CHAPTER II
Childhood and Youth
I WAS born April 9, 1843, the second of six children,
upon a Sunday and, therefore, gifted with the power
to pow-wow and to see fairies as the opportunity
arises. The room in which I was born had ten windows
and was floored with walnut. The house stood upon a
high bluff, upon the north bank of the French Creek, in
the town of Phœnixville, and faced the creek which flows
eastwardly to the Schuylkill, falling over the breast of a
dam on its way. Connected with the house were about
five acres of land. Perhaps the most famous bridge builder
of his day was a German named Lewis Wernwag. He
had thrown a bridge across the Schuylkill at the Upper
Ferry, at Callowhill Street in Philadelphia, which had the
longest span of all the bridges constructed down to that
time. There is a fine engraving of it reproduced upon a
set of blue china manufactured in England, now very
scarce and therefore much in demand. He came to Phœnixville
in the early part of the nineteenth century to conduct
the iron works there, and built this house, intended for his
own permanent residence, in a fashion then regarded as
luxurious and extravagant. The visitor, entering from
the front, trod upon a stone step and over a wrought iron
lintel into a hallway. To the right were two rooms with
folding doors between them used as parlor and sitting-room,
each of which had an open fireplace with a hand-carved
hard-wood mantel and mantelpiece around it. To the
left was the dining-room with a kitchen in the rear. The
dining-room had likewise a fireplace with stone hearth,
and higher than the mantel to the right was a large “hole-
