The Last Days of William Penn

Posted by on Nov 11, 2019 in | Comments Off on The Last Days of William Penn “My poor Dearests last breath was fetchd this morning between 2 & 3 a Clock.” So wrote a distraught Hannah Penn to longtime friend and advisor Thomas Story on July 30, 1718. The remains of her husband were taken to Jordans Meeting House in Buckinghamshire and buried there on August 5 beside his first wife Gulielma. Quakers and non-Quakers alike attended the funeral. Jordans is a quiet place,...
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William Penn’s Side Chair

Posted by on Dec 13, 2016 in | Comments Off on William Penn’s Side Chair Pennsylvania founder and first proprietor William Penn lived in his colony for a total of only four years during two trips of two years each, 1682-84 and 1699-1701. Even before his first visit he had engaged his agent to purchase from the Lenapes land along the Delaware River that would become Pennsbury Manor, intended to be his permanent summer home in America. As fate would have it, however,...
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Gulielma Penn’s Dressing Box

Posted by on May 8, 2015 in | Comments Off on Gulielma Penn’s Dressing Box   Gulielma Maria Springett Penn never lived in Pennsylvania. When her husband William Penn, founder and proprietor of the colony, made his first trip from England to America in 1682, she was too ill to make the journey with him. She had been deceased for five years before Penn’s second trip in 1699. Although Gulielma was unable to ever experience the splendor of the Penn country estate on...
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From Fraise to Fricassee: Seventeenth Century Cooking in Commonwealth Kitchens

Posted by on Nov 30, 2013 in | Comments Off on From Fraise to Fricassee: Seventeenth Century Cooking in Commonwealth Kitchens Bakemeat, Fricassee, Frais, Rye Pie, Oat Cake – These were once common terms in the vocabulary of the early Pennsylvania house­wife. Indeed, her cookery would seem very strange to us today, quite as remote and curious as that of the Middle Ages. Traditional cooking underwent many changes in the second half of the eighteenth century and industrialization in the nineteenth century altered it...
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Letitia’s Grave Secret

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on Letitia’s Grave Secret The tombstone of Wil­liam Penn’s daughter bears the name Letitia Penn – not her mar­ried name, Letitia Aubrey. One historian, given to conjecture, wondered, “Had she wished it so, remembering her hus­band’s bitter quarrels with her father, and the many other unhappinesses her husband had brought her?” What this woman “wished” on her tombstone no one...
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A Walk of Injustice

Posted by on Nov 29, 2013 in | Comments Off on A Walk of Injustice Just before sunrise on Monday, September 19, 1737, a strange gathering of Indians, white settlers and professional woodsmen assembled beneath a mam­moth chestnut tree along the Durham Road in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. The Indians were Minsi and Shaw­nee of the Delaware Nation, along with two of their chiefs, Tisheekunk and Nutimus; the white settlers were men anx­ious for Pennsylvania to...
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Pennsbury Manor, The Philosopher’s Garden

Posted by on Nov 26, 2013 in | Comments Off on Pennsbury Manor, The Philosopher’s Garden Pennsbury Manor, William Penn’s reconstructed country estate north of Philadelphia, is a profoundly peaceful place. The Delaware River glides by the manor house’s front door, stately trees shade the site, and sheep dot the pastures. Rescued from an encroaching gravel quarry in the 1930s, the forty-three acre farm is a pastoral remnant of the founder’s original...
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