l6 LIFE AND CORRESPONDENCE OF THE [l779 



authority " to employ some person to collect the old rails scattered 

 on the different parts of the Norriton Plantation, and enclose the 

 meadows as soon as possible to prevent them being damaged 

 further by cattle and swine," was rather strange business to put 

 upon the Provost of the College, he too a Reverend Doctor of 

 Divinity by diplomas of Oxford, Edinburgh, and Dublin. How- 

 ever, disdaining no office in life where he could be useful to 

 science and letters. Dr. Smith went at it all cheerfully and did it 

 all effectively. 



A controversy arose Avith Colonel Bull about the lands which, 

 we have mentioned in our first volume, were sold by him to Dr. 

 Smith, at or near Norristown, and which Dr. Smith had transferred 

 to the College ; Colonel Bull claiming certain small islands or 

 sand-banks, which he pretended had not passed by his grant to 

 Dr. Smith, while Dr. Smith and the College, on the strength of a 

 map which accompanied the deed, asserted that they had ; and, 

 moreover, that as certain parts of the estate, undeniably granted, 

 were w'holly useless and incapable of being in the least enjoyed, 

 unless the parts claimed by Colonel Bull passed also, that they 

 were absolutely appurtenant and had been well conveyed. Col- 

 onel Bull finally relinquished his claims. 



He visited the farms belonging to the College in Pcrkasie 

 Manor, and, in the presence of witnesses whom he took with him, 

 Mr. John Heany and Colonel Smith, one of the members of 

 Assembly for Bucks county, received the proposals of the tenants 

 for new leases, and appointed them to attend the Board of Trustees 

 at a meeting to be held May i8th. The tenants accordingly 

 attended at the proper time, and, being called in one after another, 

 the terms of their future leases, for seven years from the 25th of 

 March, 1779, '^vere settled with them severally, and leases were 

 ordered to be executed to them under the seal of the Corporation, 

 and the counterparts duly executed to be deposited with the 

 treasurer. With respect to the year, from 25th March, 1778, to 

 25th ]\Iarch, 1779, which they have severally held over their 

 former term, it was mutually agreed to take a note of hand from 

 each of them for the like payments in wheat or its value on the 

 15th of September next, as they were severally to pay for each 

 year of their new term. Certain trespassers — Clark, Painter, and 

 others — on the Woodlands on Rockhill, by making settlements 



