1750.] HISTORY OF DELAWARE COUNTY. 259 



time of the first arrival of Europeans. This was originally 

 caused by the annual burnings of the Indians, and now unwisely 

 continued by the whites, though the practice was restricted by 

 legislative enactment. In describing the country through which 

 he passed, our learned traveler (Kalm) remarks that the greater 

 part of it is ''covered with several kinds of decidious trees; for I 

 scarcely saw a single tree of the fir kind, if I except a, few red 

 cedars. The forest was high but open below, so that it left a free 

 prospect to the eye, and no underwood obstructed the passage 

 between the trees. It would have been easy in some places to 

 have gone under the branches with a carriage for a quarter of a 

 mile, the trees standing at great distances from each other, and 

 the ground being very level."' 



Agreeably to a report nuide by a committee of the Assembly 

 in 1749, the whole amount of paper money in circulation at that 

 time in the Province was £85,000. 



Among the troubles to which our goodly ancestors were, about 

 this period, subjected, was the depredation committed by the le- 

 gions of squirrels with which the forests swarmed. To mitigate 

 the evil, an act was passed authorizing the payment of 3d. per 

 head for the destruction of these voracious animals. This pre- 

 mium was suflicient to induce a large number of persons to en- 

 gage in squirrel shooting as a regular business, and the conse- 

 quence was, that the amount paid in the whole Province this 

 year for squirrel scalps Avas £8000, showing that 640,000 of 

 these creatures had been killed.^ 



This large amount rendered bankrupt nearly every County 

 Treasury in the Province, and made it necessary to reduce the 

 bounty one half, by another Act of Assembly. 



In pursuance of an Act of Parliament, having for its object the 

 restriction of the manufacture of iron in the British American 

 Colonies, Governor Hamilton issued his proclamation,^ requiring 

 the Sheriffs of the several counties to make a return to him, of 

 " every Mill or Engine for slitting and rolling of Iron, every 

 plating forge to work with a tilt hammer, and every Furnace for 

 making Steel which were erected within their several and re- 

 spective counties," on the 24th day of June, 1750. In pur- 

 suance of this proclamation, John Owen, the Sheriff of Chester 

 County, certifies " that there is but one Mill or Engine for slit- 

 ting and rolling iron within the county aforesaid, which is situate 

 in Thornbury Township, and was erected in the year one thou- 



1 Kalm's Travels into X. America, i. 155-167. 



* The number of squirels killed in Chester County, in the year 1749. was 159,779, 

 as returned to the Commissioner, the pay for which, at Zd. per head, amounted to the 

 sum of £1918 IS*. 1(/. The same year 402 foxes, and 588 crows were killed in the 

 countv, upon which bounty was claimed. 



3 Col. Rec. V. 459. 



