Penn Treaty Park is a small park on the western bank of the Delaware River, in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is located on Beach Street, near its intersection with Delaware Avenue.
The land that is now the park was part of the Lenape Shackamaxon, where William Penn famously entered into a treaty of peace with Tamanend, a chief of the Lenape Turtle Clan in 1683.
The southern part of the park consists of a walkway surrounding an open green favored by dog walkers and lunchtime picnickers. A stand of mature trees shades the northern part of the park. A statue of William Penn by sculptor Frank Gaylord stands near the northern entrance to the park. [1]
At the river's edge, the park provides an unimpeded view of the full span of the Benjamin Franklin Bridge that connects Philadelphia to the city of Camden, New Jersey. Directly to the north is a power-generating station owned and operated by the Philadelphia Electric Company (PECO). Bordering the southern edge of the park there was a nightclub with part of its facilities built on a reclaimed pier that stretches out into the river, however this is gone and will soon become a condominium development. An iron and concrete fishing pier used to extend out into the river, but it was seriously damaged by an out-of-control barge, fenced off for a while and then eventually done away with.
Though now located in a post-industrial area surrounded by the remnants of heavy industry, the park has been an open space with public access to the river since its dedication on October 28, 1893.
In the year 1683, the land that is now the park was part of the Lenape village of Shackamaxon. Under an elm tree immortalized in a painting by Benjamin West, William Penn famously entered into a treaty of peace with a chief of the Lenape Turtle Clan named Tamanend (later referred to by the Dutch as Tammany or Saint Tammany).
Penn, unarmed in accord with Quaker custom and speaking the Algonquian language,[ dubious ] proclaimed that, "We meet on the broad pathway of good faith and good-will; no advantage shall be taken on either side, but all shall be openness and love. We are the same as if one man’s body was to be divided into two parts; we are of one flesh and one blood." Tamanend replied, "We will live in love with William Penn and his children as long as the creeks and rivers run, and while the sun, moon, and stars endure."[ citation needed ]
This peace between the Lenape Turtle Clan and Penn's successors would endure almost a century, until the Penn's Creek Massacre of 1755. [2] It was remarked upon by Voltaire, who called it "... the only treaty never sworn to and never broken." [3] This location became part of the Fairman Estate and was purchased by Captain Anthony Palmer around 1730 just before he founded the town of Kensington.
The famous elm tree under which the treaty was conducted fell during a storm in 1810. Soon thereafter, a monument was erected on the site where the elm tree was located to commemorate the treaty. The small obelisk remained tucked away in the northwest corner of a lumber yard that sat on the site, until actions were taken in 1893 to acquire the land and build the park that exists today. The park officially opened on October 28, 1893.
After the original tree fell, the Oliver and Vanduzen families took cuttings and seedlings from the tree at that time. They gave offspring of the great Elm to Pennsylvania Hospital, University of Pennsylvania and Haverford College.
On May 6, 2010 at Penn Treaty Park an Elm Tree descendant was planted again. Haverford College Arboretum donated a descendant of the Treaty Elm. The Friends of Penn Treaty Park provided the funding to transport the tree and plant the new tree. Pastor Norwood, from the Tribal Council of the Nanticoke Lenni Lenape and board member of the Penn Treaty Museum provided a blessing. Fairmount Park assisted.
The Lenape, also called the Lenni Lenape and Delaware people, are an indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands, who live in the United States and Canada. The Lenape's historical territory included present-day northeastern Delaware, all of New Jersey, the eastern Pennsylvania regions of the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania, New York Bay and western Long Island, and the lower Hudson Valley.
Lenapehoking is widely translated as 'homelands of the Lenape', which in the 16th and 17th centuries, ranged along the Eastern seaboard from western Connecticut to Delaware, and encompassed the territory adjacent to the Delaware and lower Hudson river valleys, and the territory between them.
The Province of Pennsylvania, also known as the Pennsylvania Colony, was a British North American colony founded by William Penn, who received the land through a grant from Charles II of England in 1681. The name Pennsylvania was derived from "Penn's Woods", referring to William's father Admiral Sir William Penn.
James Logan was a Scots-Irish colonial American statesman, administrator, and scholar who served as the fourteenth mayor of Philadelphia and held a number of other public offices.
Cobbs Creek is an 11.8-mile-long (19.0 km) tributary of Darby Creek in Delaware County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. It forms an approximate border between Montgomery County and Delaware County. After Cobbs Creek passes underneath Township Line Road, it forms the border between Philadelphia County and Delaware County. It runs directly through the two sides of Mount Moriah Cemetery which spans the border of Southwest Philadelphia and Yeadon, Pennsylvania. It later joins Darby Creek before flowing into the Delaware River.
The Treaty of Shackamaxon, also called the Great Treaty and Penn's Treaty, was a legendary treaty between William Penn and Tamanend of the Lenape signed in 1682. Penn and Tamanend agreed that their people would live in a state of perpetual peace.
Tamanend was the Chief of Chiefs and Chief of the Turtle Clan of the Lenni-Lenape nation in the Delaware Valley signing the Peace Treaty with William Penn.
Lappawinsoe was a Lenape chief. His name signifies "gathering fruit" or "going away to gather food". Lappawinsoe sold the land of his tribe to Thomas Penn (1702-1775), and John Penn (1700-1746), the sons of William Penn (1644-1718), the founder, with moderate Quaker philosophies of the Colony and Province of Pennsylvania in 1681, through the controversial and disputed Walking Purchase treaty agreement of 1737. Three other Lenape-Delaware chiefs also signed the agreement: Tishecunk, Nutimus and Menakihikon. Documentation shows that Nutimus was considered the principal Indian leader of the tribes located further southeast in the future State of Delaware.
The Haverford College Arboretum is an arboretum comprising the entire campus of Haverford College, in Haverford, Pennsylvania. It is open daily, dawn to dusk, without charge.
The American Elm cultivar Ulmus americana 'Penn Treaty' was raised by the Plant Sciences Data Center of the American Horticultural Society. Plants under that name were propagated by the Morris Arboretum, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, from grafts made in 1945 from a tree at Haverford College, itself a graft, planted in 1840, from the Shackamaxon Treaty Elm – the tree under which William Penn signed his treaty with Native Americans in 1682 in what was later named Penn Treaty Park, Kensington, Pa.
Petty Island is a 292-acre (1.18 km2) island located in the Delaware River, which forms the border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey in the United States. The island is situated between the cities of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Camden, New Jersey and can be seen from both the Benjamin Franklin Bridge and the Betsy Ross Bridge. It is the fourth-largest island in the Delaware River's path. Petty Island is officially part of Pennsauken Township, New Jersey. In 2019, the State of New Jersey announced plans to buy the island, owned by Citgo, and make it a nature preserve.
William Penn was an English writer, religious thinker, and influential Quaker who founded the Province of Pennsylvania during the British colonial era. Penn was an advocate of democracy and religious freedom known for his amicable relations and successful treaties with the Lenape Native Americans who had resided in present-day Pennsylvania prior to European settlements in the state.
The Six Nations land cessions were a series of land cessions by the Haudenosaunee and Lenape which ceded large amounts of land, including both recently conquered territories acquired from other indigenous peoples in the Beaver Wars and ancestral lands to the Thirteen Colonies and the United States. The land ceded covered, partially or in the entire, the U.S. states of New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee and North Carolina. They were bordered to the west by the Algonquian lands in the Ohio Country, Cherokee lands to the south, and Muscogee and Choctaw lands to the southeast.
Teedyuscung was known as "King of the Delawares". He worked to establish a permanent Lenape (Delaware) home in eastern Pennsylvania in the Lehigh, Susquehanna, and Delaware River valleys. Teedyuscung participated in the Treaty of Easton, which resulted in the surrender of Lenape claims to all lands in Pennsylvania. Following the treaty, the Lenape were forced to live under the control of the Iroquois in the Wyoming Valley near modern-day Wilkes-Barre. Teedyuscung was murdered by arsonists in the night of April 19, 1763. This marked the beginning of the end of the Lenape presence in Pennsylvania. Teedyuscung's son Chief Bull conducted a raid on the Wyoming Valley that was part of a greater Indian uprising. As a result, the Lenape were forced to move west of the Appalachian Mountains by the Royal Proclamation of 1763.
Powder Valley is a village in southern Upper Milford Township in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania. Powder Valley is part of the Lehigh Valley, which has a population of 861,899 and is the 68th most populous metropolitan area in the U.S. as of the 2020 census.
The Treaty of Penn with the Indians, sometimes known as Penn's Treaty with the Indians at Shackamaxon or more simply Penn's Treaty with the Indians, is an oil painting by Benjamin West, completed in 1771–72. The painting depicts William Penn entering into the Treaty of Shackamaxon in 1683 with Tamanend, a chief of the Lenape Turtle Clan, under the shade of an elm tree near the village of Shackamaxon in Pennsylvania.
Pisquetomen was a Lenape chief who acted as interpreter and negotiator for the Lenape in dealings with the Provincial government of Pennsylvania during the mid-eighteenth century. After being rejected in his bid to succeed his uncle Sassoonan as Lenape chief, Pisquetomen joined Shingas and Captain Jacobs in a series of deadly attacks on Pennsylvania settlements at the beginning of the French and Indian War. He eventually participated in peace negotiations that led to the Treaty of Easton in 1758, and is believed to have died in 1762.
Tamaqua or Tamaque, also known as The Beaver and King Beaver, was a leading man of the Unalachtigo (Turkey) phratry of the Lenape people. Although the Iroquois in 1752 had appointed Shingas chief of the Lenape at the Treaty of Logstown, after the French and Indian War Tamaqua rose in prominence through his active role as peace negotiator, and was acknowledged by many Lenape as their "king" or chief spokesman. He was among the first to hand over English captives at the end of the French and Indian War and was active in peace negotiations at the conclusion of Pontiac's War. By 1758, he was recognized as one of three principal leaders of the Lenape, being the primary spokesman for the western Lenape in the Ohio Country. He founded the town of Tuscarawas, Ohio, in 1756 and died there in 1769 or 1771.
Lenape canoes were dugout canoes of Lenapehoking. Tree trunks used were primarily of the American tulip tree, and also of elm, white oak, chestnut or red cedar. Birch bark canoes were not used in the region.
Nenatcheehunt, also spelled Nenacheehunt, or Nenatchehan, and sometimes referred to as Menatochyand, was a Lenape chief known for participating in peace negotiations at the end of the French and Indian War. He is referred to as "Delaware George" by both George Croghan and James Kenny. Confusingly, Christian Frederick Post refers to both Nenatcheehunt and Keekyuscung as "Delaware George." It is not always clear which man is being identified, as they often attended the same meetings and events.
Coordinates: 39°57′58″N75°07′44″W / 39.966°N 75.129°W
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