by James Kirke Paulding

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER II. ' Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. Where is the peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked?" The curious traveller along the western bank of the Delaware river, will hardly fail to notice some few scattered remains, such as parts of old walls, and fragments of chimneys, which indicate where once stood the famous fort and town of Elsingburgh, one of the earliest settlements of the Swedes in this country. The precise spot these ruins occupy we shall not point out, since it is our present intention to give such an accurate description, that it cannot be mistaken by a reader of common sagacity. At the time this history commences, that is to say, somewhere about the middle of the sixteenth century, a period of very remote antiquity considering the extreme juvenility of our country, this important little post was governed by the Heer Peter Piper, a short thickset person, of German parentage, whose dress, rain or shine, week days or Sundays, in peace or war, in winter and summer, was a suit of olive-coloured velvet, ornamented with ebony buttons. A picture still preserved in the Piper family, represents him with a round, and somewhat full face, a good deal wrinkled; sturdyshort legs, thin at the ankles, and redundant at the calves; square-toed shoes, and square buckles of a yellowish hue, but whether of gold or brass is impossible to decide at this remote period. We would give the world, that is to say, all that part of it which is at present in our possession, namely, a magnificent castle in the air, to be able to satisfy the doubts of our readers in respect to the problem whether the Heer Peter Piper wore a cocked hat. But as the painter, with an unpardonable negligence, and a total disregard to posterity, has chosen to represent him bareheaded, we can...