OF LANCASTER COUNTY. 59 



unfair admeasurement of their lands: it was the cause of the first dis- 

 t?atisfaction between them and the people of Pennsylvania ; and it is 

 remarkable, that the first murder committed by them in the province, 

 seventy-two years after the landing of Penn, was on this very ground, 

 which had been taken from them by fraud." ^ 



The only instance of a prosecution for witchcraft found in the judicial 

 records of Pennsylvania belongs to this period. It seems to have origi- 

 nated among the Swedes.^ The persons accused were Margaret Matsou 

 and Yeshro Hendrickson. Lacy Cock acted as interpreter. A sample of 

 the evidence is here produced : " Henry Drystreett, attested, saith he was 

 told 20 years ago, that the witness at the bar was a witch, and that several 

 cows were bewitched by her.'' " Annaky Coolin, attested, saith that her 

 husband took the heart of a calf that had died, as tliey thought, by 

 Avitchcraft and boiled it, whereupon the prisoner at the bar came in and 

 asked them what they were doing; they said boiling of flesh; she said 

 they had better they had boiled the bones, with several otlier unscemJij 

 expressions:' The Governor gave tlie jury their charge concerning the 

 case, of which, it is to be regretted, there is no record. " The jury went 

 forth, and upon their returning brought her in guilty of the common 

 fame of being a witch, but not guilty in manner and form as she stands 

 indicted." 



During the spring or summer of this year Penn visited the interior of 

 the province and embodied the result of what he saw, in a letter to the 

 Free Society of Traders in London, wdiich, as an authentic description of 

 the country and an account of its actual status, is one of the most inter- 

 esting documents relating to the period, extant and is, therefore, given 

 in full: 



'■A letter from William Penn, Proprietor and Governor of Pennsylvania, 

 in America, to the Committee of the Free Society of Trtiders of that pro- 

 vince, residing in London: containing a general de-'^cri'ption of the said 

 province, its soil, air, water, seasons and produce, both natural and artifi- 

 cial, and the good increase thereof. With an account of the natives, or 

 aborigines : 

 ''My hind Friends: 



"The kindness of yours, by the ship 'Thomas and Ann, doth much 

 oblige me; for by it I perceive the interest you take in my health and 

 reputation, and the prosperous beginning of this province ; which, you 

 are so kind as to think, may much depend upon them. In return of 

 which I have sent you a long letter, and yet containing as brief an 

 account of myself, and the affairs of this province, as I have been able, 

 to make. 



"In the first place, I take notice of the news, you sent me; whereby I 

 1 Janney. Haz. Reg. of Penn'a. YI, 209. i Jaoney.— Col. Ileo. 



