573 



[Rothroek. 



so unfortunate to our arms. The field itself bad doubtless often 

 been trodden over by him. The very house in which on the first 

 day of each week he was afterwards accustomed to worship still 

 showed on its floors what were said to be the stains of blood from 

 our wounded soldiers who were brought in for medical treat- 

 ment. Whether this was so or not, there is no doubt that the 

 building was used as a temporary hospital. The whole atmos- 

 phere of the region was then, and still is, full of the inspiration 

 of patriotism. Up and down the valley, far as the eye could 

 reach, lay a landscape of singular beauty. The very hills had 

 an individual character, and there was no turn in the roads which 

 wound between them, but brought some new surprise of beauty. 

 To the south and west were " The hills beyond the Brandywine" 

 which, once seen in the soft haze of Indian summer, could never 

 be forgotten. What wonder then that an English officer, as he 

 overlooked the region, said : " I am not astonished that these 

 people fight for such a country." The temper of this fiery lad 

 must often have been sorely tried when he learned how his 

 "peace-loving" parents and neighbors had suffered from the 

 depredations of the enemy. Perhaps the discipline of self-con- 

 trol, early enforced by his watchful parents, was one of the se- 

 crets of his future success. He never wearied in devotion to the 

 memory of those under whose critical eyes he grew to manhood. 



So far as these externals could go, it is true, they were all in 

 his favor, but, as other boys who never came to fill his place in 

 public esteem shared them with him, we must conclude there 

 was in the lad himself a good measure of that holy ambition 

 which goes so far in moulding higher individual destiny. 



"Philip, father of Eli, was the fifth in lineal descent from that 

 Philip Price who came into Pennsylvania with the Welsh set- 

 tlers, and took up Merion, Haverford and Radnor townships in 

 1682. The name of Price was handed down through four gene- 

 rations from the first settler by a single male representative in 

 each generation." 



