A GENERAL VIEW OF ITS PHYSICAL AND MORAL CONDITION,

TOGETHER WITH

A TOPOGRAPHICAL AND STATISTICAL ACCOUNT

OF ITS

COUNTIES, TOWNS, VILLAGES, CANALS,
RAIL ROADS, &c.

Entered by THOMAS F. Gordon, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1834, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

TENOX LIBRARY

NEW YORK

THE author of the following work has sought to present to the public, a full and correct portraiture of the State in the year 1833. To this end, he has, personally, visited almost every portion of it; communed with many of its most distinguished and enlightened citizens, and collected, from numerous but scattered sources, a mass of useful and curious information, which must prove alike grateful to the present and succeeding generations. Errors will undoubtedly be discovered in the work; for such a work is peculiarly liable to them; being exposed, not only to the misconceptions of the author, but, to those of his thousand informants. Distance of places from each other, and the area of the townships and counties are, specially, subject to misstatement. The first has been given from the returns of the General Post-Office, measures upon the map, and verbal information of residents; the only and best sources, save actual admeasurement. The area of the townships has been obtained from calculation of their contents, as delineated on Mr. Gordon's map, by means of a reticulated scale of square miles. The result corresponds, so nearly, with the returns of the assessors of such townships, as contain no unimproved lands, as to give considerable confidence in its approximation to the truth. It must be observed, however, that this area comprises roads, lakes, ponds, marshes and, in a word, every thing within the lines.

The abstract which has been given of the laws relating to the administration of the government, generally, and of the counties and townships, specially, will appear, to many, trite and familiar; but to the great mass of the people, particularly, to the rising generation, it will not prove the least acceptable portion of the work. To those about to enter on the duties of the citizen, it will commu