British Colonial Period
On March 4, 1681, Charles II of England granted a land tract to William Penn for the area that now includes Pennsylvania because of a £16,000 (around £2,100,000 in 2008, adjusting for retail inflation) debt the King owed to Penn's father. Penn founded a colony, providing for it as a place of religious freedom for Quakers, and named it for his family and the "woods", the Latin sylvania.
Welsh Quakers settled a large tract of land north and west of Philadelphia, in what are now Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. This became known as the "Welsh Tract", and many cities and towns were named for Welsh municipalities.
The colony's reputation of religious freedom also attracted significant populations of German and Scots-Irish settlers, who helped to shape colonial Pennsylvania. Arriving in the eighteenth century before the American Revolutionary War, they generally settled in the backcountry; gradually they migrated west and south into neighboring colonies and states.
In order to give his new province access to the ocean, Penn had leased the proprietary rights of the King's brother, James, Duke of York to what became known as the "three lower counties" on the Delaware. The Province of Pennsylvania was never merged with the Lower Counties because the Duke of York, and Penn, never had a clear title to it. He governed them both, and his deputy governors were assigned to both as well. In Penn's Frame of Government of 1682, he tried to establish a combined assembly by providing for equal membership from each county and requiring legislation to have the assent of both the Lower Counties and the Upper Counties of Chester, Philadelphia and Bucks. The meeting place alternated between Philadelphia and New Castle (now in Delaware). Once Philadelphia began to grow, its leaders resented having to go to New Castle, which was a lengthy trip by horse. They gained agreement by the assemblymen of the Lower Counties in 1704 to have the two assemblies meet separately from then on.
Read more about this topic: History Of Pennsylvania
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