Word: shallcrosses
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
William Penn was openhanded in deeding land to Quakers newly arrived in the New World; in 1687 a family of early Pennsylvanians named Shallcross got an enormous tract simply by promising him a minute portion of their annual crop. But there was reason for Penn's generosity to the Shallcrosses. The land was no bargain-it was ten miles northeast of Penn's "greene Country Towne" and in the middle of an Indian-infested wilderness. Neither remoteness nor danger, however, dismayed the Shallcrosses. They built a big stone house-with iron shutters to stop flaming arrows and musket...
They were solid citizens. Many were farmers; they lived and died in the big house for 100 years. Then about 1800 Priscilla Shallcross married Samuel Roberts at Abington Meeting House, and the house and its surrounding acres were passed on to their descendants. The Roberts tribe enlarged the place until it boasted 19 rooms and a 110-ft. porch, and they, in turn, tilled the farm for 120 years...
...Next month the wreckers will start tearing down the 250-year-old landmark and bulldozers will begin digging basements for the 77 new dwellings that will rise up on the farm. By next spring there will be nothing left of the Shallcross-Roberts farm but the ornate original deed bearing the bold signature William Penn...
...fellow reporter who had been trying vainly to get details about a lynching out of a sour, close-mouthed town official was about to stamp out when in minced the cherubic Woollcott, pencil poised. "Mr. Shallcross," he piped to the official, "I represent the New York Times, which must insist that you take immediate measures to fetch the perpetrators of this wholly unnecessary outrage to book or justice or whatever your quaint custom may be here...
President Shallcross, former president of the Philadelphia Real Estate Board, secretary of the Union League. Said he as he posted $10,000 bond: "All that I ask is a fair trial...