The Pursuit - Excerpts from Chapters 3 and 7

CHAPTER THREE

Land Ho – The Delaware: From Daydream to Reality

 Steadman could feel it in his bones. Sensing that land was near, he started taking depth soundings. “At midnight the first sounding was taken,” wrote John Naas, “over one hundred fifty fathoms deep without finding bottom.”¹

The next morning, the captain’s search continued. At nine o’clock, he finally found the bottom at fifty-five fathoms, a depth of 330 feet. Two hours later, the bottom was at thirty-five fathoms, then twenty. But there was still no land in sight.

Two days later, in the early morning of September 24, 1733, after surviving the perils of more than two months at sea, Peter Ruth and the other voyagers heard joyful cries from high above.² “The sailors from the mast see land,” recorded David Scholtze. By noon, pilgrims standing on the main deck, gazing through fog, could make out land silhouetted on the horizon.

Their eager shouts would have awakened the senses of even the weariest of souls still below deck as they hurriedly scrambled topside to see for themselves. The main deck must have been abuzz with excitement as Peter and other travelers surely pointed their fingers over the rail and off in the distance, astounded by the navigational skill of the captain. After crossing nearly 3,500 miles of open sea, through wind and gale, directed only by the stars and some crude nautical instruments, he had hit his mark dead center

From the dunes of Cape Henlopen, the first sight of sails on the horizon sent the river pilots of Lewes scrambling to their boats. Hurriedly launching them into the pounding surf, they rowed through the churning waves into the open ocean to hoist their sails. The race was on to see who would be the first to reach the inbound ship; the victor usually won a commission to navigate the treacherous waters of the Delaware River ahead. Beyond the sand bars, unpredictable currents, and narrow channels lay the port of Philadelphia.

As friendly winds carried their vessel closer to land, Naas recalled that from the main deck, he and the captain saw three boats sailing in.³ “Our Captain took the second one and let the first and last return,” added Scholtze.⁴ Steadman recognized the second pilot from a previous voyage and took him at once aboard the ship.⁵ According to Schultze, the captain planned to sail into the river the same night, and later, in the early evening, they entered the stream called the Delaware.⁶

The waters ahead were unnavigable but for the skill of an experienced river pilot. Around eight o’clock that night, just inside the mouth of the bay, there suddenly came a storm wind from the southwest worse than any before, explained Naas in a letter to his son Jacob. All had to help lower the sails and anchor for the first time at seven fathoms deep. The Pennsylvania Merchant, packed with a cargo of German immigrants from the Palatine region, stayed at anchor the whole night.⁷

The next morning, exhilaration surely surged through Peter, his wife Sophia, their four boys, and the other sojourners. For the first time since setting sail from England sixty-six days earlier, their vessel was hugged by land.

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By the time the Ruths reached Lewes, it had become a thriving coastal seaport. On the western side of the tidal creek lay Front Street-Pilot Town Road, a lane stretching some 80 perches long from end to end.²⁰ (As mentioned in Chapter 1, a perch is an old English unit of measurement equal to sixteen and a half feet.) Today, 80 perches would reach 440 yards—the length of nearly four and a half football fields. A land survey in 1723 shows that Front Street, which parallels Lewes Creek, extended the full width of the town.²¹

Historian Carter writes that in Lewes, “a culture grew up which was as close to and dependent on the sea as it was to the land. Many men spent years at sea before returning home to settle down to farming or tending store.” During the 1720s, the town had a population estimated at about sixty families, maybe three hundred people in all, and its strategic location made it the center of Sussex County’s universe. As a thriving town situated at the entrance to the Delaware Bay, it was the only place where pilots could be picked up to navigate vessels upstream to New Castle, Philadelphia, and beyond.²²

Early transportation was also introduced between Lewes and Cape May, a New Jersey town perched on a sandy point at the top of the bay seventeen nautical miles north. Historian Turner reports that a “sail-boat or ferry” operated regularly between these two towns as early as 1660, carrying cargo and passengers between Delaware and New Jersey.²³ Perhaps some of the travelers and dry goods from Cape May were bound for the storefronts that dotted Front, South, and Ship Carpenter Streets. The general store in downtown Lewes, where they sold wheat milled into flour, as well as corn, tobacco, and various farming implements, would have been a hub for townsfolk and visitors alike. Sloops and shallops returning from Philadelphia filled the store’s shelves with coffee, tea, hardware, rum, molasses, spices, imported cloth, and a great variety of products from the West Indies and Europe.²⁴ One street over, a smithy would surely have been hammering sizzling iron into horseshoes, hinges, cook pots, shovels, and hoes, while a variety of skilled tradesmen—carpenters, masons, shipwrights, tailors, and the like—lived and worked in town as well. As for houses of worship, at least three congregations held services in Lewes, including the Church of England, the Presbyterian church, and the Quaker meeting house.

Just west of town, local farmsteads were scattered one mile or half a mile from one another, with the primary cash crops being wheat and tobacco, but also plentiful quantities of rye and corn.²⁵ Most farmers grew enough food to be self-sustaining, with the excess sold to buy manufactured luxuries. Almost every farmer kept a few cattle, hogs, oxen, and poultry, and after the harvest, they would haul their crops to Lewes for transport by shallop about ninety miles up the Delaware for sale in Philadelphia.

The exhausting work of tending land, animals, and crops was born by farmers alongside their families. Some had an indentured servant to help with the backbreaking labor, while a few of the wealthier farmers in the county owned slaves imported from nearby Maryland—the males working mostly in the fields while the women toiled inside as domestic servants. Rev. William Becket, the Anglican missionary at Lewes, concluded that there were only 241 black inhabitants in 1728 in all of Sussex County, including slaves and free blacks.²⁶

CHAPTER SEVEN

Westward Ho: To the Heartland

Two and a half decades before the Civil War left America devastated with hundreds of thousands of lives lost, family patriarch Peter Ruth’s grandson, George Ruth—my third great-grandfather—set out with his wife Hannah and their eight children for America’s western frontier.

Twenty-year-old George had married eighteen-year-old Hannah Margaretha Rose on March 4, 1810. The young couple set up their household in Berks County near Reading, not too far from Peter Ruth’s family homestead in Sinking Spring where George became a farmer. But by 1828, George was feeling the wanderlust of his grandfather Peter, and the family packed up their belongings and headed to Northumberland County, northwest of Reading nearly sixty miles as the crow flies.

While family records do not reveal how the Ruths journeyed from Reading to Sunbury, they undoubtedly traveled overland on the Centre Turnpike in a horse- or ox-drawn Conestoga wagon. Depending on weather and road conditions, wagons in those days could usually cover eight to twenty miles per day—moving at a pace of about two miles per hour—with overnight stops at local taverns. According to Northumberland County Historical Society documents, at least six roadhouses dotted the pike between the two cities. Each tavern welcomed customers with brightly colored, hand-carved wooden signs perched over the front door. Whether the Ruths stayed the night in one of these establishments or camped outside by their wagon in the lot beside the inn, it’s safe to assume the Ruths probably partook in some food and drink selections on the tavern’s bill of fare.

Early American life was greatly influenced by taverns; they were not merely filling stations for road-weary travelers needing food, drink, and lodging but rather the epicenter of community life for the small towns that lined the trail. In addition to being transit terminals, taverns were the central meeting place where locals could hear the day’s news, interact socially with neighbors, transact business, and engage in political discussions. The only newspaper in some communities was likely kept at the local tavern, where it was delivered from the stagecoach that stopped at its door.¹

Some taverns had fancy parlors, mostly for affluent ladies and gentlemen traveling by stagecoach. But all roadside establishments had one thing in common—a taproom. Often the largest room in the house, each bar featured an imposing stone fireplace. During fall and winter, roaring fires kept patrons warm, kindling conversation and good cheer over rum or some other intoxicating concoction. The teamsters who drove the Conestoga wagons filled with goods to stock the shelves of local mercantiles could often be seen spread out on blankets or fur robes in a semi-circle on the floor with feet to the fire.² Other frequent travelers included judges, lawyers, witnesses, and sheriffs—anyone with business related to the nearby court.

Sleeping rooms upstairs usually had two or three double beds, where four who were strangers to each other often slept in each other’s company.³ If the Ruth family—being a brood of ten—booked a stay at one of these roadhouses, they would have had their own room. That being the case, George, Hannah, three teenagers, four preteens between four and eleven, and an infant would have been crammed into two or three beds, with several probably sleeping on the floor.

Whether the Ruths rode in the wagon the entire time or walked beside it during legs of the journey, a leisurely trip that would take less than two hours today was a demanding five- to six-day expedition up the Centre Turnpike. Completed around 1814, the turnpike followed the Schuylkill River north past Port Clinton to Molino, then elbowed northwest to Pottsville and on through Fountain Springs, Mt. Carmel, Natalie, Bear Gap, and Paxinos. The last leg of the turnpike, about twelve miles, led to Sunbury.

A village formerly called Shamokin by the Indians,⁴ Sunbury was nestled just below a fork on the eastern bank of the Susquehanna River and inhabited by about 1,000 settlers.⁵ Though small, it was a bustling town. As a major center of commerce and a strategic transportation artery on the Susquehanna River, it was not only a destination but also a launching point for pioneers heading into the wilds of America’s western frontier. Sunbury was also the site of regular sessions of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, adding to its significance as a key regional hub.

After arriving in Northumberland County, the Ruths traded the rigors of farm life for a new venture in the hospitality business. According to family historian Margaret Ruth Eddy, they ran a tavern for about seven years.⁶ However, my historical plunge into the Ruth family’s travels to Northumberland County in 1828 differs slightly from the 1983 family reunion records regarding George’s move to Sunbury. A publication of the Northumberland County Historical Society states that there is a record of an inn at Snufftown (Paxinos) in 1830 under the proprietorship of George Ruth.⁷ With that as a reference, it seems that George’s establishment was probably not on the Susquehanna River in Sunbury as previously thought. His inn at Snufftown probably sat along the Shamokin Creek, a stream that flows into the Susquehanna River.