o 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, fil