ABSTRACT
The promotion of Beula had begun in earnest in the spring of 1797, when Morgan John Rhees had led the pioneer party to the site, to be followed by more settlers during the summer. The experienced Cassidy concentrated on the pastoral and sylvan potential, thought a quarter of the land would make meadow and singled out its strategic siting, a mere 8-14 miles from the waterways. Rhees thought one thousand-acre hill was so littered with rocks that it was worth scarcely a cent a hundred acres. The settlers were precariously strung out at the end of a 30-mile supply line; they had to concentrate on communal necessities like mills. Several of settlers returned towards Philadelphia, others are going to the westward.
