Above Wilmington, the Delaware River is a noble tidal stream of about
a mile wide, flowing between gently sloping shores, and carrying an
extensive commerce. The great river soon brings us to the famous
Quaker settlements of Pennsylvania. William Penn, who had become a
member of the Society of Friends, was bequeathed by his father,
Admiral Sir William Penn, an estate of £1500 a year and large claims
against the British Government. Fenwick and Byllinge, both Quakers,
who had proprietary rights in New Jersey, disputed in 1674, and
submitted their difference to Penn's arbitration. He decided in favor
of Byllinge, who subsequently became embarrassed, and made over his
property to Penn and two creditors as trustees. This seems to have
turned Penn's attention to America as a place of settlement for the
persecuted Quakers, and he engaged with zeal in the work of
colonization, and in 1681 obtained from the king, for himself and
heirs, in payment of a debt of £16,000 due his father, a patent for
the territory now forming Pennsylvania, on the fealty of the annual
payment of two beaver skins. He wanted to call his territory New
Wales, as many of the colonists came from there, and afterwards
suggested Sylvania as specially applicable to a land covered with
forests; but the king ordered the name Pennsylvania inserted in the
grant, in honor, as he said, of his late friend the Admiral. In
February, 1682, Penn, with eleven others, purchased West Jersey,
already colonized to some extent. Tradition says that some of these
West Jersey colonists sent Penn a sod in which was planted a green
twig, to show that he owned the land and all that grew upon it. Next
they presented him with a dish full of water, because he was
master of the seas and rivers; and then they gave him the keys, to
show he was in command and had all the power.
[Illustration: _Penn's Letitia Street House, Removed to Fairmount
Park_]
When William Penn was granted his province, he wrote that "after many
waitings, watchings, solicitings and disputes in council, this day my
country was confirmed to me under the great seal of England." He had
great hopes for its future, for he subsequently wrote: "God will bless
and make it the seed of a nation; I shall have a tender care of the
government that it will be well laid at first." Some of the Swedes
from Christina had come up the river in 1643 and settled at the mouth
of Chester Creek, at a place called Upland. The site was an eligible
one, and the first parties of Quakers, coming out in three ships,
settled there, living in caves which they dug in the river bank, these
caves remaining for many years after they had built houses. Penn drew
up a liberal scheme of government and laws for his colony, in which he
is said to have had the aid of Henry, the brother of Algernon Sidney,
and of Sir William Jones. He was not satisfied with Upland, however,
as his permanent place of settlement, but directed that another site
be chosen higher up the Delaware, at some point where "it is most
navigable, high, dry and healthy; that is, where most ships can best
ride, of deepest draught of water, if possible, to load or unload, at
the bank or key-side, without boating or lightening of it." This site
being selected between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers, and the
city laid out, Penn, with about a hundred companions, mostly Welsh
Quakers, in September, 1682, embarked for the Delaware on the ship
"Welcome," arriving at Upland after a six weeks' voyage, and then
going up to his city site, which he named Philadelphia, the "City of
Brotherly Love."
The first explorers of the Delaware River found located upon the site
of Philadelphia the Indian settlement of Coquanock, or "the grove of
long pine trees," a sort of capital city for the Lenni Lenapes. Their
great chief was Tamanend, and the primeval forest, largely composed of
noble pine trees, then covered all the shores of the river. The ship
"Shield," from England, with Quaker colonists for Burlington, in West
Jersey, higher up the river, sailed past Coquanock in 1679, and a note
was made that "part of the tackling struck the trees, whereupon some
on board remarked that 'it was a fine spot for a town.'" When Penn
sent out his advance agent and Deputy Governor, Captain William
Markham, of the British army, in his scarlet uniform, to lay out the
plan of his projected city, he wrote him to "be tender of offending
the Indians," and gave instructions that the houses should have open
grounds around them, as he wished the new settlement to be "a green
country town," and at the same time to be healthy, and free from the
danger of extensive conflagrations. Penn bought the land farther down
the Delaware from the Swedes, who had originally bought it from the
Indians, and the site for his city he bought from the Indians direct.
They called him Mignon, and the Iroquois, who subsequently made
treaties with him, called him Onas, both words signifying a quill pen,
as they recognized the meaning of his name. Out on the Delaware, in
what is now the Kensington shipbuilding district, is the "neutral land
of Shackamaxon." This word means, in the Indian dialect, the "place of
eels." Here, for centuries before Penn's arrival, the Indian tribes
from all the region east of the Alleghenies, between the Great Lakes,
the Hudson River and the Potomac, had been accustomed to kindle their
council fires, smoke the pipe of deliberation, exchange the wampum
belts of explanation and treaty, and make bargains. Some came by long
trails hundreds of miles overland through the woods, and some in their
birch canoes by water and portage. It was on this "neutral ground" by
the riverside that Penn, soon after his arrival, held his solemn
council with the Indians, sealing mutual faith and securing their
lifelong friendship for his infant colony. This treaty, embalmed in
history and on canvas, was probably made in November, 1682, under the
"Treaty Elm" at Shackamaxon, which was blown down in 1810, the place
where it stood by the river being now preserved as a park. Its
location is marked by a monument bearing the significant inscription:
"Treaty Ground of William Penn and the Indian Nation, 1682--Unbroken
Faith." Thus began Penn's City of Brotherly Love, based on a compact
which, in the words of Voltaire, was "never sworn to and never
broken." It is no wonder that Penn, after he had seen his city site,
and had made his treaty, was so abundantly pleased that he wrote:
"As to outward things, we are satisfied, the land good, the air clear
and sweet, the springs plentiful, and provision good and easy to come
at, an innumerable quantity of wild fowl and fish; in fine, here is
what an Abraham, Isaac and Jacob would be well contented with, and
service enough for God, for the fields here are white for harvest. O,
how sweet is the quiet of these parts, freed from the anxious and
troublesome solicitations, harries and perplexities of woeful Europe."
The Lenni Lenapes, it is stated, told Penn and his people that they
often spoke of themselves as the Wapanachki, or the "men of the
morning," in allusion to their supposed origin in the lands to the
eastward, towards the rising sun. Their tradition was that at the time
America was discovered, their nation lived on the island of New York.
They called it Manahatouh, "the place where timber is got for bows and
arrows." At the lower end of the island was a grove of hickory trees
of peculiar strength and toughness. This timber was highly esteemed
for constructing bows, arrows, war-clubs, etc. When they migrated
westward they divided into two bands. One, going to the upper
Delaware, among the mountains, was termed Minsi, or "the great stone;"
and the other band, seeking the bay and lower river, was called
Wenawmien, or "down the river." These Indians originated the name of
the Allegheny Mountains, which they called the Allickewany, the word
meaning "He leaves us and may never return"--it is supposed in
reference to departing hunters or warriors who went into the mountain
passes.