Part 46

"The grant to Penn confused the old controversy between Virginia and Lord Baltimore as to their boundary, and led to fresh controversies. The question soon arose: What do the descriptions, 'the beginning of the fortieth,' and 'the beginning of the three and fortieth degree of northern latitude,' mean? If they meant the 40th and 43rd parallels of north latitude, as most historians have held, Penn's province was the zone, three degrees of latitude in width, that leaves Philadelphia a little to the south and Syracuse a little to the north; but if those descriptions meant the belts lying between 39° and 40°, and 42° and 43°, as some authors have held, then Penn's southern and northern boundaries were 39° and 42° north. A glance at the map of Pennsylvania will show the reader how different the territorial dispositions would have been if either one of these constructions had been carried out. The first construction would avoid disputes on the south, unless with Virginia west of the mountains; on the north it would not conflict with New York, but would most seriously conflict with Connecticut and Massachusetts west of the Delaware. The second construction involved disputes with the two southern colonies concerning the degree 39-40 to the farthest limit of Pennsylvania, and it also overlapped Connecticut's claim to the degree 41-42. Perhaps we cannot certainly say what was the intention of the king, or Penn's first understanding; but the Quaker proprietary and his successors adopted substantially the second construction, and thus involved their province in the most bitter disputes. The first quarrel was with Lord Baltimore. It has been well said that this 'notable quarrel' 'continued more than eighty years; was the cause of endless trouble between individuals; occupied the attention not only of the proprietors of the respective provinces, but of the Lords of Trade and Plantations, of the High Court of Chancery, and of the Privy Councils of at least three monarchs; it greatly retarded the settlement and development of a beautiful and fertile country, and brought about numerous tumults, which sometimes ended in bloodshed.'"

_B. A. Hinsdale, The Old Northwest, chapter 7._

"As the Duke of York claimed, by right of conquest, the settlements on the western shores of the Bay of Delaware, and had, by his deed of 1682, transferred to William Penn his title to that country, embracing the town of Newcastle and twelve miles around it (as a reasonable portion of land attached to it), and as far down as what was then called Cape Henlopen; an important subject of controversy was the true situation of that cape, and the ascertainment of the southern and western boundaries of the country along the bay, as transferred by the Duke's deed. … {2502} After two personal interviews in America, the Proprietaries separated without coming to any arrangement and with mutual recriminations and dissatisfaction. And they each wrote to the Lords of Plantations excusing themselves and blaming the other. … At length, in 1685, one important step was taken toward the decision of the conflicting claims of Maryland and Pennsylvania, by a decree of King James' Council, which ordered, 'that for a voiding further differences, the tract of land lying between the Bay of Delaware and the eastern sea, on the one side, and the Chesapeake Bay on the other, be divided into equal parts, by a line from the latitude of Cape Henlopen to the 40th degree of north latitude, the southern boundary of Pennsylvania by Charter; and that the one half thereof, lying towards the Bay of Delaware and the eastern sea, be adjudged to belong to his majesty, and the other half to Lord Baltimore, as comprised in his charter.' … This decree of King James, which evidently exhibits a partiality towards the claims of Penn, in decreeing the eastern half of the peninsula to his majesty, with whom Lord Baltimore could not presume, and indeed had declined to dispute, instead of to the Proprietary himself, by no means removed the difficulties which hung over this tedious, expensive, and vexatious litigation. For … there existed as much uncertainty with respect to the true situation of Cape Henlopen and the ascertainment of the middle of the Peninsula, as any points in contest."

_J. Dunlop, Memoir on the Controversy between William Penn and Lord Baltimore, (Pennsylvania Historical Society Memoirs, volume 1)._

See, PENNSYLVANIA: 1760-1767.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1691-1702. Practical separation of Delaware.

See DELAWARE: A. D. 1691-1702.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1692-1696. Keith's schism. Penn deprived of his government, but restored. Early resistance to the proprietary yoke.

"While New England and New York were suffering from war, superstition, and the bitterness of faction, Pennsylvania was not without internal troubles. These troubles originated with George Keith, a Scotch Quaker, formerly surveyor-general of East Jersey, and at this time master of the Quaker school at Philadelphia, and champion of the Quakers against Cotton Mather and the Boston ministers. Pressing the doctrines of non-resistance to their logical conclusion, Keith advanced the opinion that Quaker principles were not consistent with the exercise of political authority. He also attacked negro slavery as inconsistent with those principles. There is no surer way of giving mortal offense to a sect or party than to call upon it to be consistent with its own professed doctrines. Keith was disowned by the yearly meeting, but he forthwith instituted a meeting of his own, to which he gave the name of Christian Quakers. In reply to a 'Testimony of Denial' put forth against him, he published an 'Address,' in which he handled his adversaries with very little ceremony. He was fined by the Quaker magistrates for insolence, and Bradford, the only printer in the colony, was called to account for having published Keith's address. Though he obtained a discharge, Bradford, however, judged it expedient to remove with his types to New York, which now [1692] first obtained a printing press. The Episcopalians and other non-Quakers professed great sympathy for Keith, and raised a loud outcry against Quaker intolerance. Keith himself presently embraced Episcopacy, went to England, and took orders there. The Quaker magistrates were accused of hostility to the Church of England, and in the alleged maladministration of his agents, joined with his own suspected loyalty, a pretense was found for depriving Penn of the government—a step taken by the Privy Council without any of the forms, or, indeed, any authority of law, though justified by the opinions of some of the leading Whig lawyers of that day." Governor Fletcher of New York was now authorized for a time to administer the government of Pennsylvania and Delaware. "He accordingly visited Philadelphia, and called an Assembly in which deputies from both provinces were present. Penn's frame of government was disregarded, the Assembly being modeled after that of New York. Fletcher hoped to obtain a salary for himself and some contributions toward the defense of the northern frontier. The Quakers, very reluctant to vote money at all, had special scruples about the lawfulness of war. They were also very suspicious of designs against their liberties, and refused to enter on any business until the existing laws and liberties of the province had been first expressly confirmed. This concession reluctantly made, Fletcher obtained the grant of a small sum of money, not, however, without stipulating that it 'should not be dipped in blood.' … The suspicions against Penn soon dying away, the administration of his province was restored to him [1694]. But the pressure of his private affairs—for he was very much in debt—detained him in England, and he sent a commission to Markham [his relative and representative in Pennsylvania] to act as his deputy. An Assembly called by Markham refused to recognize the binding force of Penn's frame of government, which, indeed, had been totally disregarded by Fletcher. To the restrictions on their authority imposed by that frame they would not submit. A second Assembly [1696] proved equally obstinate, and, as the only means of obtaining a vote of the money required of the province toward the defense of New York, Markham was obliged to agree to a new act of settlement, securing to the Assembly the right of originating laws. A power of disapproval was reserved, however, to the proprietary, and this act never received Penn's sanction."

_R. Hildreth, History of the United States, chapter 21 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _G. E. Ellis, Life of Penn, chapter 10 (Library of American Bibliographies, series 2, volume 12)._

_G. P. Fisher, The Colonial Era, chapter 16._

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1696-1749. Suppression of colonial manufactures.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1696-1749.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1701-1718. The new Charter of Privileges and the city charter of Philadelphia. The divorcing of Delaware. Differences with the Proprietary. The death of Penn.

It was not until 1699 that Penn returned to his domain after an absence of fifteen years, and his brief stay of two years was not made wholly agreeable to him. Between him and his colonists there were many points of friction, as was inevitable under the relationship in which they stood to one another. The assembly of the province would not be persuaded to contribute to the fortification of the northern frontier of the king's dominions (in New York) against the French and Indians. Penn's influence, however, prevailed upon that body to adopt measures for suppressing both piracy and illicit trade. {2503} With much difficulty, moreover, he settled with his subjects the terms of a new constitution of government, or Charter of Privileges, as it was called. The old Frame of Government was formally abandoned and the government of Pennsylvania was now organized upon an entirely new footing. "The new charter for the province and territories, signed by Penn, October 25, 1701, was more republican in character than those of the neighboring colonies. It not only provided for an assembly of the people with great powers, including those of creating courts, but to a certain extent it submitted to the choice of the people the nomination of some of the county officers. The section concerning liberty of conscience did not discriminate against the members of the Church of Rome. The closing section fulfilled the promise already made by Penn, that in case the representatives of the two territorial districts [Pennsylvania proper, held under Penn's original grant, and the Lower Counties, afterwards constituting Delaware, which he acquired from the Duke of York] could not agree within three years to join in legislative business, the Lower Counties should be separated from Pennsylvania. On the same day Penn established by letters-patent a council of state for the province, 'to consult and assist the proprietary himself or his deputy with the best of their advice and council in public affairs and matters relating to the government and the peace and well-being of the people; and in the absence of the proprietary, or upon the deputy's absence out of the province, his death, or other incapacity, to exercise all and singular the powers of government.' The original town and borough of Philadelphia, having by this time 'become near equal to the city of New York in trade and riches,' was raised, by patent of the 25th of October, 1701, to the rank of a city, and, like the province, could boast of having a more liberal charter than her neighbors; for the municipal officers were to be elected by the representatives of the people of the city, and not appointed by the governor, as in New York. The government of the province had been entrusted by Penn to Andrew Hamilton, also governor for the proprietors in New Jersey, with James Logan as provincial secretary, to whom was likewise confided the management of the proprietary estates, thus making him in reality the representative of Penn and the leader of his party. Hamilton died in December, 1702; but before his death he had endeavored in vain to bring the representatives of the two sections of his government together again. The Delaware members remained obstinate, and finally, while Edward Shippen, a member of the council and first mayor of Philadelphia, was acting as president, it was settled that they should have separate assemblies, entirely independent of each other. The first separate assembly for Pennsylvania proper met at Philadelphia, in October, 1703, and by its first resolution showed that the Quakers, so dominant in the province, were beginning to acquire a taste for authority, and meant to color their religion with the hue of political power." In December, 1703, John Evans, a young Welshman, appointed deputy-governor by Penn, arrived at Philadelphia, and was soon involved in quarrels with the assemblies. "At one time they had for ground the refusal of the Quakers to support the war which was waging against the French and Indians on the frontiers. At another they disagreed upon the establishment of a judiciary. These disturbances produced financial disruptions, and Penn himself suffered therefrom to such an extent that he was thrown into a London prison, and had finally to mortgage his province for £6,000. The recall of Evans in 1709, and the appointment of Charles Gookin in his stead, did not mend matters. Logan, Penn's intimate friend and representative, was finally compelled to leave the country; and, going to England (1710), he induced Penn to write a letter to the Pennsylvania assembly, in which he threatened to sell the province to the crown, a surrender by which he was to receive £12,000. The transfer was in fact prevented by an attack of apoplexy from which Penn suffered in 1712. The epistle, however, brought the refractory assembly to terms." In 1717 Gookin involved himself in fresh troubles and was recalled. Sir William Keith was then appointed—"the last governor commissioned by Penn himself; for the great founder of Pennsylvania died in 1718. … After Penn's death his heirs went to law among themselves about the government and proprietary rights in Pennsylvania."

_B. Fernow, Middle Colonies (Narrative and Critical History of America, volume 5, chapter 3)._

ALSO IN: _G. E. Ellis, Life of Penn (Library of American Biographies, series 2, volume 12), chapters 11-12._

_R. Proud, History of Pennsylvania, chapters 14-22 (volumes 1-2)._

_Penn and Logan Correspondence (Pennsylvania Historical Society Memoirs, volumes 9-10)._

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1709-1710. Immigration of Palatines and other Germans.

See PALATINES.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1740-1741. First settlements and missions of the Moravian Brethren.

See MORAVIAN BRETHREN.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1743. Origin of the University of Pennsylvania.

See EDUCATION, MODERN: AMERICA: A. D. 1683-1779.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1744-1748. King George's War.

See NEW ENGLAND: A. D. 1744; 1745; and 1745-1748.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1748-1754. First movements beyond the mountains to dispute possession with the French.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1748-1754.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1753-1799. Connecticut claims and settlements in the Wyoming Valley. The Pennamite and Yankee War.

"The charter bounds [of Connecticut] extended west to the Pacific Ocean [see CONNECTICUT: A. D. 1662-1664]: this would have carried Connecticut over a strip covering the northern two fifths of the present State of Pennsylvania. Stuart faithlessness interfered with this doubly. Almost immediately after the grant of the charter, Charles granted to his brother James the Dutch colony of New Netherland, thus interrupting the continuity of Connecticut. Rather than resist the king's brother, Connecticut agreed and ratified the interruption. In 1681 a more serious interference took place. Charles granted to Penn the province of Pennsylvania, extending westward five degrees between the 40th and 43rd parallels of north latitude." Under the final compromise of Penn's boundary dispute with Lord Baltimore the northern line of Pennsylvania was moved southward to latitude 42° instead of 43°; but it still absorbed five degrees in length of the Connecticut western belt. {2504} "The territory taken from Connecticut by the Penn grant would be bounded southerly on the present map by a straight line entering Pennsylvania about Stroudsburg, just north of the Delaware Water Gap, and running west through Hazelton, Catawissa, Clearfield, and New Castle, taking in all the northern coal, iron, and oil fields. It was a royal heritage, but the Penns made no attempt to settle it, and Connecticut until the middle of the 18th century had no energy to spare from the task of winning her home territory 'out of the fire, as it were, by hard blows and for small recompense.' This task had been fairly well done by 1750, and in 1753 a movement to colonize in the Wyoming country was set on foot in Windham county. It spread by degrees until the Susquehanna Company was formed the next year, with nearly 700 members, of whom 638 were of Connecticut. Their agents made a treaty with the Five Nations July 11, 1754, by which they bought for £2,000 a tract of land beginning at the 41st degree of latitude, the southerly boundary of Connecticut; thence running north, following the line of the Susquehanna at a distance of ten miles from it, to the present northern boundary of Pennsylvania; thence 120 miles west; thence south to the 41st degree and back to the point of beginning. In May, 1755, the Connecticut general assembly expressed its acquiescence in the scheme, if the king should approve it; and it approved also a plan of Samuel Hazard, of Philadelphia, for another colony, to be placed west of Pennsylvania, and within the chartered limits of Connecticut. The court might have taken stronger ground than this; for, at the meeting of commissioners from the various colonies at Albany, in 1754, the representatives of Pennsylvania being present, no opposition was made to a resolution that Connecticut and Massachusetts, by charter right, extended west to the South Sea. The formation of the Susquehanna Company brought out objections from Pennsylvania, but the company sent out surveyors and plotted its tract. Settlement was begun on the Delaware River in 1757, and in the Susquehanna purchase in 1762. This was a temporary settlement, the settlers going home for the winter. A permanent venture was made the next year on the flats below Wilkes Barre, but it was destroyed by the Indians the same year. In 1768 the company marked out five townships, and sent out forty settlers for the first, Kingston. Most of them, including the famous Captain Zebulon Butler, had served in the French and Indian War; and their first step was to build the 'Forty Fort.' The Penns, after their usual policy, had refused to sell lands, but had leased plots to a number of men on condition of their 'defending the lands from the Connecticut claimants.' The forty Connecticut men found these in possession when they arrived in February, 1769, and a war of writs and arrests followed for the remainder of the year. The Pennsylvania men had one too powerful argument, in the shape of a four-pounder gun, and they retained possession at the end of the year. Early in 1770 the forty reappeared, captured the four-pounder, and secured possession. For a time in 1771 the Pennsylvania men returned, put up a fort of their own, and engaged in a partisan warfare; but the numbers of the Connecticut men were rapidly increasing, and they remained masters until the opening of the Revolution, when they numbered some 3,000. … But for the Revolution, the check occasioned by the massacre [of 1778—see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1778 (JULY)], and the appearance of a popular government in place of the Penns, nothing could have prevented the establishment of Connecticut's authority over all the regions embraced in her western claims. … The articles of confederation went into force early in 1781. One of their provisions empowered congress to appoint courts of arbitration to decide disputes between States as to boundaries. Pennsylvania at once availed herself of this, and applied for a court to decide the Wyoming dispute. Connecticut asked for time, in order to get papers from England; but congress overruled the motion, and ordered the court to meet at Trenton in November, 1782. After forty-one days of argument, the court came to the unanimous conclusion that Wyoming, or the Susquehanna district, belonged to Pennsylvania and not to Connecticut." Connecticut yielded to the decision at once; but, in 1786, when, following New York and Virginia, she was called upon to make a cession of her western territorial claims to congress (see UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1781-1786) she compensated herself for the loss of the Susquehanna district by reserving from the cession "a tract of about the same length and width as the Wyoming grant, west of Pennsylvania, in northeastern Ohio …; and this was the tract known as the Western Reserve of Connecticut. It contained about 3,500,000 acres. … The unfortunate Wyoming settlers, deserted by their own State, and left to the mercy of rival claimants, had a hard time of it for years. The militia of the neighboring counties of Pennsylvania was mustered to enforce the writs of Pennsylvania courts; the property of the Connecticut men was destroyed, their fences were cast down, and their rights ignored; and the 'Pennamite and Yankee War' began. … The old Susquehanna Company was reorganized in 1785-86, and made ready to support its settlers by force. New Yankee faces came crowding into the disputed territory. Among them was Ethan Allen, and with him came some Green Mountain Boys." It was not until 1799 that the controversy came to an end, by the passage of an act which confirmed the title of the actual settlers.

_A. Johnston, Connecticut, chapter 15._

ALSO IN: _C. Miner, History of Wyoming, letters 5-12._

_W. L. Stone, Poetry and History of Wyoming, chapters 4-5._

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1754. Building of Fort Duquesne by the French. The first armed collision in the western valley.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1754.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1754. The Colonial Congress at Albany, and Franklin's Plan of Union.

See UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: A. D. 1754.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1755. The opening of the French and Indian War. Braddock's defeat. The frontier ravaged.

See OHIO (VALLEY): A. D. 1755.

PENNSYLVANIA: A. D. 1755-1760. French and Indian War. Conquest of Canada and the west.

See CANADA: A. D.1755, 1756, 1756-1757, 1758, 1759, 1760; and NOVA SCOTIA: A. D. 1755.

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