Excerpt from Poor Richard's Dictionary of Philadelphia: Being an Unusual Collection of Interesting Facts That Are Becoming More Generally Known About Historic and Commercial Philadelphia

Penn was no ordinary man. In those days, when tyranny, religious bigotry, and cruel punishments for light crimes widely prevailed, he lost no time in giving his people powers of suffrage and self government, and complete religious liberty, and cut down the penalty of death for crime to murder and treason. At that time people were hanged in England for small thefts and various other minor offences.

The new city grew with encouraging rapidity. In the fifty years before Penn's arrival few settlers had sought the Delaware. N ow they came abun dautly, and when Penn returned to England in 1684 there were about 3000 people in the new city and 5000 in the province of Pennsylvania.

When William Penn again visited his city, fifteen years later, he was surprised and delighted by the evidences of growth and prosperity he saw on all sides. He had left a city of about 600 houses, he returned to one of more than 2000, and so full of new faces that he felt almost like a stranger.

New settlers had come in numbers, among them many Welsh, who settled in the country west of the Schuylkill, which became known as the Welsh Tract. Many more Germans had arrived, of vari ous religious sects, these making their way into the country to the north, Where their descendants still preserve their old language, oddly mixed with English words, and are known as Pennsylvania Dutch.

Meanwhile the city grew and prospered. A postal service was early established. Education was attended to, a Friends' Public Grammar School being founded in 1689. This still exists as the William Penn Charter School. Philadelphia was chartered as a city in 1701, shortly before Penn's final return to England. In 1718, when William Penn died, his colony, then thirty six years of age, was in a very prosperous condition, immi grants coming in such numbers that Pennsylvania grew faster than any of the other colonies. Trade developed until the Delaware presented a busy scene, vessels coming and going in numbers, while business was active, land cheap, and the streets vital with stirring life.

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