"I am almost bewildered + know not what I write, documents, I have none to send."

Benjamin Chew Jr. was long-time attorney for Richard and Mary Penn. Over the course of many years, Richard Penn's financial situation worsened--for a time, he relied upon his cousin to provide him with financial support, and later, he caused a great rift in the family by seeking compensation for property he felt he was owed by his father's will. He associated with agents who were able to persuade him to become involved in land ventures that were not to his benefit. At the end of his life, he was mired in debt due to his own decisions and his ill health, which made management of his affairs difficult.

In this letter, Mr. Penn's hysteria rises to a boiling point, and he writes to Benjamin Chew, "Your great friendship towards me has been the cause of my death an event which has not yet taken place as you will see, but I hear it will not be long ere it happens. I have been so much vexed perplexed and disappointed in your not enabling Mr. Coates to put in bail for me....I am told this business of attachment might easily have been prevented at the beginning; that was not done and therefore I must suffer."



In the letter following this, Mr. Penn begins to Benjamin Chew, "I am sorry any thing I should have written to you caused any pain to your feelings. I certainly never meant it. You must attribute it to my distress which accumulates every day....For God's sake, do every thing you can to extricate me + if the Francis family will have the Luzerne lands they must in short, I am almost bewildered + I know not what I write, documents, I have none to send...."

Some bewilderment, indeed! There is a very similar kind of exchange between Mary Penn and Benjamin Chew in 1812, a year after Richard Penn's death. Mrs. Penn appointed another attorney to represent her, and then apologized to Benjamin Chew for hurting his feelings, explaining that she did what was necessary, and hoped that it would not hurt their friendship.

"...she is made the Heaven on Earth to which we most aspire..."

(You can click on the image to enlarge it to a readable size.)

Since Mother's Day is nearly here, I thought I would share a gem I found in Benjamin Chew Jr.'s papers extolling the virtues of Woman!

To give you just a sense of this document's flavor, here is a wonderfully florid quote:

"nay, more, she instills into the young Soul those Principles, those Sentiments, which give real Life, and which alone make the care-worn sojuournment in this vale of Sorrows worth enduring--She unfolds the Lilly, Honor, and teaches us to preserve its Leaf stainless, or wash it clean with the Drainings of our Arteries--The Mother's Tenderness assists the opening ideas in their expansion--the Sister's affection smoothes the angry Brow, and checks the Sigh of Vexation--The Mistress gives exertion in the Cause of Virtue and then repays us with her Love--"

"I must say your Geography is very bad and ... I presume you'll readily agree to some other Boundary..."

Sorting through some folders of (mostly) Benjamin Jr's legal papers, I came across a random folder of material dealing with the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary dispute. In it was an 18 page letter addressed to "Countryman Hickinbotham". The letter is unsigned, but after reading through it, I found the letter it was answering, which was addressed to "Mr. John Ross". The letter, from Charles Higinbotham, discusses an attack on some of his countrymen who were encamped along the Susquehanna River. In this attack, a Captain Croasap's house was burned and some of his men were injured.

Higinbotham writes "Lett me modestly putt this Querie, Who gave the first Blowe or fired the first House? We feel the Stroke you Rejoice in the Glory and Conquest. A Controversy between the Proprietors ought never to Spirit up the people to a Rebellion against their Sovereign. Now Sr, As Several have been Accomplices in this late Conspiracy, and a vast number, Abettors and incendiaries in the fomenting and Carrying on the Said Villainous and traitorous Felony, We ... are ... under the speciall Protection of his Majesty ... to take, apprehend & Seize as many of the Late Conspirators ... as we shall be able to detect and them will deliver up to the Law.---" ( Baltimore: January 4, 1736)

Ross' response is fiery and excited, as he first criticizes Higinbotham's ideas about the placement of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, writing, "But to put you in the Right and me in the Wrong, there is one principle Point to be made out, And that is that the Place of your present Rendezvous is within the Province of Maryland and not in Pennsylvania .... Now if you mean that the River Susquahannah which lies near North and South is the Boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland, ... I must say your Geography is very bad and upon a little Recollection I presume you'll readily agree to some other Boundary, And that I expect to hear will be the 40th Degree...." (Lancaster County: January 11th, 1736/7)

Eight pages later, he lays out the reasons for the attack on Croasap, and provides a detailed account of the burning of Captain Croasap's house:

"Bad Ben's" schoolboy days

While we certainly can't read everything, we do skim documents for a general idea of their content in order to categorize them. Discovering interesting tidbits about the individuals represented in a collection is one of the joys of processing. Benjamin Chew, Jr.'s voluminous correspondence has provided many such discoveries.

In the letter below, John Eager Howard, Benjamin Jr.'s brother-in-law, wrote to tell him how his sons Samuel and Benjamin III (later known as "Bad Ben") were getting on in their studies at St. Mary's College of Baltimore, a boarding school near the Howards' home. Samuel was apparently an astute student, while Benjamin III struggled to focus on his studies. Independent and strong-willed, Benjamin clashed with his teachers and other students. Later letters indicate that he was able to curtail his problematic behavior enough to succeed in his classes. However, John Eager Howard still reported to Benjamin Jr. in a letter written several months after the one below that Benjamin III had been in another fight: "I admire much Ben's spirit and many good qualities, but the truth is, he is too quick, which at times will lead him into scrapes of this kind" (John Eager Howard to Benjamin Chew, Jr., Baltimore, November 2, 1806). Benjamin's uncle proved correct, as conflict followed "Bad Ben" into adulthood.

"Mischievious Machinations"

Today, I uncovered this flier amongst papers relating to the executorship of Benjamin Chew's estate. This tells a little bit of the story of "Bad Ben" (Benjamin Chew, III), who contested the sale of Cliveden, the Chew's family home in Germantown, and was at the heart of a massive family dispute regarding the estate.

On the back of one of the summaries of court proceedings was written in faint pencil "mischevious machinations"; the document discussed forfeiture of property. "Bad Ben" was removed from his role in the execution of his father's estate, but contested all of the decisions made by the remaining executors, thereby dissolving the family fortune in legal costs.

This is just one piece of a family drama that consumes many linear feet of material. These materials comprise the next large portion of our processing work.

Sorting out Benjamin Chew Jr's Correspondence

Over the past few days, Natalie and I have been sorting Benjamin Jr's correspondence. It was housed in 30 boxes, but now, sorted by letter of the correspondent's last name, it looks like this:


In the background, taped on the wall, is the Chew Family tree that I put together in the beginning of the project to try to clarify relationships between people.


The Chews were prolific correspondents. These tables are filled with letters from Benjamin Chew's family members. If we are lucky, we might be able to tell the difference between Maria and Catherine Chew's handwriting, as they often don't sign their letters.

Eventually (we hope very soon), these stacks will be sorted by correspondent's name and date, and placed in neat folders to be included in our finding aid.

(De)Ciphering Benjamin Chew

Because I am a poet who works with visual elements of the page, I found this letter completely captivating. The lines jump all over the place, and it is hard to tell where one sentence ends and another begins. It is clear that Benjamin Chew (1758-1844) was losing his faculties in the last years of his life, and his later papers document this decline. We likely have this letter because he had someone else make a legible copy to send to his client or friend. Though not as spectacular as some of the beautiful maps the Chews collected, letters like these provide us with valuable information about the lives of the Chew family.