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55. William Penn. One day Thomas Loe, a Quaker preacher, ventured into the old university town of Oxford. He talked with the students and explained to them the beliefs of the Quakers. He declared that all men were equal, and he refused to recognize rank or title. He taught men to live and worship in simplicity.

William Penn converted

A few students believed his teachings and resolved to become members of the hated sect of Quakers. Among them was William Penn, the son of a great naval officer, Admiral Penn. What a buzzing there was in that old college town when the news spread that William Penn, the fine scholar, the skilled oarsman, the all-round athlete, had become a Quaker!

Why Penn was expelled from college

Some of his comrades would not believe it. But when they saw him put off the cap and gown of his college, which some of the greatest men in English history had worn with pride, and put on the plain garb of the Quakers, they gave up! The college officers were also convinced when Penn and other Quakers tore off the gowns of fellow students. The authorities promptly expelled these young and over-enthusiastic Friends.

What Penn's family and friends thought

What more disgraceful thing could happen to the family of Admiral Penn? To have a son expelled from Oxford was bad enough, but to have him become a Quaker was a disgrace not to be borne—so thought his family. The stern old admiral promptly drove him from home. But William resolutely refused to give up his Quaker views, and the admiral decided to try the plan of sending him to Paris, where life was as un-Quaker-like as it could be.

William Penn himself looked little like a Quaker. He was then eighteen years old, fine looking, with large eyes and long, dark, curly hair reaching to his shoulders.

Penn in Paris

Young Penn, however, did not entirely waste his time in the gay life of Paris. He attended school and traveled in Italy. At the end of two years he came back.

Returns more of a Quaker than ever

It was not long before the admiral again saw Quaker signs in his son and hastened him off to Ireland to cure him entirely. But who should be preaching in Ireland but Thomas Loe. William went to hear his old preacher, and this time became a Quaker forever. No suffering was great enough to cause him ever to waver again, although fines were heaped on him and at four different times he was thrown into foul jails to be the companion of criminals.

WILLIAM PENN

At the age of 22, from a painting in the rooms of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, presented by his grandson, Granville Penn of Stoke Poges

Penn refuses to lift his hat

Penn's family now felt the disgrace very keenly, but his father promised to forgive him if he would take off his hat to the king, to the king's brother, and to his father. One day, the story goes, King Charles, the merry monarch, met William Penn and others. All hats were promptly removed except the king's and Penn's. Presently the king, too, removed his hat. Whereupon, Penn said: "Friend Charles, why dost thou remove thy hat?" The king replied: "Because, wherever I am, it is customary for but one to remain covered."

Penn's father would not permit such conduct toward his royal friends. He therefore drove his son from his home a second time.

THE MEETING BETWEEN WILLIAM PENN AND KING CHARLES

William Penn makes a noble choice

But Penn's mother finally made peace between the father and the son before the admiral died. William Penn, then but twenty-six years old, came into possession of a fortune. Once more he stood "where the roads parted." He could now be a great man and play the part of a fine English gentleman who would always be welcome at court, or he could remain a Quaker.

Turns to America

We do not know that he even thought of forsaking his Quaker comrades. On the contrary, he resolved to devote his fortune and his life to giving them relief. Like Winthrop for the Puritans and Baltimore for the Catholics, Penn thought of America for his persecuted Friends. With other Quaker leaders, he became an owner of West Jersey, part of New Jersey.

A WEATHER VANE

Set above their mill by Penn and two partners in 1699, to show which way the wind might blow

The king pays an old debt

Penn's Woods

56. The Founding of Pennsylvania. King Charles II owed Penn's father about eighty thousand dollars. William Penn asked him to pay it in American land. Charles was only too glad to grant this request of the son of his old sea captain. The land he gave to Penn is the present great state of Pennsylvania. Penn wanted the colony called Sylvania, meaning woodland, but the king declared it should be called Pennsylvania in memory of Admiral Penn.

By means of letters and pamphlets Penn sent word to the Quakers throughout England, Scotland, and Ireland. He told them of Quaker homes across the sea, where jails would not trouble them.

There was great rejoicing among them over Penn's "Holy Experiment," as his plan was called.

A QUAKER

Penn invited all persecuted people

Penn even visited Europe, especially the country along the Rhine, and told the persecuted and oppressed about the new colony where every sort of Christian was to find a hearty welcome, and where no one was to be punished for religion's sake.

Hundreds of settlers hastened to the new colony. When Penn reached Newcastle on the Delaware in the fall of 1682 he met a hearty welcome from scores of happy people who were already enjoying their long-wished-for religious freedom.

One of Penn's first acts was to call a meeting of the colonists to talk over their government. This pleased the people greatly, for although the land was Penn's he not only gave them land for their houses and farms, but he also gave them the right to choose their own rulers and to make their own laws.

WILLIAM PENN'S TREATY WITH THE INDIANS

After the painting by Benjamin West, which hangs in Independence Hall, Philadelphia

The founding of Philadelphia

Penn next turned his attention to founding the great Quaker city to which he gave the name Philadelphia, signifying brotherly love—a name truly expressing Penn's feeling toward other men. He marked off the streets right in the midst of a great forest, and called them Walnut, Mulberry, Chestnut, and so on, after the trees that grew there. Some of the streets in Philadelphia are still so named.

Some settlers lived in caves

But the settlers came faster than houses could be built, and some families had to live in caves dug in the banks along the river. Philadelphia grew faster than the other colonial towns, and soon led them all.

Penn visits the Indians

William Penn won the love and the respect of the Indians of Pennsylvania. He visited them in their own towns and ate with them. He even took part in their athletic games and outran them all. Like Roger Williams, he believed that the Indians should be paid for their lands. Accordingly, he made them rich gifts and entered into solemn treaties with the chiefs.

Kind treatment produced kind treatment

At a treaty under a great elm tree on the banks of the Delaware, Penn said to the Indians: "We are the same as if one man's body were divided into two parts: We are all one flesh and one blood." In return the Indians said: "We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the moon and the sun shall endure." If the Indians admired a white man they said: "He is like William Penn."

The coming of the "Pennsylvania Dutch"

The news of the establishment of free government and free religious worship brought crowds of settlers from Germany. Hundreds of German families in the valleys of the Rhine and the Neckar escaped to "Penn's Woods," and there their children's children are to be found to-day under the name of the "Pennsylvania Dutch." Without boasting, William Penn could say that no other one man, at his own expense, had planted so great a colony in the wilds of America as he had. Few nobler men ever lived than William Penn. He died July 30, 1718.