CHAPTER I

PERIOD OF COLONIZATION

Penn, Early Life-Efforts at Colonization in New Jersey-Settlement of Pennsylvania-Character of the People-Basis of Government -Foundation of Schools-Early Schoolmasters-Work of Press -Bradford-Verse Descriptions of the Province-Frame, Holme -Church-Schism-Keith, Leeds, Pusey-Writings of Dickenson, Thomas, Pastorius and Kelpius-Summary.

WILLIAM PENN, destined to become the founder of a colony and the prudent leader of a people, was born in London in 1644. While a student at Oxford, he was stirred by the preaching of Fox,1 and, because of his adherence to the Quaker, he was dismissed from the University. The handsome, polished youth was sent to France to study, to travel, and to mingle in fashionable society, not for the scholarship or culture he might receive, but that he might be freed from such intense religion.' In 1665, the London plague revived his spiritual fervor; and in 1667, after hearing Thomas Coe preach in Cork, he openly espoused Quakerism. In the same year, with Fox, Barclay, and Keith, he went through Holland, Switzerland, and Germany on a proselytizing tour. Penn spoke German, and thus he was able to establish intimate relations with many who were suffering from the religious and civil persecutions of the time, the

1 George Fox (1624-1690), the founder of the Society of Friends, left relations and "broke off all familiarity or fellowship with old or young at the command of God in 1643." In 1647 he began the work of an itinerant preacher, the positive element in his teaching being that men ought to give earnest heed to the inner light. Notwithstanding many imprisonments, he secured a large following in England. Macaulay thought him a vulgar charlatan whom we have "no reason for placing morally or intellectually above Ludowick Muggleton or Joanna Southcote."

results of the Thirty Years' War. After this he had an opportunity of accepting a patent of land in America in lieu of money-some eighteen thousand pounds-due from the English government to his father, Admiral Penn.

This was not, however, Penn's first interest in colonization; his ideas on the subject had been tested in New Jersey seven years before. In 1675 Lord Berkeley sold half of this province, which he had received from the Duke of York, to two Quakers, John Fenwicke and Edward Byllinge. The latter, reduced in circumstances, took, as joint trustee, Penn, who wrote a constitution and encouraged the settlement. Thus he became familiar with the new lands and interested in their development. When the second half of the province, given by the Duke of York to Governor Carteret, was offered by his widow at auction, Penn, with eleven other Quakers, bought it on February 1, 1682, for £3400. In the same year they sold half of their interest to twelve other men2 (Scotch, Irish, and English merchants) of varying religious and social ideas. With a constitution and Robert Barclay as Governor, they attempted colonization. Controversies over quit rents and titles, disagreements with New York because of Jersey's aspiration for self-government, attacks from the Indians, added to internal dissensions, caused East Jersey, after twenty years' endeavor to enforce a constitution, to give up the attempt. West Jersey had less difficulty, but fearing the future she united with East Jersey; and the two provinces on April 17, 1702, surrendered to Queen Anne all power of government, reserving only ownership of soil.

In his new field Penn saw a possibility of helping many people. In 1681 he sent three ships; in 1682 he brought over four more, with about one thousand people,-Dutch, Germans, Welsh, and English, and took formal possession of the

2 The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century by H. L. Osgood, N. Y., 1904, Vol. 2, Ch. 8.

territory. There were some Swedes and Dutch already in the colony, from whom he purchased the site of Philadelphia. These remained good, loyal citizens. The German contingent, led by Pastorius, a very interesting man whom we shall consider later, settled at Germantown. These were a rugged mountain people, with uncouth manners and speech, but with manifest zeal to serve God in their own innocent way. Many were unable to provide passage money, but so anxious were they to seek the newly found asylum, that they sold themselves for a term of years to the shipmaster, who leased them to the colonists.

3

The English Quakers, making one third of the province and one half of the city, came from the plebeian classes, and included scarcely one of the gentry and but few of the educated. Since these were for forty years in the majority, they set the standards for the whole province. They resembled the Puritans in emphasizing religious practices, yet their ideas of worship were different. They had their ministers, but these were busied with other things than composing painful elegies, or preaching the terrors of a future damnation, and we must expect different results from these patient men who waited always for the leading of the Spirit. Perhaps the Quakers were as laborious and prim as the Puritans, but they were milder and more humanitarian. Education was to them not necessary for an understanding of the Scriptures, but rather a hindrance, and while there were some trained minds among them, the proportion was less than in New England. True, there were Logan, Governors Lloyd and Hamilton, Pastorius,—a master of seven languages,-Kelpius, "the learned mystic of

3 This dialect is a descendant of the Pfälzisch or the Rhine Frankish. See the Story of the Pennsylvania Germans by William Beidelman, Easton, Pa., 1898. The American Colonies in the Seventeenth Century. H. L. Osgood, N. Y., 1904, Vol. 2, Ch. 11.