PUCKLETOWN "Alack! when good men die, and the good turns they do us slide out of memory and are recalled but by the surprise of some such sad memento as that which now lies before us." WHO CHARLES LAMB, Essays of Elia. HO was Nathaniel Puckle? Reader, I am well aware that in a work of this kind historical precedents demand that I first state when Columbus discovered America, or at least when Penn landed at Upland; but as I am out of court and not closely connected with any historical society, I decline to be governed by precedents and renew my question: Who was Nathaniel Puckle? Nathaniel Puckle was a mariner who spent his declining years in Philadelphia. What ships he had owned, or commanded, or sailed on, before he settled in that city, no one seems to know. He was also a merchant, but how successful in his dealings is alike unknown. For most of us, his claim to remembrance is found neither in his conduct of business in Philadelphia nor in his ventures on the sea, but in the fact that among the patents which he |