Penn was not prepared to visit his new province during the first year, but he dispatched three shiploads of settlers, and with them sent his cousin, Captain William Markham, to take formal possession of the country and act as deputy governor.
Markham arrived at New York, June 21, 1681, and exhibited his commission, bearing date April 10, 1681. He also presented the king’s charter and proclamation.
Armed with these credentials Markham proceeded to the Delaware, where he was kindly received. He met Lord Baltimore, who happened to be in the province, and the Maryland proprietor discovered by observation that Upland was at least twelve miles south of the fortieth degree of latitude, and believed his province, therefore, extended to the Schuylkill.
This claim by Baltimore induced Penn to obtain additional grants, as without them he feared the loss of his whole peninsula.
Markham was accompanied to Pennsylvania by four commissioners appointed by Penn, who, in conjunction with the Governor, had two chief duties assigned them; the first was to meet and preserve friendly relations with the Indians, and acquire lands by actual purchase, and the second was to select the site of a great city and to make the necessary surveys.
In the beginning of the year following, Penn published his frame of government, and certain laws, agreed on in England by himself and the purchasers under him, entitled: “The frame of the government of the Province of Pennsylvania, in America; together with certain laws, agreed upon in England by the Governor and Divers of the Free-Men of the aforesaid Province. To be further Explained and Confirmed there, by the first Provincial Council and General Assembly that shall be held, if they see meet.”
Lest any trouble might arise in the future from claims founded on the grant of land in America to the Duke of York, of “Long Island and adjacent territories occupied by the Dutch,” the prudent forethought of William Penn prompted him to obtain a deed from the Duke, which he succeeded in doing August 31, 1682.
The deed included the land in Pennsylvania, substantially in the terms cited in the original Royal Charter.
But Penn, even with the new deed, was not quite satisfied. He was cut off from the ocean by the uncertain navigation of some narrow stream. He, therefore, obtained an additional deed from the Duke of York which was for the grant of New Castle and district twelve miles in radius around it, and also a further grant from the Duke of a tract extending to Cape Henlopen, embracing the two counties of Kent and Sussex.
This new grant to Penn was thereafter termed “the territories,” or “the three lower counties,” and for many years remained a part of Pennsylvania, until finally separated, since which time it has formed the State of Delaware.