WILLIAM PENN DOCUMENT
Document Signed ("Wm Penn") as proprietary and governor of Pennsylvania, one page, on vellum, oblong quarto, Philadelphia, March 26, 1684, granting 500 acres of land in Kent County, in the colony of Pennsylvania, to John Reynolds, docketed on verso, a little dampstain along left vertical fold, without seal, tiny holes at fold intersections. Framed.
In 1681 William Penn received in payment for a debt the King's Charter for a large tract of land north of the colony of Maryland and west of Delaware. Determined to make the "New Colony" a haven for his fellow members of the Society of Friends, Penn began selling tracts of land at attractive prices, which encouraged the growth of the settlement. The present document is dated to the "first month" of 1684, but the Quaker calendar begins in March.