The arrival of colonists in Pennsylvania in greater numbers than in Delaware and the Jerseys was the more notable because, within a few years after Pennsylvania was founded, persecution of the Quakers ceased in England and one prolific cause of their migration was no more.Thirteen hundred Quakers were released from prison in 1686 by James II; and in 1689, when William of Orange took the throne, toleration was extended to the Quakers and other Protestant dissenters.
The success of the first Quakers who came to America brought others even after persecution ceased in England.The most numerous class of immigrants for the first fifteen or twenty years were Welsh, most of whom were Quakers with a few Baptists and Church of England people.They may have come not so much from a desire to flee from persecution as to build up a little Welsh community and to revive Welsh nationalism.In their new surroundings they spoke their own Welsh language and very few of them had learned English.They had been encouraged in their national aspirations by an agreement with Penn that they were to have a tract of 40,000 acres where they could live by themselves.
The land assigned to them lay west of Philadelphia in that high ridge along the present main line of the Pennsylvania Railroad, now so noted for its wealthy suburban homes.All the important names of townships and places in that region, such as Wynnewood, St.Davids, Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, Merion, Haverford, Radnor, are Welsh in origin.Some of the Welsh spread round to the north of Philadelphia, where names like Gwynedd and Penllyn remain as their memorials.The Chester Valley bordering the high ridge of their first settlement they called Duffrin Mawr or Great Valley.
These Welsh, like so many of the Quakers, were of a well-to-do class.They rapidly developed their fertile land and, for pioneers, lived quite luxuriously.They had none of the usual county and township officers but ruled their Welsh Barony, as it was called, through the authority of their Quaker meetings.But this system eventually disappeared.The Welsh were absorbed into the English population, and in a couple of generations their language disappeared.Prominent people are descended from them.
David Rittenhouse, the astronomer, was Welsh on his mother's side.David Lloyd, for a long time the leader of the popular party and at one time Chief Justice, was a Welshman.Since the Revolution the Welsh names of Cadwalader and Meredith have been conspicuous.
The Church of England people formed a curious and decidedly hostile element in the early population of Pennsylvania.They established themselves in Philadelphia in the beginning and rapidly grew into a political party which, while it cannot be called very strong in numbers, was important in ability and influence.After Penn's death, his sons joined the Church of England, and the Churchmen in the province became still stronger.
They formed the basis of the proprietary party, filled executive offices in the Government, and waged relentless war against the Quaker majority which controlled the Legislature.During Penn's lifetime the Churchmen were naturally opposed to the whole government, both executive and legislative.They were constantly sending home to England all sorts of reports and information calculated to show that the Quakers were unfit to rule a province, that Penn should be deprived of his charter, and that Pennsylvania should be put under the direct rule of the King.
They had delightful schemes for making it a strong Church of England colony like Virginia.One of them suggested that, as the title to the Three Lower Counties, as Delaware was called, was in dispute, it should be taken by the Crown and given to the Church as a manor to support a bishop.Such an ecclesiastic certainly could have lived in princely state from the rents of its fertile farms, with a palace, retinue, chamberlains, chancellors, feudal courts, and all the appendages of earthly glory.For the sake of the picturesqueness of colonial history it is perhaps a pity that this pious plan was never carried out.
As it was, however, the Churchmen established themselves with not a little glamour and romance round two institutions, Christ Church for the first fifty years, and after that round the old College of Philadelphia.The Reverend William Smith, a pugnacious and eloquent Scotchman, led them in many a gallant onset against the "haughty tribe" of Quakers, and he even suffered imprisonment in the cause.He had a country seat on the Schuylkill and was in his way a fine character, devoted to the establishment of ecclesiasticism and higher learning as a bulwark against the menace of Quaker fanaticism; and but for the coming on of the Revolution he might have become the first colonial bishop with all the palaces, pomp, and glory appertaining thereunto.
In spite of this opposition, however, the Quakers continued their control of the colony, serenely tolerating the anathemas of the learned Churchmen and the fierce curses and brandished weapons of the Presbyterians and Scotch-Irish.Curses and anathemas were no check to the fertile soil.Grist continued to come to the mill;and the agricultural products poured into Philadelphia to be carried away in the ships.The contemplative Quaker took his profits as they passed; enacted his liberalizing laws, his prison reform, his charities, his peace with the savage Indians; allowed science, research, and all the kindly arts of life to flourish;and seemed perfectly contented with the damnation in the other world to which those who flourished under his rule consigned him.
