what it means to us, it is necessary
briefly to review the early history of Philadelphia. Although some small
trading posts had been established by the Swedes and Dutch in the lower
valley of the Delaware River from 1623 onward, it was not until 1682
that Philadelphia was settled under a charter which William Penn
obtained from Charles II the previous year, providing a place of refuge
for Quakers who were suffering persecution in England under the
"Clarendon Code." The site was chosen by Penn's commission, consisting
of Nathaniel Allen, John Bezan and William Heage, assisted by Penn's
cousin, Captain William Markham, as deputy governor, and Thomas Holme as
surveyor-general. The Swedes had established a settlement at the mouth
of the Schuylkill River not later than 1643, and the site selected by
the commissioners was held by three brothers of the Swaenson family.
They agreed, however, to take in exchange land in what is now known as
the Northern Liberties, and in the summer of 1682, Holme laid out the
city extending from the Delaware River on the east to the Schuylkill
River on the west--a distance of about two miles--and from Vine Street
on the north to Cedar, now South Street, on the south,--a distance of
about one mile. Penn landed at New Castle on the Delaware, October 27,
1682, and probably came to his newly founded city soon afterward. A
meeting of the Provincial Council was held March 10, 1683, and from that
time Philadelphia was the capital of Pennsylvania until 1799, when
Lancaster was chosen.

Not only did Penn obtain a grant of land possessed of rare and
diversified natural beauty, extreme fertility, mineral wealth and
richness of all kinds, but he showed great sagacity in encouraging
ambitious men of education and affluence, and artisans of skill and
taste in many lines, to colonize it. To these facts are due the quick
prosperity which came to Philadelphia and which has made it to this day
one of the foremost manufacturing centers in the United States. Textile,
foundry and many other industries soon sprang up to supply the wants of
these diligent people three thousand miles from the mother country and
to provide a basis of trade with the rest of the world. Shipyards were
established and a merchant marine built up which soon brought to
Philadelphia a foreign and coastwise commerce second to none in the
American colonies. Local merchants engaged in trade with Europe and the
West Indies, and these profitable ven