As the most prominent, prosperous and influential settlement in the new colony, New Castle, the original Swedish colony town became the capital.Īs one of the earlier supporters of colonial unification, Penn wrote and urged for a union of all the English colonies in what was to become the United States of America. Twenty-three years later in 1704, they achieved their goal when the three southernmost counties of provincial Pennsylvania along the western coast of the Delaware, were permitted to split off and become the new semi-autonomous colony of Lower Delaware. These earlier colonists had no historical allegiance to a 'Pennsylvania', so they almost immediately began petitioning for their own representative assembly. However, Penn's Quaker government was not viewed favorably by the previous Dutch, Swedish colonists, and also earlier English settlers in what is now Delaware, but claimed for half a century by the neighboring Province of Maryland's proprietor family, the Calverts and Lord Baltimore. Afterward, Penn journeyed further north up the Delaware River and founded Philadelphia, on the west bank. On this occasion, the colonists pledged allegiance to Penn as their new proprietor, and the first Pennsylvania General Assembly was held. Penn immediately set sail and took his first step on American soil, sailing up the Delaware Bay and Delaware River, (past earlier Swedish and Dutch riverfront colonies) in New Castle (now in Delaware) in 1682.

This land included the present-day states of Pennsylvania and Delaware. In 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his North American land holdings along the North Atlantic Ocean coast to Penn to pay the debts the king had owed to Penn's father, the admiral and politician Sir William Penn. He chose to use the names of trees for the cross streets because Pennsylvania means 'Penn's Woods'. The streets are named with numbers and tree names.

Philadelphia was planned out to be grid-like with its streets and be very easy to navigate, unlike London where Penn was from. Under his direction, the city of Philadelphia was planned and developed. He was an early advocate of democracy and religious freedom, notable for his good relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans.

William Penn (14 October 1644 – 30 July 1718) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. Lamb's painting of William Penn at the Brooklyn Museum

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