128 TKNANTS OB' AN OLD FARM. 



"This is your antiquarian rarit}^, is it '?" he asked, 

 rising. " It is certainly worth seeing ; and now let us 

 have its story, although I could guess the nature of it. 

 I believe the name is that of one of our good old Quaker 

 fomilies, and the date carries us so near to the era of 

 the settlement of our State that I readily conjecture the 

 fact here commemorated." 



" Yes, I see that you have easily guessed the truth, 

 although it is often puzzling enough to those less fam- 

 iliar with our pioneer history. Tliis farm was first 

 brought under culture by Jane Townes, one of the early 

 Quaker emigrants, who, with her three sons, came over 

 to Friend William Penn's colony soon after the great 

 founder's landing. The husband and father died on ship- 

 board during the voyage to America ; but the widow, with 

 genuine pluck and faith, took up the burden of colonial 

 settlement, and bought a plantation which included in its 

 bounds our old farm. On this spot they made their first 

 dwelling ; they dug into the slope of the hill just here, 

 threw out rough supports much like the props in a coal 

 drift, and banked up the wdiole, thus making what was 

 known as a 'cave.' Here the widow with her sons 

 lived until timber could be cut from the thick woods 

 that covered the site, and hewn and buildcd into a log 

 house. One of her descendants had this cave-stone 

 erected to mark the site of what was the first home of 

 a white family in this neighborliood. The present stone 

 farm-house has not yet seen its first century, having 

 beenbuilt A. D. 1792." 



" Well, that was a courageous woman certainly !" ex- 



