Columbus and Other Heroes of American Discovery

by N. D'Anvers

It was in 1681, after a stormy career in England, that Penn first turned his attention to the New World, and obtained from the English Crown, in lieu of a large sum of money due to him from it, a grant of an extensive tract of land, encroaching alike on the boundaries of New York, New Jersey, and Maryland. It was included between the 40th and 43d degrees of north latitude, and was bounded on the east by the Delaware, already connected with so many thrilling memories.

Determined, with that rigid sense of honesty which characterized his sect, to appropriate nothing unfairly, Penn, before he started himself, sent out agents to purchase from the Indians the land upon which he proposed settling; and all things being thus prepared for his advent, he set sail from England, arriving at Newcastle, on the Delaware, in October, 1682. Here he was most enthusiastically received, his fame as a sufferer for righteousness’ sake, and as an eager philanthropist, having preceded him.

A day of general rejoicing was succeeded by a solemn leave-taking of the colonists, and then, embarking on the broad waters of the Delaware, Penn made what resembled a royal progress from one station to another, till he came, toward the end of November, to the borders of his own dominions. His first act on landing in Pennsylvania, as the new districts had already been christened, was to hold a solemn meeting with the Indian chiefs, and make with them that treaty of peace which was followed by such excellent results for his people. Beneath a large elm tree at Shackamaxon, on the site of the modern Kensington, the sons of the forest, hitherto accustomed to very different treatment from the white man, awaited the approach of him whom they looked upon as a messenger from the Great Spirit in awe-struck silence. As Penn approached, the oldest sachem rose and bade him welcome, adding that the nations of the Delaware were ready to listen to his words.

“We meet,” replied Penn, as he stood a little in advance of the chief of his colonists, “on the broad pathway of good works and good will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. I will not call you children, for parents sometimes chide their children too severely; nor brothers only, for brothers differ. The friendship between you and me I will not compare to a chain, for that the rains might rust, or a falling tree break. We are the same as if one man’s body were divided into two parts; we are all one flesh and blood.”

This speech, which has become historical, and is proudly quoted in every account of the founding of Philadelphia, appealed direct to the very hearts of those to whom it was addressed. Here, at last, was one who owned true fellowship with them, who would feel as they felt, who would protect them, and, better still, whom they themselves could aid. Again their spokesman stood forth, and, in the name of every tribe, from the Schuylkill and the Delaware, the Susquehanna and the Juniatta, replied, “We will live in love with Father Onas (the native name given to Penn) and his children, as long as moon and sun shall endure.” The treaty between the two parties was then signed, the Indians adding the emblem of their tribes to the names of the white men; presents were exchanged, and the solemn scene was at an end. We may add, however, that the peace thus cemented was, unlike most compacts with the sons of the soil, preserved inviolate as long as the Quakers ruled in Pennsylvania, and to it was mainly due the unexampled rapidity of the growth of the new settlement.

PENN’S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS.

Penn’s next care, after his interview with the Indians, was to call together the emigrants—the greater number of whom were of his own religious persuasion—and present them with their constitution, framed so as to insure alike political and religious freedom; a fact resulting in the flocking to his settlement of persecuted members of every sect from the New England and Virginia colonies. In January, 1683, the foundations were laid, on the west bank of the Delaware and at the mouth of the Schuylkill, of that fair town, now the second in importance in the Union, called Philadelphia, or the “City of Brotherly Love,” the streets of which were named after the groves of chestnut, pine, and walnut trees through which they ran.

Before the end of its first year, the infant city contained eighty houses, and four years after its foundation it numbered 2,000 inhabitants. As the years rolled on, and the mineral and agricultural wealth of the western districts of Pennsylvania became more and more fully revealed, town after town sprang up within its boundaries. In the beginning of the 18th century, we find John Harris founding the beautiful Harrisburg, under a grant from Penn, in the midst of the magnificent scenery on the left bank of the Susquehanna, and though the French and Indian war which broke out in 1754 checked for a moment, as it were, the laying out of new cities, the now flourishing town of Pittsburg rose on the site of Fort Duquesne, at the junction of the Alleghany and Monongahela Rivers, as soon as the victory of Forbes in 1758 established the power of the British.