Page:Architectural Review and American Builders' Journal, Volume 1, 1869.djvu/158

 130 Sloan's Architectural Review and Builders' Journal. [August, PROFESSION MADE PRACTICE. William Penn thoroughly compre- hended, and determined to establish in a virgin land, unawed and untrammelled by precedent or authority the principles of republican constitutional liberty. In proof of this, mark the following ex- tract from a letter written in the blossom of his Proprietorship. " Westminster, 12th of 2d mo., 1681. Deak R. Turner, Ant. Sharp, and R. Roberts : For the matters of liberty and privi- lege I propose, that which is extraor- dinary ; and, to leave myself, and suc- cessors, NO POWER OF DOING MISCHIEF ; that the will of one man may not hinder THE GOOD OF AN WHOLE COUNTRY But to publish these things, now and here, as matters stand, would not be wise ; and I was advised to reserve that, till I came there. W. PENN. [-Robert Turner, Merchant, At his house in Dublin.]" Mark, also, that this profession was immediately confirmed by practice, on Penn's first conference with the Repre- sentative Assembly of Pennsylvania ; the action then irrevocably taken, estab- lishing the liberties of this Common- wealth upon their present basis. THE PURPOSE, AGAIN. To return to our main object : We ask — and the circumstances justify us in asking— this great Commonwealth to purchase and set aside, for the encour- agement and use of all her sons and daughters, the tract of ground between Palmer and Marlborough streets and Richmond street, and the river Dela- ware, which, when its water-front is ex- tended to the Port Warden's line, will be about 950 feet square, containing, in its very centre, the exact site of the Great Elm Tree, the tree itself to be re- placed by a monument, noble and lofty, serving to commemorate both the Lenni- Lenape and the Founder ; but specially dedicated to William Penn. The de- signs for this will exercise the highest soaring, the most imaginative, of our architects ; and the selected one may stamp one of them as great ; but we now strive to incite the members of the whole community to determine : Firstly : — that this thing shall be done: — Secondly : — that they will immediately proceed to do it. The ground acquired, and a fair and large proportion of the money for embellishment paid in, it will then be time to discuss the means of adornment. For action, the present moment is the best. Inadequately as the writer has herein skimmed the chronicles, in order that the casual reader may have at least an index to the greater bearings of the subject, it needs few words to convince the generous mind, that the Delaware Indians ought to be honored with the accessorial parts of this monument. Possessed of a language far superior in construction to any other of the Indian tongues, and described by Penn himself as, like the Hebrew, " narrow and lofty ; but, in signification, full " — as a tribe, they are memorable in other points : — in none more so — apart from their relation to Penn — than in their " woman " me- diatorship among their congeners. What, however, was entered into, when they were amply able to cope with their opponents, was purposely misconstrued by the devisers of the scheme, and, practically, the Delawares never regained their old position in Indian blazonry, until long after the arrival of the whites, when it really mattered little to any of the parties concerned. The remnant of the Lenni-Lenape retired from the shores of the Delaware between 1740 and 1760.