Administration of Sir William Keith as Deputy-Governor. He Died November 17, 1749

During the administration of Sir William Keith, Deputy-Governor of the Province, July, 1718, to July, 1726, a difficulty arose between the Southern Indians upon the Shenandoah, and those resident upon the Susquehanna in the Province of Pennsylvania, respecting the limits of their hunting grounds. Hostilities between them seemed imminent. It was necessary to settle these difficulties amicably or the peace of the Province was seriously threatened.

To avert this, says Proud, Governor Keith paid a visit to the Governor of Virginia, with whom he framed a convention, confining the Indians on the North and South of the Potomac to their respective side of that river. A conference was held with the Pennsylvania Indians and the Five Nations, at Conestoga, July 6, 1721, when this convention was fully ratified.

Governor Keith made this visit in state. He was attended by seventy horsemen, many of them were armed. He was welcomed upon his return at the upper ferry on the Schuylkill, by Mayor William Fishbourne and the Aldermen of Philadelphia, accompanied by two hundred of the most respectable citizens, who conducted him through the streets after the manner of a hero returned from a conquest.

Trouble over the boundary arose when the Governor of Maryland proposed making a survey on the Susquehanna, within the limits of the present York County.

Governor Keith resolved to resist this attempt by force, and ordered out a militia company from New Castle. The Provincial Council discouraged this show of violence.

The Indians became alarmed at the encroachments of the Marylanders and conveyed to Governor Keith a large tract of land, that he might have a better title to resist them. This land was given for the use of Springett Penn, the grandson of William Penn, and was afterwards known by the name of Springettsbury Manor.

The fears of the Province were soon after awakened by a quarrel between two brothers named Cartlidge and an Indian near Conestoga, in which the Indian was killed, with many evidences of cruelty. The known principles of revenge professed by the Indians gave reason to apprehend severe retaliation. Policy and justice required a rigid inquiry and punishment of the murderers.

Governor Keith took prompt measures for their apprehension and the 806Assembly ordered a coroner’s inquest, though the body had been buried two months, and the arrest of the Cartlidge brothers.

Messengers were dispatched to the Five Nations to deprecate hostilities, and, to prevent further irregularities, the prohibition of sale of spirituous liquors to the Indians was re-enacted, with additional penalties.

The Indians invited Governor Keith and the governors of Virginia, New York, and the New England colonies, to meet with them in council at Albany, where with great magnanimity, the Indians pardoned the offense of the Cartlidges, and requested they might be discharged without further punishment. The address of the Indian sachem is worth repeating:

“The great King of the Five Nations is sorry for the death of the Indian that was killed, for he was of his own flesh and blood; he believes the Governor is also sorry; but, now that it is done, there is no help for it, and he desires that Cartlidge may not be put to death, nor that he should be spared for a time and afterwards executed; one life is enough to be lost; there should not two die. The King’s heart is good to the Governor, and all the English.”

Governor Keith was attended on this journey to Albany by Messrs. Hill, Norris, and Hamilton, of his Council.

A considerable part of the emigration to the colonies was composed of servants, who were of two classes. The first and the larger part, were poor and oppressed in the land of their nativity, sometimes the victims of political changes or religious intolerance, who submitted to temporary servitude, as a price of freedom, plenty and peace. The second, vagrants and felons, the dregs of the British populace, who were cast by the mother country upon her colonies, with the most selfish disregard of the feelings she outraged.

As early as 1682 the Council proposed to prohibit convicts from the province, but as none had entered and this was only prospective, no law was enacted. Now the Council did enact such a law, by placing a duty of five pounds upon every convicted felon brought into the Province, and the importer was also required to give surety for the good behavior of the convict for one year.

In the year 1722 there were commercial embarrassments caused by the deficiency of the circulating medium. Governor Keith proposed to overcome this difficulty by the introduction of paper money. The Assembly moved with caution, for they had full knowledge of the mistakes of the colonies, and issued only £15,000 on favorable terms to keep up their credit. This act was passed March 2, 1723. The emission proved of advantage but was insufficient, so towards the end of the year £30,000 more were emitted on the same terms.

Governor Keith, in espousing this popular cause, pleased the Assembly but incurred the displeasure of the Proprietary party and its leader, James Logan. Complications arose which eventuated in the 807triumph of Logan and the deposition of Keith, who was decidedly the most successful of the Proprietary Governors.

Franklin said of Keith, that “he differed from the great body of the people whom he governed, in religion and manners, yet he acquired their esteem and confidence. If he sought popularity, he promoted the public happiness; and his courage in resisting the demands of the family may be ascribed to a higher motive than private interest. The conduct of the Assembly toward him was neither honorable nor polite; for his sins against his principles were virtues to the people, with whom he was deservedly a favorite; and the House should have given him substantial marks of their gratitude as would have tempted his successors to walk in his steps. But fear of further offence to the Proprietary family, the influence of Logan, and a quarrel between the Governor and Lloyd, turned their attention from him to his successor.”

After his removal, Sir William Keith resided in the Province, and was elected to the Assembly, but he manifested a most unjustifiable and malicious spirit, and caused dissensions in the administration of his successor. His power and influence rapidly waned.

In 1729 he returned to England, where, it is sad to record, he died in obscurity, in London, November 17, 1749.

“It may be very little known,” says Watson, “that he who moved with so much excitement and as our Governor in 1726, should at last fall into such neglect, as to leave his widow among us unnoticed and almost forgotten! She lived and died in a small wooden house on Third Street, between High and Mulberry. There, much pinched for subsistence, she eked out her existence with an old female, declining all intercourse with society or with her neighbors. The house itself was burnt in 1786.”

Lady Ann Keith died July 31, 1740, aged 65 years, and lies entombed at Christ Church graveyard.

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