the Best Laid Plans of Mice and Penn
Whatever the well-thoughtful and inspirational qualities of Penn’s Made-in-England plans, his Frames, the Society of Free Traders, his Forty Laws, his own real estate business plan, his First Purchasers Contract–and whatever the the tensions, dysfunctional medieval tendencies, its romantic view of the Quaker Holy Experiment, whatever–the entire nexus of his plans crashed dramatically, and fast, upon his landing in Pennsylvania. Worse, the fundamentals underlying the plans were badly shaken, not its details. Penn’s reaction was mixed. In some ways, Indian land negotiations for example, he responded well, better than I would have thought.
But he quickly displayed an insensitivity, a tin ear, to politics and individual sensitivities. His personality and work style–so vital to a colonial administration that completely revolved and was dependent on him personally–proved polarizing, and he was amazingly surprised by the velocity and pervasiveness of Quaker dissent tossed at him. He became the lightning rod for all disappointments felt by the new settlers–particularly on the sale of land. But dangerously, Penn under criticism and pressure proved stubborn , and his decision-making capricious (he was perceived to favor his friends). In particular, he refused to alter his proprietary business model, on which his Frames and settlement policy reflected. If political compromise cost him revenue flow, it was resisted. Penn was about to discover that for him Pennsylvania was his own hell on earth. Penn was about to discover that being a near-dictator had its problems. Somehow all this usually does not get included in contemporary textbooks.
Penn had sent over three commissioners to represent him until he arrived. He was late in coming, arriving in October, and his delegates when they arrived encountered fundamental opposition to the colony, and a host of more practical, but still near-fatal problems to the plans they were to implement. They made decisions which Penn had to accept. Three problems are central to our history: (1) the previous inhabitants of the lower Delaware River, Swedes, Dutch, Finns, and former New York and Maryland residents, wanted nothing to do with Pennsylvania; (2) Pennsylvania’s southern boundaries, with Lord Calvert’s Maryland, were publicly contested; and Penn’s choice of a site for his export-port city Philadelphia were already owned and were not up for sale. Not willing to wait for Penn, winter was coming’ the delegates went up river and chose another site. That site’s topography was less suitable and only one bank of the river was available–meaning the waterfront would be long and narrow, not contained in one district. It too was owned and occupied and that complicated the transition.
Penn’s agents concluded that the best location for a port city lay on a sparsely settled peninsula, formed by the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers, and varying two to five miles in width. The land here was largely undeveloped, and at its narrowest point was high, wooded, well-watered, and served by a good harbor on the Delaware side. Titles to it had been granted only recently by the Duke of York [the brother of the King and proprietor of West New Jersey colony], while further inland a large part of the land was [unowned] …. [many of these titles were purchased immediately, by Penn’s Deputy Governor Markham]. The spot which Penn had thought would be the best port location … had been settled for over thirty years [and[ real estate there was so dear [expensive] to fulfill [Penn’s] scheme {i.e. business plan and land sales] [99] Joseph P. Illick, Colonial Pennsylvania: a History, pp. 30-1
When Penn got off the boat (October 28, 1682) , at New Castle, he discovered that he had landed in three counties inherited from Dutch, Swede and New York former colonial settlers, would wanted nothing to do with him–and he was engaged in a great border war with Maryland that wasted little time in making its way back to London. Maryland’s opposition also intensified the Lower Delaware county opposition, and Penn was yanked fifty miles upstream to handle the very pressing task of settling what would become Philadelphia, and three upper counties–before winter set in. In ignorance Penn had sold land to First Settlers that he did not own. The failure to accommodate that and topography wreaked havoc on his land sales and settlement strategy. Between December 1681 and December 1682, twenty-three ships arrived bearing 2,000 settlers. Twenty ships followed in 1683, with another 2,000. By end of 1685, ninety ships had landed with nearly 8,000 debarking. Every ship that landed brought a host of new and unanticipated problems–and the pressure on land for sales for so many, meant negotiations with Indian tribes, a prerequisite for land sale to Quakers, were a first order priority as well. The reader, I suspect, now knows to what the section-title refers!
Lower Three Counties
Pennsylvania’s southern boundary was set on the 40 parallel. Penn had really no firm idea where that line was located, and he did not have on hand any survey. To Penn he was in legal possession of the three lower counties, the former Netherlands-Swede settlements–the non-Quaker and already long-settled population of which wanted nothing to do with Penn and his Holy Experiment. Further Penn was determined to have direct access to the Atlantic for his colony. That access was critical to his ability to promote the colony and grow it economically. His initial intention was to create three additional counties in the lower Delaware. In 1682, the Duke of York sold his interests to Penn, and Penn formally asserted his right over the territory from that point on–contested by Lord Calvert, and the none–to–happy New Netherlands settlers. Both headed to court in London to resolve the matter. Complicating the court process was the unanticipated event that the Duke of York became King of England, James II–as we know a friend of Penn’s. James split the lower Delaware counties in half and gave to Penn the river access land–thereby moving Maryland’s boundaries northward (1685).
Once his locations had been settled, Penn’s first priority was to acquire the lands from the Native American tribes in possession. This was not simply a legal matter to Penn, but also a religious obligation. He shared Fox’s belief that settlement did could not be through conquest, as it so obviously had been in Virginia and Massachusetts. Quaker pacifism and abhorrence of violence and “things military” was simply immoral to a faithful Quaker. That the Native American concept of land ownership was not European or legal, and their previous experience with the New Netherland and Swedes southern colonies was on the whole reasonable, the local tribe, the Lenape, far from trusting and naïve, were willing to talk.
In 1683, Penn’s timing for land negotiations was good also. The recent, very disruptive Beaver War had decimated the Lenape, and they had been kicked out of Delaware Valley by the Iroquois–who themselves were exhausted with the struggle. Disease exacted a horrible toll as the Lenape were displaced, depopulated, and understandably reluctant to war. Negotiation among the tribes produced an agreement. This agreement by Penn and the Lenape was outside of the framework, and did not follow the process called for in the “Covenant Chain” treaties with England had negotiated with New York-based Iroquois. The Covenant Chain, which will be consider later in more detail, established a loose alliance between Delaware tribes, the Iroquois, and the newly arrived Shawnee. The confederation was willing to work with the English to maintain peace and trade, and given that the lands Penn wanted to buy were not then populated, and given Penn’s honest and sincere, non-military approach to talks, land sales of the desired locations in the Valley were successful.
In 1688 James formally redefined the Pennsylvania-Maryland boundary. That left the New Netherlands settlers on their own, and in 1701 they formally petitioned the Penn for a separate legislature of their own. Penn agreed stipulating that he was the common governor. The lower abridged three counties then had their own legislature–and a struggle between Pennsylvania and the three lower counties ensued–as struggle that was never resolved. The lower three counties of Pennsylvania–their divisive effect on “mainland” Pennsylvania politics and policy-making–deserves a book on it sown, but mercifully this author will not include it, except where necessary, in this book. The Lower Three Counties also will be critical in understanding Pennsylvania politics during the Articles of Confederation period.
Philadelphia Moves Up River: Our History’s First Big City City-Building
Penn had grand ideas about the settlement of Pennsylvania and its economic base. They did not include Philadelphia, the intended port of Pennsylvania being sixty miles up river on one side of the Delaware River–and the other side in another state entirely. Penn had pretensions of being an urban planner, and he had drawn up a prospective plan for Philadelphia, its economic base, and its relationship to the Pennsylvania hinterland. John Reps summarized this best:
In July 1681 [before setting foot on this ship Welcome] Penn produced his general scheme of colonization … publish(ing) the conditions of settlement, including the statement that ‘a very large town or city’ would be laid out, and that ‘every purchaser and adventurer’ [i.e. investor] would be given land in proportion to his investment in the [Pennsylvania] enterprise. Every person buying [at least] 500 acres in the colony would be assigned a ten-acre parcel in the city. Penn then selected three commissioners to accompany the first group of settlers [before Penn himself came over]. To them he handled a long and detailed memorandum of instructions dealing with {laying out, platting] dated September 30, 1681 … these instructions were specific, practical and comprehensive. They dealt first with selection of a suitable town site and the amount of land that would be required [99] John W. Reps, Town Planning in Frontier America (Princeton University Press, 1965, 1969), p. 206
The best laid plans of mice, men and Quakers went awry when the three commissioners arrived, realized no city was going to be built in the Lower Delaware in time, headed north, found a new site (the present site). The topography did not fit Penn’s detailed instructions, the east bank was already settled and uncooperative, and they faced the reality that Penn’s major investors and many affluent settlers had signed onto an incentive deal for investment that could no longer be honored as originally agreed. Even more damaging, Penn had envisioned more waterfront access than the west bank of the Delaware provided–especially if a port was to be included on the waterfront (it wasn’t). For a contemporary economic developer, this mess is normal, with the newspaper and TV howling in the foreground as a added delight of modernity. But when Penn’s boat arrived full of those affluent folk, he had to deal with the old bait-and-switch conundrum. Penn dealt with it as any CEO, government or private would do. He delegated it to his economic development commissioners, writing them …
… you must use your utmost skill to persuade them to part with so much as will be necessary, that so necessary and good a design [for the layout of the city] not be spoiled, urging my regard to them if they will not break this great and good contrivance, and in my name promise them what gratuity or privilege you think fit, as having a new grant at their old rent, half their quit rent [taxes] abated, yea, make them as free purchasers, rather than disappoint my mind in this township .[99] John W. Reps, Town Planning in Frontier America (Princeton University Press, 1965, 1969), p. 207
If someone had granted me that discretion when I was a practicing economic developer, I would be writing this from my jail cell. Penn empowered them to keep the investors on board, plat the new city in a completely unexpected topography, and keep to the original urban design he had devised. That urban design today is celebrated as the magnificent Broad and Market Street central square, with streets laid leading to the square from the waterfront inland [instead of going to another waterfront as the previous location envisioned by Penn was between two rivers], leading to nowhere in particular. That “Plan of Philadelphia” can be found in most any urban planning history, and is celebrated as a monument to the profession. That blessed geography will be the core of a future turn of the 19th century City Beautiful design, and in the late 1950’s and 1960’s, the site of a good deal of Philadelphia’s urban renewal project.
In truth, the design is partially based on Penn’s experience as lawyer for the New Jersey colony’s plan for Burlington New Jersey–home of Burlington Coats, and birthplace of James Fenimore Cooper of Last of the Mohicans fame–and John Reps our foremost colonial historian planner:
Burlington’s modest plan, laid out in 1675 by Richard Noble, was based on similar axes as were standard military camp plans for the standard seventeenth century English armies … It is likely that [Penn’s surveyor in Philadelphia, Thomas Holme] was also familiar with the plan Richard Newcourt proposed for the rebuilding of London in 1666 (after the Great Fire). The chief elements in Newcourt’s plan–a grand central square at the intersection of axial streets which he called High and Broad, symmetrically placed subordinate squares, and the grid pattern formed by intersection streets–were all incorporated in Holme’s [design] Portraiture [99] Hannah Benner Roach, “the Planting of Philadelphia: a Seventeenth Century Real Estate Development I, pp. 33-4
and that Rep’s [99] John W. Reps, Town Planning in Frontier America, pp. 212-13 belief that
“Penn and Holmes had a number of models from which to draw [New Haven, Covent Garden in London, and Newcourt’s London rebuilding], but they did more than copy any existing or proposed city plan of the past. Philadelphia was much larger than previous [models] [so. they established] America’s first designated public parks … in its scale, its open squares, and its consistent use of wide streets intersecting at right angles Philadelphia represented something of an innovation in colonial town design”.
Today, viewed from 10,000 feet up, Philadelphia is mostly grid. And yes, as the conventional planners critique of the grid goes, it was meant to accommodate land sale at a profit– to scale up]made possible, of course, with sweetheart deals and tax abatement. The nasty truth about the grid is that it is not a capitalist “plat” (pardon the play on words for “plot”) and it never was. Ancient cities, mostly aggregated jumbles with a grand boulevard and several gates, also used grid. The grid was but a natural extension of Penn’s Philadelphia, embraced as the city grew at its seams–which in Philadelphia’s case was “instantly”. [Later in the settlement of the American West, scholars will call attention to the western “instant city” and its characteristic effects on simultaneous suburban development. Philadelphia was in 1682 an instant city, and its northern and southern suburbs would require annexation to alleviate horrible dysfunctionalities].
Reps offers a fair and understanding summary of Penn’s (and Holme’s) final negotiated, and readjusted plan of 1682 is that “if Philadelphia must share the blame for the ubiquitous gridiron, it should also be credited as the source of an occasional open square occupied by public buildings or used for park purposes … [and that] understanding [Philadelphia’s] place in the American tradition of city planning there was … to some degree a realization that municipal control over land development was not incompatible with a democratic society” .John W. Reps, Town Planning in Frontier America, pp. 223
The most serious issue Penn confronted in coping with planning and his new capitol city location was his ten acre “liberty lands” farm land on which a goodly number of his most wealthy planners had signed on to. Liberty lands were those acres afforded to the First Purchasers who bought sufficient acreage as an incentive in Penn’s “conditions and concessions” contract. Finding someplace to put the liberty lands forced yet another planning adjustment, which no one could have anticipated realistically. In any case, the liberty lands were placed in several tracts to the immediate north of Penn’s city proper. North of Vine Street Holme platted a string of parcels and assigned their ownership to First Purchasers. They were outside of Philadelphia’s boundaries, and so they were incorporated by Penn as townships, legally independent of the city. The largest liberty land township, Northern Liberties, located directly on Philadelphia became its first “suburb” during the colonial period. By the 1790 census northern Liberties held nearly 10,000 residents and was the United State’s sixth largest urban center. It was officially annexed by Philadelphia in 1854, one hundred-seventy or so years later. This township was not included in Philadelphia election districts during the critical days of 1775-6, played a significant role in the establishment of Pennsylvania’s first “State” policy system, and affected the character of Pennsylvania’s policy making and was the source of Pennsylvania’s urban populist element.
Observations on our First City-Building- One of Economic Development’s Most Important Strategy-Nexus
Penn’s design and platting of Philadelphia–and transferring land ownership to the First Purchasers gave reality to that “large commercial city’ detailed in his plan(s). There was a forest and fields when he began–and a city when it was over. It is the first of America’s large cities encountered in this history (Not, of course in English America). We have gone into some depth as to issues, compromises and a general messiness about this very critical economic development strategy–to create a city from a wilderness, or more precisely, nothing but trees, fields, streams, river front, rocks, and hills. City-building will saturate this history–it still continues to this very day as a core, but largely unnoticed economic development strategy. Composed of a host of auxiliary strategies in combination with principles of planning. there is a lot of city-building in our history–some will call it suburbanization (a suburb is a city too). Anyway, the reader should assume they will encounter an awful lot of it in this history. Philadelphia is on the Atlantic coast and we have to work our way to Honolulu. There is a lot of city/town building ahead of us.
City-building (and also state-building which shall be dealt with later) is not limited to the initial design, platting, land sales and the inherent location of functions to separate geographies. City-building more vitally includes institutionalization: the design and the initial operation of key political, social and economic structures without which a urban center would not succeed. Public buildings, of course, easily come to mind as key to city-building (and renewal), but city-building mostly requires lots of people. There is much literature today about whether jobs follow people or vice versa. We shall firmly declare the definitive answer to this “angels dancing on a head of a pin question” is YES. Try to separate the two questions when you first settle an urban area? I can’t so I leave it to statisticians, in that correlations only can produce a definitive fact.
City-building it is directed and motivated by a few–often who will be titled as city fathers and mothers. Say it in my language: the dominant urban elite of that city. The playground of the urban elite is our policy system, with its sandboxes, slides, swings, and deep (cess) pools. In my city-building playground, one cannot expect its participants to use doggie bags for the inevitable mess and contemptible output. In a jestful manner, I allude to the numerous “scandals, conflicts of interest, as elites scramble to build something from nothing. We have lost our ability to be outraged by this–especially when we have already seen glimpses of what fate befell our deeply religious and seemingly honest and saintly William Penn. It gets worse.
The motivations of this elite–and those of its most powerful members especially–are as they say “complicated”, but this history cannot escape the inevitably that most of what they do falls into the economic development rubric. Lucky us, a lot of fascinating stories to tell, of folk only one step out of jail. I, for one, however, am not ashamed to these guys. City-building requires leadership, disrespects democracy and not infrequently discretion and decency. The city-builders may not be personal role models, but most would surprise even the most skeptical, as to the real life complexity of their motivations. City-building “is what it is”. One last observation. City-building and institutionalization is not the flicking of a light switch–it literally takes decades for both. When we talk of founding a city, that city will be building for several decades after, and its policy system will be evolving before it jells sufficiently to be called its first policy system.
Penn’s City-Building
What does emerge from Penn’s city-building–and his intermittent and inconsistent participation in it–was a gradual but perceptual dissatisfaction with Penn in the Quaker community. It was perceived that Penn in the abstract was a committed Quaker and genuine in the application of the original plan and vision. What was also evident was that Penn protected his own personal interests, and did not respond well to what he perceived as threats or questioning of his authority. Benner-Roach suggests the colony quickly developed a cash-flow and hard currency liquidity deficiency which impeded payment of debts and salaries–while not Penn’s fault directly hit people in the day-to-day pocketbook. A good deal of Penn’s cash reserves were expended in Indian land purchases. In 1683 Penn was expecting that people homesteaders start paying their taxes/quit rents which were not officially due for another year–for both public need and for his personal cash flow. They parted with their taxes, if at all, with much conversation, in in true Quaker fashion, with much dissent. Penn’s deputies and officials, usually individuals close to him or family, demanded their pay, and that fostered a perception that Penn favored his friends unduly. That Penn favored his friends in other decisions complicated the matter.
The winter of 82-83 was hard, by European standards, cold, and food and wood became issues. It was increasingly clear that by Spring, the city of Brotherly Love was a bit stressed. Individuals took to the courts for remediation of their concerns–and that usually made things worse. The courts were conducted by individuals close to Penn. Dissatisfied individuals and households turned to Penn, usually to little avail. The obvious delay in issuing construction/survey warrants by Penn, and the inevitable disappointment with the specific allocation of parcels–both of which were directly attributed to Penn. Here Penn’s promotional materials and his past descriptions of the new world utopia came back to haunt him, as did the gap between his contract and what happened on the ground. Lord Calvert actively resisted Penn’s attempts to manage and to settle residents in the Three Lower Counties–bringing those already unhappy folk to the brink of rebellion.
By March 1684, Penn had it with Calvert, and it was also increasingly uncomfortable in dealing with the never-ending complaints and bad feelings that swept through his own Quaker colony. His political setbacks in 1683 (renegotiated Frames, for example) combined so by early 1684 Penn decided to return to England. One of the Penn’s last acts was to assert control over land tied to waterfront usages (potentially lucrative, of course) as part of his personal estate. He would, of course, pay no taxes on these personal lands. Penn commenced construction of his own manor/estate, even though there was still a backlog in allocation of land plots to Quaker landowners. From the perspective of the general citizen it was not clear whether Penn was quitting town or being ridden out, sans tar and feathers.
Motions were made to repeal Penns “fundamental laws” included in his Frame of Government. In particular attempt was made to limit Penn’s powers of appointment, especially over the courts. In Philadelphia, after the Assembly, streets were no longer named for Penn’s officials in favor of “things that Spontaneously grow in the country”. As Penn prepared to leave, he cleared his desk of accumulated paperwork, and requests for action–possibly without reading them–because serious inconsistencies were easily observed. Penn attempted “damage control” to correct the concerns he had created, but too quickly. To prepare for his departure he left the city for his rural manor. When he returned a month later all hell broke lose as issues of every topic and concern were raised, liberty lots to the establishment of a number of manors on land owned by Penn. “Humble Remonstratives” or petitions for redress were submitted to him, only to be returned with brief and nasty comments. Penn was making things much worse than he needed to.
In this and other actions and comments it was clear Penn was taking these complaints personally, but also as threats to his legal proprietary authority, i.e. almost revolutionary. In total frustration, and virtually on the dock ready to leave, Penn signed a order setting up a commission, composed of his close associates who were to take over his administration, to create a borough charter for Philadelphia. On the day before his departure he formally appointed the Provincial Council, named Thomas Lloyd its President–and headed off to New Castle to catch his boat. He left in mid-August 1684, one year and ten months after his arrival [99] Hannah Benner-Roach, the Planting of Philadelphia: a Seventeenth Century Real Estate Development II (the Pennsylvania Magazine April 1968). He remained in England for the next fifteen years, returning in 1699 for an equally short period of time.
Ron W. Coan 