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Thomas Penn (8 March 1702 – 21 March 1775) was an English landowner and mercer who was the chief proprietor of Pennsylvania from 1746 to 1775. He was one of 17 children of William Penn, the founder of the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania in British America. In 1737, Thomas Penn negotiated the Walking Purchase, a contested land cession treaty he negotiated with Lenape chief Lappawinsoe that transferred control over 1,200,000 acres (4,860 km2) of territory in the present-day Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania regions of Pennsylvania and a portion of West Jersey in colonial New Jersey from the Lenape tribe to the Province of Pennsylvania. Born in 1702 in Kensington, England into a Quaker family, Penn was apprenticed to a London mercer at a young age by his father William due to his family's financial insecurity. When his father died in 1718, William's last will and testament gave his proprietorship of Pennsylvania to his three sons, including Penn. In 1732, Penn travelled to the colony to assume control over his family's interests in Pennsylvania, including collecting unpaid rents. As his family back in England were deeply in debt, Penn abandoned his father's conciliatory approach towards Indian tribes residing on the colonial frontier in order to acquire more land to sell. In addition to signing treaties with Indian leaders, Penn strengthened the power of the deputy governor and frequently used his prerogative to overturn legislation from the Pennsylvania General Assembly, acts which made him unpopular in the colony. Penn returned to England in 1741, though he continued to exert control over affairs in Pennsylvania. When his brother John died in 1746, his will and testament passed control over John's share of the family proprietorship to Penn, making his the chief proprietor of Pennsylvania. In 1751, he married Lady Juliana Fermor, who he went on to have seven children with. Penn eventually died at his country estate of Stoke Park, Buckinghamshire in 1775. Early life Thomas Penn was born on 8 March 1702 in the Kensington section of London. His father was William Penn, a Quaker religious thinker, writer, and coloniser who established the colony of Pennsylvania in 1681 after receiving a charter from Charles II. Penn's mother was Hannah Callowhill Penn, who married her husband on 5 March 1696. The couple lived in Pennsylvania from 1682 to 1701 in the Pennsbury Manor area of present-day , Bucks County, Pennsylvania prior to returning to England. Despite William being the proprietors of Pennsylvania, the Penn family only derived a small amount of income from the colony. In order to provide his family with alternative sources of financial security, Penn was apprenticed to a London mercer who was part of the Worshipful Company of Mercers by his father when he was growing up. When William died in 1718, his will gave control of the proprietorship to Penn and brothers John and Richard. In 1727, William's will, which was disputed by the children of his first wife Gulielma, was upheld in the British legal system; four years later, Gulielma's children agreed to settle the case in exchange for a sum of money. The terms of the proprietorship issued by Charles II stipulated that the Penn family would be given absolute ownership over all lands and mining rights in the new colony in return for delivering two beaver skins from Pennsylvania annually to Windsor Castle, though "the proprietorship was still no guarantee of wealth." Management of Pennsylvania Penn, who had by this point taken control over managing his family's financial affairs, travelled to the Province of Pennsylvania in 1732, the first member of his family to do so since William had left the colony since 1701. After arriving in Pennsylvania, Penn received a generally warm reception from the colonists living there. His interests in the colony included collecting rents owed to the Penn family from local colonists, securing payments for territory which had already been colonised by settlers and securing the Pennsylvania frontier from potential attacks by Indians tribes and nearby French colonies. Penn's brothers John and Richard, who had remained in England when Penn travelled to Pennsylvania, wrote a letter to him in May 1734 stressing that the family was now 8,000 pounds in debt and were in urgent need of revenues from the colony. In the letter, the pair insisted upon the "absolute necessity" of finding methods to generate profits from Pennsylvania and suggested to Penn that if he was unable to generate a profit from the colony, it might be preferable to sell off the proprietorship as the family was "now at the Mercy of our creditors without anything to Maintain us". In response to these demands, Penn abandoned the previously conciliatory approach to negotiations with Indian tribes established by his father and adopted a more aggressive approach aimed at securing more land for colonial settlement. Working together with the royal governor of Pennsylvania, James Logan, Penn made plans to acquire more land from the Lenape. Such efforts were spurred by increased immigration to the colony and fears that settlers from the nearby Province of New York was infringing on Pennsylvania's northern borders in the Upper Delaware river valley. Together with Logan, Penn negotiated the Walking Purchase treaty with Lenape chief Lappawinsoe in 1737. The treaty stipulated that a 1686 treaty signed between William Penn and the Lenape gave 1,200,000 acres (4,860 km2) of land along the northern reaches of the Delaware River to Pennsylvania; the Lenape subsequently evacuated their settlements from the transferred territory. During the treaty negotiations, Logan gave the Lenape an inaccurate map, and according to historian Steven Grant Harper, the treaty was the product of duplicity on the part of Penn and Logan. Penn also took a leading role in the colony's domestic affairs. Though Penn was technically governor of the colony, a deputy governor had been installed to manage the affairs of Pennsylvania on a permanent basis, and he took several steps to increase the executive power held by the deputy governor (which strengthened the influence his family held within Pennsylvania). In 1741, Penn returned to England, leaving control over the colony in the hands of deputy George Thomas; his reputation in the colony had worsened to the point where he was thought of as "greedy and cold". Return to England After Penn returned to England, John died in 1746. In his will and testament, John deeded his portion of the proprietorship, amounting to 50%, to Penn, leading to him becoming the chief proprietor of Pennsylvania. Penn continued to involve himself in Pennsylvania's affairs, including an attempt to make the Lenape conform to a European-style land tenure by designating a portion of the lands near the Lehigh River as an "Indian Manor" to be inhabited solely by the tribe. In 1755, the Lenape tribals residing in the "Indian Manor" migrate.... Discover the Thomas Penn popular books. Find the top 100 most popular Thomas Penn books.