large portion of piety, the mind of Mr. Miller was strongly tinctured with many mystical notions in divinity; such as well comported with the “whimsies” of the religious society he governed.

Since the death of this good man, the ancient discipline of the religious community at Ephrata, which had become greatly relaxed during the revolutionary war, has almost wholly disappeared. The chief seat of the Seventh-Day Baptists is no longer what it was: for, in lieu of the solemn devotional stillness of the secluded cloysters and cells of its once monastic inhabitants, and which, at this time, are nearly deserted, are now substituted various occupations of industry, amidst “the busy haunts of men.”

A letter from lady Juliana Penn to the second and last worthy president of this little religious society, has a place in the Appendix. It is indicative of the goodness of her ladyship’s heart.

Footnote 80:

The county-town of Berks, in Pennsylvania, pleasantly situated on the Schuylkill, about fifty-six miles, north-westward, from Philadelphia.

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“You have perhaps seen, in one of the last papers, an account of the prodigiously large hail-stones which fell in Plymouth. The lightning struck a tall green poplar standing in our meadow, just before the door, and levelled it with the earth. I was standing between the tree and house; and, at the same instant that I saw the flash of lightning, felt a most violent shock through my whole body,—and was stunned with such a horrible noise, that it is impossible for imagination to represent any thing like it.”

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Footnote 81:

A neighbouring township to Norriton, the place of Mr. Rittenhouse’s country residence.

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The advantages and the disadvantages, which Mr. Rittenhouse respectively enjoyed and encountered, until after he had attained to the period of manhood, have been mentioned; and it will be readily perceived, that the latter greatly outweighed the former, in every other particular than that of his native genius, which alone was sufficient to preponderate against innumerable difficulties.

The great deficiencies in his education, as well as their causes, having been misconceived and incorrectly represented in some publications, a due regard to truth demands a correction of such mistaken opinions. Soon after his death, there appeared in the Maryland Journal, “Anecdotical Notices of Mr. David Rittenhouse;” which, although written with some ingenuity and knowledge of the subject, contained several errors. It is therein asserted, among other things, that “his parents, incapable of giving him any other education than common reading and writing, intended to have brought him up to country-business; but, being blessed by nature with a mechanical turn of mind, he soon gave specimens of his ingenuity in making wooden clocks: This so recommended him to notice, as to give him an opportunity of learning the clock-making business.”—It has been already shewn, that Mr. Rittenhouse never received the least instruction in any mechanic art; and it is not ascertained that he ever made more than one wooden clock. It is also notoriously an error, that his parents were “incapable” of giving him any other education, than the common schooling he received: they were by no means poor, though not wealthy. His father inherited some patrimony; and he had, besides, been about nine years concerned in conducting the paper-manufactory near Germantown, after his one-and-twentieth year, before he purchased the Norriton farm. This part of his estate he was enabled to give to his eldest son, David, about the year 1764; prior to which time the old gentleman removed to a farm he had purchased, nearly adjoining it in Worcester township, and on which he had erected a good two-story stone dwelling-house with suitable out-houses. There Mr. David Rittenhouse’s father and mother afterwards resided, together with their other son, Benjamin, (the house being so constructed as, conveniently, to accommodate two small families,) until the death of old Mrs. Rittenhouse in the autumn of 1777, at the age of seventy-three years, and of her husband in the autumn of 1780, in the seventy-eighth year of his age. The Worcester farm was left to the younger son: and, in addition to these not inconsiderable establishments for his sons, the old gentleman had given small portions to each of his five daughters, when they severally married. The remains of this worthy and upright man, for he truly merited that character, were interred in the cemetery belonging to a Baptist congregation, in the neighbourhood, in which both he and his wife had long attended divine worship. But, some years before his death, the old gentleman disposed of a lot of ground very near to his own house,—and gratuitously, if the writer’s information be correct,—to a Presbyterian congregation, for a burial place, and site for a church they were then about to erect. If this little piece of land was a donation to the religious society to whom it belongs, the grant of it, though not of great value, furnishes an instance of that liberality of sentiment and goodness of heart which characterized our Astronomer’s father, and to which some allusion is before made.

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Footnote 82:

This farm contained about one hundred and fifty acres. It was lately sold by the heirs of Dr. Rittenhouse.

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