WILLIAM PENN (1644-1718)

Book: The Beginner's American History

Chapter: XI | William Penn

Author: D. H. Montgomery

King Charles the Second gives William Penn a great piece of land, and names it Pennsylvania.

King Charles the Second of England owed a large sum of money to a young Englishman named William Penn. The king was fond of pleasure, and he spent so much money on himself and his friends that he had none left to pay his just debts. Penn knew this; so he told His Majesty that if he would give him a piece of wild land in America, he would ask nothing more.

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Charles was very glad to settle the account so easily. He therefore gave Penn a great territory north of Maryland and west of the Delaware River. This territory was nearly as large as England. The king named it Pennsylvania, a word which means Penn's Woods. At that time the land was not thought to be worth much. No one then had discovered the fact that beneath Penn's Woods there were immense mines of coal and iron, which would one day be of greater value than all the riches of the king of England.

William Penn's religion; what he wanted to do with his American land.

Penn belonged to a religious society called the Society of Friends; to-day they are generally spoken of as Quakers. They are a people who try to find out what is right by asking their own hearts. They believe in showing no more signs of respect to one man than to another, and at that time they would not take off their hats even to the king himself.

Penn wanted the land which had been given him here as a place where the Friends or Quakers might go and settle. A little later the whole of what is now the state of New Jersey was bought by Penn and other Quakers for the same purpose.

WILLIAM PENN AT THE AGE OF 22

We have seen that neither the Pilgrims nor the Catholics had any real peace in England. The Quakers suffered even more still; for oftentimes they were cruelly whipped, thrown into dark and dirty prisons where many died of the bad treatment they received. William Penn himself had been shut up in jail four times on account of his religion; and though he was no longer in such danger, because the king was his friend, yet he wanted to provide a safe place for others who were not so well off as he was.

Penn sends out emigrants to Pennsylvania; he gets ready to go himself; his conversation with the king.

Penn accordingly sent out a number of people who were anxious to settle in Pennsylvania. The next year, 1682, he made ready to sail, himself with a hundred more emigrants. Just before he started, he called on the king in his palace in London. The king was fond of joking, and he said to him that he should never expect to see him again, for he thought that the Indians would be sure to catch such a good-looking young man as Penn was and eat him. 'But, Friend Charles,' said Penn, 'I mean to buy the land of the Indians, so they will rather keep on good terms with me than eat me.' 'Buy their lands!' exclaimed the king. 'Why, is not the whole of America mine?' 'Certainly not,' answered Penn. 'What!' replied the king; 'didn't my people discover it?* and so haven't I the right to it?' 'Well, Friend Charles,' said Penn, 'suppose a canoe full of Indians should cross the sea and should discover England, would that make it theirs? Would you give up the country to them?' The king did not know what to say to this; it was a new way of looking at the matter. He probably said to himself, These Quakers are a strange people; they seem to think that even American savages have rights which should be respected.

* Referring to the discovery of the American continent by the Cabots, sent out by Henry the Seventh of England.

Penn founds the city of Philadelphia; his treaty with the Indians; his visit to them; how the Indians and the Quakers got on together.

When William Penn reached America, in 1682, he sailed up the broad and beautiful Delaware River for nearly twenty miles. There he stopped, and resolved to build a city on its banks. He gave the place the Bible name of Philadelphia, or the City of Brotherly Love, because he hoped that all of its citizens would live together like brothers. The streets were named from the trees then growing on the land, and so to-day many are still called Walnut, Pine, Cedar, Vine, and so on.

Penn said, "We intend to sit down lovingly among the Indians." On that account, he held a great meeting with them under a wide-spreading elm. The tree stood in what is now a part of Philadelphia. Here Penn and the red men made a treaty or agreement by which they promised each other that they would live together as friends as long as the water should run in the rivers, or the sun shine in the sky.

WILLIAM PENN MAKING THE TREATY WITH THE INDIANS.

Nearly a hundred years later, while the Revolutionary War was going on, the British army took possession of the city. It was cold, winter weather, and the men wanted fire-wood; but the English general thought so much of William Penn that he set a guard of soldiers round the great elm, to prevent anyone from chopping it down.

Not long after the great meeting under the elm, Penn visited some of the savages in their wigwams. They treated him to a dinner—or shall we say a lunch?—of roasted acorns. After their feast, some of the young savages began to run and leap about, to show the Englishman what they could do. When Penn was in college at Oxford he had been fond of doing such things himself. The sight of the Indian boys made him feel like a boy again; so he sprang up from the ground, and beat them all at hop, skip, and jump. This completely won the hearts of the red men.

From that time, for sixty years, the Pennsylvania settlers and the Indians were fast friends. The Indians said, "The Quakers are honest men; they do no harm; they are welcome to come here." In New England there had been, as we have seen, a terrible war with the savages, but in Pennsylvania, no Indian ever shed a drop of Quaker blood.

How Philadelphia grew; what was done there in the Revolution; William Penn's last years and death.

Philadelphia grew quite fast. William Penn let the people have land very cheap, and he said to them, "You shall be governed by laws of your own making." Even after Philadelphia became quite a good-sized town, it had no poor-house, for none was needed; everybody seemed to be able to take care of himself.

When the Revolution began, the people of Pennsylvania and of the country north and south of it sent men to Philadelphia to decide what should be done. This meeting was called the Congress. It was held in the old State House, a building which is still standing, and in 1776 Congress declared the United States of America independent of England. In the war, the people of Delaware and New Jersey fought side by side with those of Pennsylvania.

William Penn spent a great deal of money in helping Philadelphia and other settlements. After he returned to England he was put in prison for debt by a rascally fellow he had employed. He did not owe the money, and proved that the man who said that he did was no better than a thief. Penn was released from prison; but his long confinement in jail had broken his health down. When he died, the Indians of Pennsylvania sent his widow some beautiful furs, in remembrance of their "Brother Penn," as they called him. They said that the furs were to make her a cloak, "to protect her while passing through this thorny wilderness without her guide."

About twenty-five miles west of London, on a country road within sight of the towers of Windsor Castle, there stands a Friends' meeting-house, or Quaker church. In the yard back of the meeting-house William Penn lies buried. For a hundred years or more there was no mark of any kind to show where he rests; but now a small stone bearing his name points out the grave of the founder of the great state of Pennsylvania.

Summary

Charles the Second, king of England, owed William Penn, a young English Quaker, a large sum of money. In order to settle the debt, the king gave him a great piece of land in America, and named it Pennsylvania, or Penn's Woods. Penn wished to make a home for Quakers in America; and in 1682 he came over, and began building the city of Philadelphia. When the Revolution broke out, men were sent from all parts of the country to Philadelphia, to hold a meeting called the Congress. In 1776, Congress declared the United States independent.