19 



eries that he and thej may want to make. Given under 

 my hand and the great seal of the Colony, this third day 

 of October 1761, and in the twenty-ninth year of my ad- 

 ministration. 



THOMAS STRETCH. 

 JOSEPH STILES, Secr'y. 



rSchuylkil, 1 

 4 L. S. I 



i 1732. J 



Armed with this documental authority, he proceeded 

 to the faithful execution of his duty. 



Intimately connected with the history of the Colony in 

 Schuylkill, is that of a company assembling on the same 

 river, which we may appropriately now introduce to no- 

 tice. 



At an early era in the 18th Century, an association for 

 similar purposes, called the " Society of Fort St.BavicVs,'" 

 enrolling on its list, a large and respectable number of as- 

 sociates, emphatically termed the "Nobility of those 

 days," was established above the Falls of the Schuylkill. 

 They were many of them Welchmen, some of them 

 of the Society of Friends, companions of William Penn, 

 and co-emigrants to the new world. On an elevated and 

 extensive rock contiguous to the Eastern bank of the 

 river, and projecting into the rapids, rose the primitive 

 rude but convenient and strong structure of hewn timber, 

 cut from the opposite Forest. It was capacious enough 



