William Penn

by Rupert Sargent Holland

Sometimes Penn himself presided over the meetings of the Provincial Council, which frequently sat as a court of law. One of the early trials was for witchcraft among the Swedes, and was handled so quickly and decisively that the old superstition was prevented from spreading among the people, as it did in Massachusetts a little later. Penn charged the jury, which brought in a verdict that the prisoner was "guilty of the common fame of being a witch; but not guilty in manner and form as she stands indicted." As this amounted to deciding that the prisoner was not guilty of having done any wrong, in spite of her reputation for dealing in witchcraft, a precedent was set which showed that Pennsylvania was to be fair in dealing with all kinds of men and women.

Every one is familiar with Benjamin West's famous picture of Penn making a treaty with the Indians under the great elm at Kensington. That scene, however, like many other striking scenes in history, seems to rest on vague tradition rather than on facts. There is no exact record of his first treaty with the Indians, but the place where it was made is generally supposed to have been on the bank of the Delaware River near the foot of what is now called Shackamaxon Street in Philadelphia. This treaty was simply an agreement as to the method of buying the land and how it should be surveyed. Later, deeds were drawn up for the actual transfer of the lands, and the tracts to be transferred were surveyed by the old method of walking against time. Thus it was agreed that what was known as the Neshaminy tract should reach beyond the mouth of the Neshaminy Creek "as far as a man could walk and back in three days."

How this was done was described by John Watson. "Governor Penn," said he, "with several Friends and a party of Indians, began in the month of November at the mouth of the Neshaminy and walked up the Delaware. In a day and a half they arrived at a point about thirty miles distant at the mouth of a creek which they called 'Baker's' (from the name of the man who first reached it). Here they marked a spruce tree; and Governor Penn decided that this was as much land as would be immediately wanted for settlement, and walked no farther. They walked at leisure, the Indians sitting down sometimes to smoke their pipes and the white men to eat biscuit and cheese.... A line was afterward run from the spruce tree to Neshaminy and marked, the remainder was left to be walked out when wanted for settlement."

Reproduced from Buell's "William Penn," through the courtesy of D. Appleton and Company. Originally printed in Watson's "Annals of Philadelphia."

The Treaty Tree.

Under this tree William Penn is supposed to have made his first treaty with the Indians. The tree was blown down in 1810, when it was found to be 283 years old. During the winter of 1778, when Philadelphia was occupied by the British, their foraging parties were sent out in every direction for fuel. To protect this famous old tree from the ax, Colonel Simcoe, of the Queen's Rangers, placed a sentinel under it, and thus its life was spared for many years.

This unusual method of measuring land appears to have been fair enough, at least as long as William Penn was in authority over the white settlers. The Indians had already learned that they could trust him, and found no cause for raising the war-cry against the "Children of Mignon" (Elder Brother), as the followers of William Penn were called. Half a century later, however, when William Penn's son Thomas was the governor, the Lenni-Lenape, or Delaware Indians, from whom Penn had bought much land, became uneasy at the encroachments of some of the settlers, and asked to have a distance, stated in the old agreement to be "as far as a man can go in a day and a half," definitely determined. Thomas Penn, the governor of Pennsylvania, and the chiefs of the Delawares agreed that the distance should be determined by a walk to take place on September 19, 1737. Very early on that morning a large number of colonists gathered at the crossroads near the Friends' meetinghouse at Wrightstown in Pennsylvania.

A large chestnut tree stood at the crossroads, and this was the center of interest for the white men and for the Indians who joined them there. "Ready!" commanded Sheriff Smith, and at the word three white men stepped out from the crowd and put their right hands on the chestnut tree. The three were James Yeates, a New Englander, described as "tall, slim, of much ability and speed of foot"; Solomon Jennings, "a remarkably stout and strong man," and Edward Marshall, a well-known hunter, who was over six feet tall, and noted as a great walker.