51(i Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



father of Hon. W. G. Hawkins, now one of the judges of the Orphans' 

 Court of Allegheny county. That letter is a "quaint and curious 

 volume of forgotten lore." The writer, stating that he had just re- 

 turned home from court, relates that he found a paper being circulated 

 among his neighbors pledging the subscribers to oppose " Every of 

 Pen's Laws, as they called them, except felonious actions, at ye risk 

 of Life & under ye penalty of fiftey pounds, to be Received or Lev- 

 eyed By themselves off ye Estates of ye failure. The first of them I 

 found hardy anuff to offer it in publick, I emediately ordered into 

 Custody, on which a large numl)er Ware assembled as A\^as supposed to 

 Resque the Prisonar. . . . When their Forman .saw that the Arms of 

 his Contrie, that as he said He had thrown Himself into, would not 

 Resque him By force, hee catched up his Rifle, Which ^^'as Well 

 loaded, jumped out of Dors & swore if any man Cam nigh him he 

 would put what Was in his throo them. The Person that Had him in 

 Custody Called for assistance in ye King's name, and in j^articular 

 Commanded myself. I told him I was a Subject, & was not fit to 

 Command if not willing to obey ; on which I watched his eye until I 

 saw a chance. Sprang in on him ts: Seized the Rifle by ye Muzzle, and 

 held him So as he Could not .Shoot me, until more help Gott in to my 

 assistance, on which I Disarmed him & Broke his Rifle to peses. I 

 Res'd a Sore Bruse on one of my arms By a punch of ye Gun in ye 

 struggle ; Then put him under a Strong Guard, Told them the laws of 

 their Contrie was stronger than the Hardest Ruffin among them. I 

 found it necessary on their Complyance & altering their Resolves, and 

 his promising to Give himself no more trouble in the affair, as hee 

 found that the people Ware not as hardy as hee Flxpected them to be, 

 to Relece him on his jjromise of Good Be-haviour." 



Correspondence between the Governor of Pennsylvania and Vir- 

 ginia occurring immediately after the arrest of Connolly and the Penn- 

 sylvania Justices, resulted in a meeting of Commissioners at William- 

 burg, Va., on May 19, 1774, to endeavor to establish the boundary 

 line. This meeting was fruitless ; but it is interesting to note that 

 the Pennsylvania commissioners proposed as our western boundary a 

 line to be drawn from the western end of Mason and Dixon's line, to 

 be extended its proper distance of five degrees of longitude, thence 

 northward but parallel at all points with the meanderings of the Dela- 

 ware River. This line would have left almost all of the present county 



