King Charles II owed William Penn £16,000, money which Admiral Penn had lent him. William Penn received a charter from King Charles II to establish a proprietary colony, named Pennsylvania, which included the land between the colonies of New Jersey and Maryland in payment of a debt owed to his later father.
The King signed the Charter of Pennsylvania on March 4, 1681, and it was officially proclaimed on April 2. The King named the new colony in honor of William Penn's father. It was to include the land between the 39th and 42nd degrees of north latitude and from the Delaware River westward for five degrees of longitude.
William Penn, an English Quaker had a vision for his new colony that he referred to as the Holy Experiment, a secure and peaceable haven for all people of Europe who were persecuted for their religious beliefs.
Because Penn’s colony offered settlers religious freedom, it attracted people of other denominations. Less than forty years later, by the time Penn’s death in 1718, the colony had already grown to include a religious mix of Amish, Mennonites, Moravians etc.
In October 1682, on the ship Welcome, William Penn arrived at Upland (now Chester) which was then occupied by Swedish colonists. Penn traveled up the Delaware River, identified a piece of land between the Delaware and Schuylkill Rivers and commenced building his new colony’s chief city: Philadelphia.
State of Pennsylvania
