Summer Meeting: Friends' Historical Association

Volume 23, No. 1 Spring Number, 1934 Bulletin of Friends' Historical Association SUMMER MEETING FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION For its summer meeting, held May 19, 1934, the Friends' Historical Association journeyed up beyond Langhorne to George School, one mile south of Newtown, Pennsylvania, and about ten miles west of Trenton. The occasion was the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of Newtown, in the lower part of Bucks County. Arrangements were made jointly by the Friends' Historical Association and George School. For some of our members this was perhaps a first visit to George School; and they could hardly fail to be impressed by the stately trees, the broad and beautifully kept campus, and the substantial buildings. George School was established in 1893, in accordance with the will of John M. George, of Overbrook, Pennsylvania, a member of Radnor Monthly Meeting, who left the greater part of his estate to erect and maintain a "boarding school for the education of children, members of the Society of Friends, and such others as a committee appointed by the Yearly Meeting may think proper." The School has had a steady growth, the enrolment increasing from ISO in 1893 to 320 in 1934, and the original building, reproduced in the frontispiece of this issue of the Bulletin, having been added to from year to year until there are now seventeen buildings devoted to the manifold purposes of the School. Pupils of George School provided the entertainment for Part I of the program, consisting first of a paper on the Indians of Bucks County at the time of the founding of Newtown, and then of a pageant presenting five episodes of local history. Great care had been taken to see that the costumes and setting of the pageant were correct. Part II of the program consisted in the 4 BULLETIN OF FRIENDS' HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ceremony of planting an English oak grown from an acorn brought from Jordans Friends' Meeting House, Buckinghamshire , England, where William Penn lies buried. The dedicatory address was delivered by Charles Francis Jenkins, President of the Friends' Historical Association. Part III consisted of a basket supper eaten on the beautiful lawn of the School. Part I of the program was as follows : Historical Paper The Indians of Bucks County Two Hundred and Fifty Years Ago ........ Sarah Gilpin Underhill (Printed on page 7 of this issue of the Bulletin) Historical Pageant of Lower Bucks County and Newtown Prologue ................................. Paul R. Evans Episode I. On the Path to Playwicky Indian Town, 1682 This ancient trail, beginning far to the north, crossed Wrightstown Township and, passing George School property, led four miles southerly to Playwicky Indian Town (stone and bronze marker erected), which was located in the vale by the springs and a little western affluent of Neshaminy Creek, on the Van Artsdalen Farm, in Southampton Township, Bucks County, 21/?. miles west of Langhorne and 18 miles northeast of Philadelphia. Playwicky, which means habitation of the wild turkeys, was the capital of the Great Chief Tamany, who sold the land between Neshaminy and Pennypack Creeks to William Penn, in Philadelphia, on June 23, 1683. The characters shown are on their way to Playwicky, to the conference of the Indians with representatives of William Penn. Indians: Chief Tamany, braves, squaws, maidens, and children The three Penn representatives : Deputy Governor, Captain William Markham Surveyor General, Captain Thomas Holme (Quaker) Surveyor, Thomas Fairman (Quaker) Episode II. The First Indian Land Sale to William Penn in Bucks County: the Grant of the Lower Part of the County, July IS, 1682. The Indians arrive first and sit in a half circle. The whites appear, greet the Indians, and, through an interpreter, explain the meaning of the deed, which is displayed. There is then discussion of the deed. The Indians then sign, each making the totem mark of his tribe; after which the Indians dance a cantico about a small ceremonial fire. Site of Playwicky Indian Town in the Vale SUMMER MEETING5 Place: A white oak on John Wood's land at "ye Gray Stones over against the ffalls of" Delaware River (now Morrisville, Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and opposite Trenton, New Jersey). Indian Chiefs: Idquoqueywon, Janottowe, Sahoppe...