For reservations to experience “nkwiluntàmën: I long for it; I am lonesome for it (such as the sound of a drum)” by Indigenous artist Nathan Young, please go to https://nkwiluntamen.com/
In the third post for our new series The Country Life, we continue our look into the Kitchen Garden’s herb collection (check out our posts on Lemon Balm and Rosemary). Here is one of my favorites…
Lavender (Lavandula): Visitors will often recognize this herb’s soft, purple flowers and many will welcome the chance to smell it. Colonists also enjoyed lavender’s scent and used it as a perfume for clothing. They also recognized the value of aromatherapy. Lavender’s aroma was used to ease headaches and “giddiness.” The plant’s flowers, leaves, and seeds were also consumed to ward off fainting and joint pain.
Continuing our exploration of 17th-century maps (see my last featurette here), we look at yet another map in the Manor House:
Map of Buckinghamshire – by Danielle Straub
In the Manor House’s Withdrawing Room, there is a map on the far wall across from the rope. This map is small and hard to see from across the room, but up close one can see vibrant colors and beautiful ornamentation. I wanted to point this map out because not only is it beautiful, but also because it is an interesting specimen of maps from the 1600’s. Be sure and click on the images to open a larger view.
I mentioned in the last Featurette characteristics of older maps, if some may recall, which I will be using again in this article. Our map is of Buckinghamshire in England, from 1610. Since this map is 100 years older than our Pennsylvania map (also seen in the last Featurette, follow link above to view), we can see more decoration and the use of mythical creatures.
To begin, in the center of the map is the main map of Buckinghamshire. Noted on the map are man-made features such as towns, cites, and bridges. The towns and cites are marked by a symbol of small buildings with a red dot of watercolor over it. Our mapmaker seemed to use red and yellow watercolors more than the others! These colors are splashed across the crests, fleur de lis, and well-inked lions. Getting back to the central map, the natural features that we placed on the map include hills, mountains, trees, and rivers. The shape of the hills and mountains appear to be anywhere from a bump to a rounded peak, while rivers are a consistent bold line. The trees stand alone at places or are placed in clusters as well on the map.
At the top corners are inset boxes. The box on the left is of Buckinghamshire and on the right is Redding. These insets are like mini maps to important cities and include their own compass, distance scale, crest, and key. They show the roads, river, groups of buildings, fields, and is decorated with oversized farmers and their animals. The key is for the street names which each have a corresponding letter or number on the map. The inset of Redding also labels the South Giles Church and the school in Redding.
Lastly, in the bottom corners are arches. These arches have titles held up above them by two cupids. In the arch on the left is the King’s crest and below are crossed lances and flags with a crown. Across the lances is a banner which reads “UNION”. In the arch on the right are four crests with the title of “The Armes of thofe Honorable Families which have born ye Titles of Buckingha(m)”. The family crests include those of “Walter Gifford Earle, Richard Stanbowe E., Thomas of Wodftoke E., and Humfr. Stafforde Duke”. This map is beautiful and was a symbol of pride for these families to be from Buckinghamshire. If you ever get a chance to see it close up, please go view and enjoy it.
**A big THANK YOU to Danielle Straub for her work on these summer featurettes and helping our curator Todd with his work in Pennsbury’s archives!**
In the second post for our new series The Country Life, we continue our look into the Kitchen Garden’s herb collections (check out our post on Lemon Balm). Here is one you’ll probably recognize…
Rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis): Recognizable by its needle-like leaves, rosemary had many uses in the 17th century. In the kitchen, cooks could use rosemary to flavor meats (like we do today). Medicinally, its savory aroma was used to ease a headache and to improve one’s memory. Additionally, vapors resulting from steaming the herb could be used to cure an earache and the leaves could be smoked to ease a cough.
William Penn wrote that “a country life and estate I like best for my children,” and we agree! So our new featurette The Country Life will highlight the outside gardens and grounds of Pennsbury Manor and the surrounding area. Enjoy!
Sights, Sounds, and Smells of the Kitchen Garden
Every spring and summer, visitors to Pennsbury stop by the Kitchen Garden to take in the sights and sounds of the 17th Century. They see a multitude of plants of all colors and textures. They hear the birds chirping and the bees buzzing. However, the garden also offers visitors the chance to experience smells of the 17th Century (and I’m not talking about the kind of smells they experience in the stable). The garden boasts a number of fragrant herbs that William Penn may have grown in his own garden. In Penn’s time, the fragrant herbs were not only pleasing, but also useful. Penn’s contemporaries often had several uses for one herb, including culinary and medicinal uses.
Now that school tour season is over, our fragrant herbs will have a change to recover from the rubbing, pulling, and picking. However, kids are not the only ones who are drawn to the sweet and savory smells of the Kitchen Garden. Children and adults alike enjoy the hands-on (and nose-on!) element the Kitchen Garden offers. Here at Pennsbury, we encourage all visitors to engage their senses as they stroll through the garden, including this one:
Lemon balm (Melissa officinalis): A favorite of mine, lemon balm really does smell like lemon! Although it is related to other mints, lemon balm offers a citrus surprise that visitors often do not expect. In Penn’s time it was used to flavor cakes, teas, wine, and other beverages. In fact, our Summer Camp kids discovered lemon balm tea today and loved it! Medicinally, lemon balm was also used to treat a number of ailments from stomachaches to epilepsy.
So take a stroll into the lower kitchen garden and look for lemon balm, it’s near the path intersection by the cistern. Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing more of our most popular and fragrant garden herbs for you to explore. Stay tuned!
The Scene: The Justice Hall in the Old Bailey, London
The Date: 15-16 January 1690
Where’s William? M.I.A. At this stage, Penn was keeping a very low profile in England. He was still suspected by the new King and Queen, William and Mary, of Jacobitism and perhaps Catholicism. Most of his letters now just carry a date, not a location of where it was written, and letters to him were addressed to friends who might know his location, for hand delivery.
Background: Far below the social and political sphere in which Penn maneuvered, there existed a large underclass. This is especially true of the city of London. Many upper class Londoners were quaintly amused by
the simple country laboring folk they encountered in journeys across southern England. Closer to home, though, they often objected to the ‘airs’ put on by the lower classes, especially concerning their modes of dress. Fashion, and fashionable clothing, became a London trait, most noticeable after the Restoration, and continuing after the Glorious Revolution. Modes of dress indicated your status in society, and also indicated who could or could notbe approached in public areas. The engraving on the right is one of many in a collection by Marcellus Laroon, an artist who sketched London’s street hawkers, entertainers, and beggars in the late 1600s. These chimney sweeps are from the lowest ranks of London society, and are dressed accordingly. But unfortunately for the gentry, the lower classes started to find plenty of opportunities to buy the fashionable garments traditionally worn only by the upper-classes, causing a major disturbance in the class system. Many women wearing fashionable gowns were now less than met the eye. Bernard Mandeville, writing in the early 18th Century, laments:
This haughtiness alarms the court, the women of quality are
frighten’s to see merchants’ wives and daughters dress’d like
themselves: this impudence of the City, they cry, is intolerable;
mantua-makers are sent for, and the contrivance of fashions
becomes all their study, that they may have always new modes
ready to take up, as soon as those saucy city shall begin to
imitate those in being.
As the merchants wives went, so went the laborers and their wives and girlfriends. They aspired to fashions which would elevate themselves to the merchants clothing status. Men were no different, as you can see from the engraving here. This fiddler sought to elevate his appearance and improve business by dressing in fashionable attire, probably bought used from a street crier. A huge quantity of secondhand clothes abounded in London, both legitimate and stolen. Tradesmen looking to purchase new fashions or servants who receive garments from their employers would sell off used clothing to street hawkers (seen below) for extra money. The hawkers would then resell for a much smaller price than new garments. Clothing and cloth remained a huge black market commodity in 17th – 18th Century England, and most likely, throughout the Empire. This continued until industrialization and its mass-produced, inexpensive clothing caught up with the demand. If fashion or other needs called, and the purse was light, theft would do.
Event: Trials of Anne Hughes, Jane Townsend, Jean Voudger, Ursula Watson, and Mary Smith all before a jury for theft of clothing or cloth in the weeks preceding.
Outcome:
Anne Hughes – found guilty of stealing a number of clothing items from her employer, listed as a “quarter of an ell of Holland value 18 d one yard of Cambrick 3 s. one Scarf 6 d. one pair of Shoes 12 d. “
Jane Townsend – found guilty of stealing one Flaxen Sheet value 5 s. from Joseph Brendon.
Both of these women were sentenced to being “Whip’d from Newgate to Temple Bar” which would have been from above St. Paul’s, and down Fleet Street, tied to a cart, being publicly whipped along the way.
Jean Voudger – found guilty of stealing from one John Rance 56 yards of Flanders Lace value 10 pounds, two Laced Holland Cornets 7 s., two Quoifs 14 s., 2 pair of Gloves, 2s., and twelve Hoods 13 s.
She was sentenced to death for this crime, but was saved from the gallows by reason of her pregnancy.
Ursula Watson – found guilty of stealing a handkerchief and a pair of gloves, and was acquitted of theft charges regarding other items missing from the house.
Mary Smith – found guilty of for stealing six yards of Serge value 12 s. on the 24th of December , from Robert Acton.
Both Smith and Watson were sentenced to being whipped from Newgate to Holburn Bars.
The second-hand clothing market fueled by fashion crazed London was a boon for some, allowing for an apparent increased status to lower class workers (like the crab seller seen above) and employing many. However, it remained a bane to those caught stealing to supply this market and the aristocrats who saw their status as under assault by those up-dressing commoners!
Nash is often considered one of the best historical authors of his generation ( not to mention a personal favorite of mine whose work The Unknown American Revolution: The Unruly Birth of Democracy and the Struggle to Create America was definitely used in my master’s thesis!). Considering that legacy, I was really excited to see how much credit he gives our beloved William Penn and his role in creating Philadelphia’s cradle of liberty!
Check out his article and feel free to share your thoughts below!
In June of 1682, Penn was busily preparing to leave for Pennsylvania. But already he was writing to the Native Americans and establishing his two main concerns: peaceful title to land and establishing commerce through the Free Society of Traders. The Emperor of Canada is probably an Iroquois chief.
You can find the original of this letter in our exhibit:
“TO THE EMPEROR OF CANADA
The Great God that made thee and me and all the World Incline our hearts to love peace and Justice that we may live friendly together as becomes the workmanship of the great God. The King of England who is a Great Prince hath for divers Reasons Granted to me a large Country in America which however I am willing to Injoy upon friendly termes with thee. And this I will say that the people who comes with me are a just plain and honest people that neither make war upon others nor fear war from others because they will be just. I have sett up a Society of Traders in my Province to traffick with thee and thy people for your Commodities that you may be furnished with that which is good at reasonable rates And that Society hath ordered their President to treat with thee about a future Trade and have joined with me to Send this Messenger to thee with certain Presents from us to testify our Willingness to have a fair Correspondence with thee: And what this Agent shall do in our names we will agree unto. I hope thou wilt kindly Receive him and Comply with his desires on our behalf both with Respect to Land and Trade. The Great God be with thee. Amen.”
Have you ever wondered what it would be like to wake up and live like William Penn? Spend a week eating and dressing like the Penn family, sleeping in the House at Pennsbury Manor?
Well I can’t really help you there. BUT apparently there are two hilarious, adventurous Britons who came very close to that dream! I have recently discovered a very funny show called “The Supersizers,” hosted by restaurant critic Giles Coren and broadcaster Sue Perkins who spend a week dressing, eating, and living in different times throughout British History. Not only is it absolutely hysterical to watch, but it offers a fascinating look at the food and lifestyle of the time!
One of the episodes looks at Restoration England, a slightly earlier time period (1660s) than what we interpret at Pennsbury (1683-1701). But it’s still full of really fascinating insights (note the part where they discuss the rising popularity of vegetables!). Enjoy!
This is, as stated on the artifact, “A MAPP OF YE IMPROVED PENSILVANIA IN AMERICA DIVIDED INTO COUNTIES TOWNSHIPS ANDLOTS. SURVEYED BY THO.HOLMES SOLD BY P.LEA. DEDICATED TO WILLIAM PENNBY INO HARRIS”. This print, shown above, is on display located in the porch of the House, above the fireplace. The map shows Philadelphia and the land along the Delaware River from New Castle to Pennsbury. It is an early 18th century map that is 26 ¼ by 20 ¾ inches in size. It is on white paper done in black printer’s ink and some watercolors.
Some features of the map include the crest of Pennsbury, decorations depicting a full net of fish and a harvest of food with farming tools in the top center, signifying prosperity and the abundance of resources. Key of the map include a scale of distance, compass, and in the top left and right corners there are boxes that say, “REFERS TO SETTLEMENTS OF SEVERAL INHABITANTS IN THE COUNTY OF CHESTER/ BUCKSANDPHILADELPHIA”. Terrain features shown on the map consists of rivers, islands in the Delaware River, trees which symbolize not only forests, but perhaps how dense the forests were by showing trees close to each other and some spread out, and clumps of buildings symbolizing settlements, such as on this map “Newcafle” and “Bridlington”. On the top center of the page is a close up of Philadelphia, which is quite significant in its layout. The Fire of 1666 in London destroyed most of the city. The main problem in London’s design was how close the building was to one another, thus the fire was able to spread more easily. William Penn saw this flaw and he designed Philadelphia to be organized in a grid pattern with plenty of open space between buildings. This map is not only an important resource to us in learning what the landscape looked like back then, but also how map making progressed through time.
Maps with color and decoration such as this one began to appear in the 17th Century. Over time, maps got grander in their decoration, showing anything from Roman gods to mythical creatures to historical or biblical events unfolding on land or at sea. Along the boarders were sometimes family crests or university crests to show the power and prestige of the areas that the map showed. Close up boxes of important areas could also be found somewhere on the map. Small pictures of terrain features were also prevalent, showing forests, hills, mountains, wildlife, castles, settlements and bodies of water, to name a few. Map keys for distance measurements and other features were always on maps, just like they are today.
In comparison with old and modern maps, our maps shows at least one characteristic of both. Compared to old maps, our map does not have any references to biblical, historical, or mythological themes. It was done in color, though it has faded over time, and the crest of Pennsbury is featured on it, which is also shown in older maps. In comparison to modern maps, our map differs by having land plots with the owner’s name on it, beautiful symbolic decorations, differences in landscape, and is less accurate geographically. The most common feature that mostly every map has is a key for which anyone could figure out and find their way.
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This is, as stated on the artifact, “A MAPP OF YE IMPROVED PENSILVANIA IN AMERICA DIVIDED INTO COUNTIES TOWNSHIPS ANDLOTS. SURVEYED BY THO.HOLMES SOLD BY P.LEA. DEDICATED TO WILLIAM PENNBY INO HARRIS”. This print, shown above, is on display located in the porch of the House, above the fireplace. The map shows Philadelphia and the land along the Delaware River from New Castle to Pennsbury. It is an early 18th century map that is 26 ¼ by 20 ¾ inches in size. It is on white paper done in black printer’s ink and some watercolors.
