“’May Minuit’s baby run as long and as true as the article on which he has made his meal!’

“Next day they set the great stone in the corner of the State of Maryland, and, breaking camp, vanished westward through the cleft of light opened by their pioneers, pursued yet for many miles by a motley multitude.

“Before many years this fertile country filled up with hamlets, mills, and churches; the War of Independence scarcely interrupted its prosperity, because the Quaker element adhered with constancy to neither side, and only one campaign was fought here.  The story of the boy who ate a watch passed out of general knowledge and remark; he was known to have been a drummer at the battle of Chadd’s Ford, and to have buried his mother before the close of the war, at the Delaware fishing hamlet of Marcus Hook, amongst her Finnish progenitors.

“But soon after the peace, the short, fat body and queer, merry Dutch face of Fithian Minuit were known all along the roads of Chester, Cecil, and Newcastle counties, by parts of the people of three States, as components of one of the least offensive, most industrious, and most lively and popular young chaps around the head of the Chesapeake.

“He was respectful with the old and congenial with the young—­always going and never tired, up early and late, of a chirruping sort of address and an equal temper, and while he appeared to be thrifty and money-making, he did all manner of good turns for the high and the humble; and, although everybody said he was the homeliest young man in the region, yet more village girls went to their front doors to see him than if he had been a showman coming to town to do feats of magic.  He was not unintelligent either, and could play on the violin, compute accounts equal to the best country book-keeper, and as he was of religious turn, although attached to no particular denomination, the meeting-houses on every side, hardly excepting the Quakers themselves, delighted to see him drive up on Sundays and tell an anecdote to the children and sing a little air, half-hymn sort, half stave, but always given with a good countenance, which apologized for the worldly notes of it.  If any severe interpreter of Christian amusements took the people to task for tolerating such a universal and desultory character, there were others to rise up and ask what evil or passionate word or act of sorry behavior in Fithian Minuit could be instanced.  The severe Francis Asbury himself raised the question once on the Bohemia Manor amongst the Methodists, and got so little support that he charged young Minuit with the possession of some devilish art or spell to entrap the people; but Fithian once, when the good itinerant’s horse broke down on the road, met Mr. Asbury, won his affections, and mended his big silver watch.