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Philadelphia

Quaker capital of the province of Pennsylvania, laid out in 1682 on the Delaware, accused by Crown officers in the 1690s of sheltering Henry Every's men and, in 1718, a port whose trade was said to be blocked by pirates at its own Capes.

Also writtenCoaquannock / Cuwequenaku (Lenape, rendered as the grove of long pine trees; the attribution to this site rests on Heckewelder and Du Ponceau's compilation of 1834 and is antiquarian tradition, Disputed); Shackamaxon (Lenape settlement and treaty ground on the Delaware above the city plot, Probable); Wicaco (Swedish-era settlement immediately south of the city plot, site of Gloria Dei church built 1698 to 1700; Confirmed as to the church, Probable as to the name's currency); Pensilvania / Pennsilvania (contemporary English spellings of the province in Council minutes and Board of Trade papers); Delaware Bay and River; the Bay; the Capes of this River and Bay (Keith's own phrase in Council, 11 August 1718)

Philadelphia here is the town of about 1690 to 1725, a strip perhaps a dozen blocks deep along the west bank of the Delaware. Front Street, the wharves, the cove at Dock Creek's mouth, the county gaol, the Council chamber. William Penn and his surveyor-general Thomas Holme laid the grid out river to river in 1682.

The town has two pirate histories, a generation apart: accused from 1696 to 1700 of sheltering men who had sailed with Henry Every, then from 1717 to 1723 a victim of raiders at its own bay.

The bay and the river

Philadelphia sits up a bay and then a river from the Atlantic, and that governs everything else. A raider at the Capes could take vessel after vessel at the throat of the funnel without ever exposing himself to a shore battery; a warrant from the town took days to reach him and had nothing behind it. The Provincial Council commanded not one armed vessel. William Markham, answering in the 1690s for the privateer Thomas Day, wrote that Day was down the river out of his reach and that they had not force in the province to command him. Sir William Keith told his board in August 1718 that he had invited the neighbouring station ships to take some notice of us, still without any success.1

The provisioning trade

The town grew no tobacco and no sugar. It sold bread, flour and provisions and bought everything else, and Francis Jones set the pattern out for Penn on 13 November 1697: provisions went to Curacao and came back as heavy pieces of eight. A place that turned provisions into Spanish silver had an appetite for coin of any provenance, and Robert Snead, an Anglican justice in a Quaker town, aimed his jibe about how Arabian gold works with some consciences exactly there.2

Philadelphia was a slave-trading and slave-holding port. The province taxed the traffic rather than forbidding it: on 21 February 1717/18 the Council read an Act for continuing a Duty on Negroes brought into this Province.3

The accusation against Markham

Snead's letter to Sir John Houblon, read at the Board of Trade on 20 September 1697, is the most damaging document in the file. It alleges that Markham knew Every's men were in the town, that they had brought about 1,000 pounds each and given 100 pounds each to the Governor, and that he warned them before publishing the proclamation. Snead reports the money as hearsay, in his own words, "I was told". Jones answered for Markham that the Governor issued a warrant the moment the proclamation came, gaoled every one of Every's men in the province, and offered 5 pounds a head after their night escape. On 19 May 1698 Markham put the charges to Snead's face in Council, among them that Pennsylvania is become ye greatest refuge and shelter for pirats and rogues in America, the Governor giving them commissions.4

Every's men in the town

Three men of the Fancy are named in the Council's record. The petition of Robert Chinton, Edmund Lassey and Peter Clauson, close prisoners on suspicion of piracy, was read on 20 May 1697. Clauson was still petitioning by 30 May 1698, confined above a year without trial; he admitted he had been in Every's ship, said he was forced aboard, and was refused. The province's committee conceded to Penn only that Chinton and Lassell with some others of Avery's Crew happened for a small time to sojourn in this place, and that the men broke gaol and escaped to New York.5

One name recurs. Edward Randolph, surveyor-general of the customs, told the Council of Trade and Plantations twice, on 25 and 26 April 1698, that one James Brown of Every's men was married to Markham's daughter, and Snead says the same independently. Both witnesses were hostile and no marriage record has been traced. A James Brown was examined before Penn on 12 April 1700, and three days later Penn told the board that Brown came home with Capt. Averie to Providence and was advised to send him to Lord Bellomont at Boston.6

Kidd before Cape Henlopen

In July 1699 William Kidd lay some days before Cape Henlopen. Five inhabitants of Lewes went aboard: William Orr, George Thompson, Peter Lewis, Henry Stretcher and Diggery Tenny. They took from him muslins, calicoes, monies and other prohibited goods, which they landed, hid and sold without telling the King's collector. Penn sent 150 miles for them at the province's charge and referred them to the Court of Admiralty in April 1700.7

Keith, the Capes and the warrant for Thache

In February 1717/18 five men off the sloop William's Endeavour claimed the King's act of grace before Keith's Council and were dismissed. On 11 August 1718 Keith laid before the board Captain Hardy's sworn inventory of a sloop taken from the pirate Greenway's company, later named as the Nathaniel and Charles: ten great guns, thirty muskets, fifty-three hand grenadoes, and one black flag, one red flag, two ensigns, two pendants and a jack, a rare dated official enumeration of a pirate vessel's colours. Keith kept her arms for the defence of this Colony, complained of the trade being blocked up and Infested with Pirates at the Capes of this River and Bay, and said that upon an information that one Teach, a noted Pirate, had been Lurking for some days in and about this town, he had granted a provincial warrant for his apprehension.8

That warrant is the whole of the evidence. The minute is genuine, dated and official, and also a governor repeating an unnamed informant. No arrest followed, no examination, no further minute, and nothing else places Edward Thache near the Delaware; he was killed off North Carolina that November. The Plank House at Marcus Hook, the building most often tied to him, cannot be firmly dated, and its own preservation society finds no evidence for the tradition.

What the town never did

No Golden Age pirate is known to have been tried or hanged at Philadelphia. Suspects were bailed, gaoled, dismissed under the act of grace, or handed to Maryland's admiralty court or to Bellomont. There is no Philadelphia equivalent of Execution Dock, and no object is known to connect the city to a named pirate.

What the sources cannot yet give is the court. The Golden Age vice-admiralty records for Philadelphia are lost, the earliest surviving volume beginning in 1735, so there is no docket, no examination and no sentence for any Pennsylvania suspect of this period, and the Council minutes carry the whole weight.

What the evidence does not settle

Money figures in the Markham episode

  • Snead's reported bribe sums of 1,000 and 100 pounds are hearsay

Edward Teach's presence in Philadelphia

  • Whether Edward Teach was ever near Philadelphia is unresolved

Population and shipping figures

  • Philadelphia's population in 1700 and 1720
  • The number of vessels entering the port in this period

Each line is one question with its own grade, taken from the register where a claim carries it. Nothing here is graded as a whole.

Sources for this record

Every statement above that rests on a checked claim carries a small number; the numbers lead here. Each entry gives what is claimed, how far the record supports it, and where it comes from.

  1. Philadelphia lies up Delaware Bay and River from the Atlantic, which put raiders working the Capes beyond the reach of a provincial government that commanded no armed vessel: William Markham answered the complaints about the privateer Thomas Day in the 1690s by saying that Day was down the river out of his reach and that they had not force in the province to command him, and Sir William Keith told his Council on 11 August 1718 that he had represented the province's case to the King's ministers and invited the neighbouring station ships to take some notice of us, still without any success. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. State paper and provincial council minutes: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1697 to 1698, for Markham's answer; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 3, 1717 to 1735/36, pp. 50 to 56, for Keith's speech of 11 August 1718
  2. Pennsylvania's capital lived by a provisioning trade rather than a staple crop: a letter of 13 November 1697 from the Philadelphia merchant Francis Jones to William Penn describes Maryland taking its chief supply of bread and flour constantly from Pennsylvania, provisions shipped to Curacao returning as heavy pieces of eight, and the same vessels carrying that money to the salt-ponds and loading home with salt, a hard-money trade that gave the port a structural appetite for coin of any provenance. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. State paper: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1697 to 1698, no. 45, Francis Jones to William Penn, 13 November 1697
  3. Philadelphia was a slave-trading and slave-holding port whose province taxed rather than prohibited the traffic, the Provincial Council reading an Act for continuing a Duty on Negroes brought into this Province on 21 February 1717/18 among the session's ordinary revenue bills. Likely More likely than not on the evidence we have. Provincial council minutes: Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 3, for the duty read 21 February 1717/18
  4. Between 1696 and 1700 Philadelphia was the focus of a sustained Crown accusation that the proprietary government sheltered men from Henry Every's Fancy: Robert Snead's letter to Sir John Houblon, read at the Board of Trade on 20 September 1697, alleged that Markham knew the men were in the town, that they had brought about 1,000 pounds each and given 100 pounds each to the Governor, and that he warned them before publishing the proclamation, all of which Snead reports as hearsay in the words I was told; Markham's defender Francis Jones replied that a warrant issued at once, that all of Every's men in the province were committed to the common gaol and that 5 pounds a head was offered after their escape; and on 19 May 1698 Markham summoned Snead before Governor and Council and put to him the charge sent home that Pennsylvania is become ye greatest refuge and shelter for pirats and rogues in America, the Governor giving them commissions. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. State papers and provincial council minutes: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1696 to 1697, no. 1,331 and enclosure i, Robert Snead to Sir John Houblon, pp. 613 to 615; same series 1697 to 1698, no. 45, Francis Jones to William Penn; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 1, for the sitting of 19 May 1698; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, volume 1
  5. Three named men of the Fancy are recorded as prisoners at Philadelphia: the petition of Robert Chinton, Edmund Lassey and Peter Clauson, close prisoners on suspicion of piracy and felony, was read in Council on 20 May 1697, Clauson was still petitioning by 30 May 1698 after being confined above a year without trial, confessing that he had been in Avery's ship but claiming he was forced on board, and his petition was rejected; the province's own committee answered Penn's charge to suppress piracy by conceding only that Chinton and Lassell with some others of Avery's Crew happened for a small time to sojourn in this place, that the magistrates apprehended all who were there, and that the men broke gaol and escaped to New York, after which hues and cries were sent. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Provincial council minutes: Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 1, esp. pp. 510 to 511, 528 to 529 and 549 to 555; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, volume 1
  6. Edward Randolph, surveyor-general of the customs, reported to the Council of Trade and Plantations in letters of 25 and 26 April 1698 that of Every's men one James Brown was married to Markham's daughter and lived near New Castle, and Robert Snead states the same independently in his letter to Houblon endorsed read 12 July 1698, but both are hostile Crown witnesses, no marriage record has been traced and the daughter is never named; a James Brown was brought to Philadelphia by warrant from the sheriff of Kent County and examined before William Penn and Council on 12 April 1700, and on 15 April Penn told the Council that Brown came home with Capt. Averie to Providence, the Council advising that he be sent to the Earl of Bellomont at Boston. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. State papers and provincial council minutes: Calendar of State Papers, Colonial, America and West Indies, 1697 to 1698, nos. 401, 404 and 403; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 1, for the sittings of 12 and 15 April 1700; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, volume 1
  7. In July 1699 Captain William Kidd lay some days before Cape Henlopen in the Delaware, and five named inhabitants of Lewes in Sussex County, William Orr, George Thompson, Peter Lewis, Henry Stretcher and Diggery Tenny, went on board, corresponded with him and received muslins, calicoes, monies and other East India and prohibited goods which they landed, hid, sold and gave away without telling the government or the King's collector; in April 1700 Penn, having sent 150 miles for them at the province's charge, referred them to the Court of Admiralty, John Moore, deputy to Robert Quary, being consulted. Unverified Reported, not yet checked against the record. Provincial council minutes: Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 1, esp. pp. 559 to 563 and 579 to 580; Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, volume 1
  8. On 11 August 1718 Sir William Keith laid before the Provincial Council Captain Hardy's sworn inventory of a pirate sloop taken from the pirate Greenway's company and later named as the Nathaniel and Charles, listing ten great guns and carriages, two swivel guns, nine pateraroes, three listed plainly and six as old, thirty muskets, five blunderbusses, fifty-three hand grenadoes, seven cutlasses, a doctor's chest, one black flag, one red flag, two ensigns, two pendants and a jack, a rare dated official enumeration of a pirate vessel's colours; Keith retained her arms for the defence of this Colony, complained of the great losses this Colony has already sustained beyond any of its Neighbors by the trade being blocked up and Infested with Pirates at the Capes of this River and Bay, and stated that upon an information that one Teach, a noted Pirate, had been Lurking for some days in and about this town he had granted a provincial warrant for his apprehension, an information from an unnamed source on which no arrest followed and which nothing corroborates. Confirmed Directly supported by the record. Provincial council minutes: Minutes of the Provincial Council of Pennsylvania, vol. 3, 1717 to 1735/36, pp. 50 to 56; corroborated for the July and August 1718 sequence by An Act Against Pirates and Sea-Robbers, Pennsylvania Heritage Magazine