Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General Washington — John Shaqi
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General WashingtonMitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
History
Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker: Sometime Brevet Lieutenant-Colonel on the Staff of his Excellency General Washington
Mitchell, S. Weir (Silas Weir)
Quakers -- Fiction; United States -- History -- Revolution, 1775-1783 -- Fiction
Two days later I was taken to the academy, or the college, as some
called it, which is now the university. My father wrote my name, as you
may see it in the catalogue, and his own signature, with the date of 6th
month 4th, 1765. Beneath it is the entry of John Warder and his father,
Joseph; for Jack had also been removed from Dove’s dominion because of
what my father said to Joseph, a man always pliable, and advised to do
what larger men thought good. Thus it came about that my friend Jack and
I were by good fortune kept in constant relation. Our schoolmate, the
small maid so slight of limb, so dark and tearful, was soon sent away to
live with an aunt in Bristol, on the Delaware, having become an orphan
by the death of her mother. Darthea Peniston passed out of my life for
many years, having been, through the accident of her tenderness, the
means for me of a complete and fortunate change.
III
The academy was, and still is, a plain brick building, set back from
Fourth street, and having a large gravelled space in front and also at
the back. The main school-room occupied its whole westward length, and
upstairs was a vast room, with bare joists above, in which, by virtue of
the deed of gift, any Christian sect was free to worship if temporarily
deprived of a home. Here the great Whitefield preached, and here
generations of boys were taught. Behind the western playground was the
graveyard of Christ Church. He was thought a brave lad who, after school
at dusk in winter, dared to climb over and search around the tombs of
the silent dead for a lost ball or what not.
I was mightily afraid of the academy. The birch was used often and with
severity, and, as I soon found, there was war between the boys and the
town fellows who lived to north and east. I was also to discover other
annoyances quite as little to the taste of Friends, such as stone fights
or snowball skirmishes. Did time permit, I should like well to linger
long over this school life. The college, as it was officially called,
had a great reputation, and its early catalogues are rich with names of
those who made an empire. This task I leave to other pens, and hasten to
tell my own personal story.
In my friend Jack Warder’s journal there is a kind page or two as to
what manner of lad I was in his remembrance of me in after-years. I like
to think it was a true picture.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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