William Penn

William Penn was an entrepreneur and philosopher who founded the Province of Pennsylvania and helped plan the city of Philadelphia. He was born into a noble family; one with high social esteem and abundant wealth. Though raised according to Anglican beliefs, he turned away from its conventions at the age of 22 and became a member of the Religious Society of Friends or ‘Quakers’, the new cult founded by George Fox. The new religious sect abstained from the path of rituals and ordeals and refused to obey any man-made religious organizations. King Charles II owed a sum of £16,000 to Admiral Penn, the father of William Penn. In lieu of the sum, William Penn was granted land in the colony of England that constitutes present day Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. When the Charter of Pennsylvania was signed, it officially declared Penn as the owner of the province. Penn was a true democrat and he respected the feelings of the Native Americans and after obtaining legal claims from them, he formed a state of his own. He followed a new democratic system that gave religious freedom and other basic rights that laid the basis for the formation of the constitution of the United States of America.