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200 Merion in the Welsh Tract.
The amounts of powder and shot bought in Philadelphia
by the Welsh suggests that they must have been indeed
“mighty hunters before the Lord.” The purchase of much
writing paper would indicate a considerable correspondence,
whilst buckskin breeches and plush coats of violent tints would
show that on meeting days the meeting-house must have pre-
sented a very gay picture. Quantities of cambric and great
silk handkerchiefs, mirrors, fine bonnets and hair-pins, with
now and then a new silk dress and a pair or so of gloves, im-
press us with the fact that our great-great-grandmothers did
not permit themselves to be forgotten upon market days.
There seems but little else of importance to relate regard-
ing the life of the first Welsh settlers in the Province of Penn-
sylvania. With but little change, as the years rolled on, they
continued to live and to die as their fathers had done before
them, and as they prayed their children might also do, until
the tidal wave of the Revolution rolled to their doors. Con-
cerning this period of the history of Merion we are for the pre-
sent silent, for of those gallant troops who went forth from
Merion as volunteers in Washington’s army, some of whom
became food for powder, or of the stirring scenes enacted
during the war for Independence, within the limits of the Great
Welsh Tract, this book has naught to do.
You can imagine for yourselves how the various house-
hold and social duties were regularly performed in the very
early days of which we have spoken.
You can see the milkmaids going to and returning from
the pasture lands in the morning and evening, the butter-
churning, the cheese-making, and the industrious weaving and
spinning. It is not difficult either to bring to mind the merry
wedding feasts after the return of the newly wedded couple from
the meeting-house, or the boisterous frolic that invariably fol-
lowed upon suchan occasion. Nor is it difficult to picture, of a
winter’s eve, the staid Welsh Friend, with spectacles perched on
nose, reading aloud to his family from the Welsh Bible, brought
out from dear old Cymru, whilst the great hickory logs sput-
ter merrily in the open fire-place, and the homely tallow dips