The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-08-21
PENN HAD \
 STORMY CAREER
 IN NATIVE LAND
Founder of Keystone State Was Often In Prison Be-
 fore Coming to America,


 Whats ip a name? A world!-of memories benedictions or of the anathcma. In the word "Pennsylva- nia' is enshrined, perhaps, the love- Hest character who ever had to meet the forward and overcome them. It i9 not a disputed question that the name "Pennsylvania' is the most musical of all the names of the AS states. Pennsylvania was named after William Penn. Today, August 20, we celebrate William Penn's re-instate- ment in 1894 in his Province of Penn sylvania, which had been taken from him and annexed to New York. Our William Penn was an English Quaker. He was born in London in 1644, in the days of the English In terregnum, or of Cromwell. The English speaking world was still agog over the courage and conflicts of the Puritans in the New World. Of a devout nature, William Penn was early brought under strong Puritan influences. The Society of Friends (Quakers) founded by George Fox, numbered William Penn among its prominent leaders. The lovely soul, who, later, by pure power of charac- ter, was to knit hostile tribes of In- dians to himself and to his projects, was a scholar of brilliant parts, and a controversial writer of great force He was a student for years at Ox- ford and Cambridge. In vain did his worldly minded father endeavor to upset his sons Quaker bent by send ing him to Franco and to Ireland. l After some lapses from what he con- sidered the straight path William Penn became a minister of the So- ciety of Friends He at once entered upon a prominent career of Letters, publishing many pamphlets and books, which so aroused the wrath of the Stuart Court, that Penn was committed to the Tower, where he was imprisoned for nine months. ! Upon his release, with extreme cour- age and skill, he stood out for the | peoples ancient and just liberty of | conscience His fathers death left ! him in possession of a fortune of | t1,500 a year, but he consecrated 1t | all to the Cause to which he had con- secrated himself. Again and again thrown into prison, its darkness seemed but to enhance the blaze ! of his inner light In 1880, | Penn's connection with America be- gan. Disputes had arisen in England over grants of land in the New | World to the Kings (Charles ID ! brother and to other cour1iers John | Fenwick, a Quaker. had bought one | of the shares of the deed of land the Province of New Jersey. It p1 owes | how highly his country estimated | William Penn's character and abili- ties that he was called to be an arbi- l trator in the matter. Fenwick re- | ceived ten out of the hundred parts | into which the Province was divided. He sold his ten parts to Penn and to | other Quakers and these three be- | came masters of New West Jersey" So say some historians; other histor- ians differ and attribute Penn's re- ceipt of the concession to other sources Penn sailed for America in ! 1880 in the ship Welcome with 100 colonists Upon his return to Eng land he again undertook missionary | journeys to Holland and Germany as a Quaker preacher. He had great 1 success in New West Jersey in the colonization of the soil and the soul. Once more he turned his thoughts to America and boldly asked the Crown flor a grant of Land north of Maryland, bounded on the east by the Delaware, and northward as far as ! plantable.
 Penn hoped to make this grand
 tract of land (our Pennsylvania today)
 a Quaker stronghold. The Stuart
 King, Charles IT., the merry, merry
 monarch. was only too glad to estab-
 fish a distant colony. which would rid him of his troublesome Quakers,
 who pricked at his conscience-and
 Penn was made Master of the Prov
 lnce of Pennsylvania His own ac-
 count of the name is that he suggest
 ed "Sylvania," and that the King
 added "Penn." in honor of Penn's
 father, a devoted royalist and Tory in
 politics. It was during his last visit
 to Anne rica that Penn met the hostile
 Indian tribes in Pennsylvania, gain | ed and retined their intense affection,
 and made a successful treaty with
 them Benjamin Vests notable pie
 ture depicts the meeting of Penn, and
 the great Indian chiefs. Penn pass
 ed and retained their intense affectio
 whose ideal was that Pennsylvania
 vas to be a Christian State on a
 Quaker model. In his frame of gov ernment he provided for a Committed of Manners, Education and Art He founded Philadelphia, which in two
 years had a population of 25oo. Never were mildness and might more