Thomas Penn was American proprietor of Pennsylvania.
Background
Thomas Penn was born on March 9, 1702 in Bristol, England, United Kingdom. He was the son of William Penn, the Quaker statesman, and of Hannah Callowhill, his second wife, was born in Bristol, England, in the house of his grandfather, Thomas Callowhill, for whom he was named. About 1715 or 1716 he was sent from the home of his parents in Ruscombe, Berkshire, to London to enter a business career, apparently first in the employ of Michael Russell, mercer, and later as partner in a commercial establishment whose name is unknown. In 1718 his father died, leaving the proprietary interests in Pennsylvania to his widow as executrix for their four sons; but her rights were contested and not established until 1727, after she herself and the youngest son, Dennis, had died. The mortgages on the estate made in the founder's lifetime were not extinguished until some years later.
Career
The three surviving sons of William and Hannah Penn divided the proprietorship, half going to the oldest, John, and a quarter each to Thomas and Richard. John died in 1746, bequeathing his half share to Thomas. In 1732 Thomas came to Philadelphia, where he managed the proprietary affairs of the province for nine years. In 1741 he went back to England expecting to return to Pennsylvania, but he never did so, and his further dealings with the officials of the province and his own representatives there were carried on by correspondence. From his correspondence (preserved in great abundance in the Historical Society of Pennsylvania) and from other evidence, Thomas Penn appears to have been a man of energy and ability. The financial difficulties that had over-shadowed the last years of his father's life and the widowhood of his mother were gradually relieved by an increased income to the proprietary from sales of land to immigrants.
In 1760 Thomas Penn purchased the well-known estate of Stoke Poges, in Buckinghamshire, England, which remained in the family for eighty years. To heirs of the last named the Penn property in Pennsylvania so far as it was not already lost to the family at last reverted, all other lines descended from William Penn's marriage to Hannah Callowhill having become extinct in 1869. Thomas Penn's Quaker origin did not determine his religious allegiance in later life. In 1743 he wrote of the Quakers that he "did not hold their opinions concerning defence, " adding, "I no longer continue the little distinction of dress", and after his marriage he accounted himself a member of the Church of England. Yet he did not wish to be estranged from the Friends, and it was because he was a dissenter from the Church of England that he was prevented by the Test Act and the requirement of an oath from assuming, even when on the spot, the actual governorship of Pennsylvania when such office seemed to him both natural and desirable.
But the descendants of William Penn were very early contrasted unfavorably with their ancestor and failed to command the regard in which he was held by whites as well as by Indians. The Indians, particularly, resented what appeared to some of them a fraudulent purchase, in 1737, of the Forks of the Delaware, made under the terms of the "Walking Purchase. " Whatever opprobrium this famous transaction deserves belongs to Thomas Penn, who must have authorized it directly. He was unsuccessful in conciliating even the white colonists, either by personal graciousness during his presence or by effective skill and sympathy in dealing with them through his agents.
Nevertheless, as the first Penn to visit the colony after 1704, and as the holder for nearly thirty years of three-fourths of the proprietary and family land in Pennsylvania and Delaware, he was an important figure in the public affairs of Pennsylvania and, except for his father, more influential in its history than any other member of the family. The proprietary form of government was one that could not last, however, and the colony became increasingly intransigent and covetous of complete liberty. It is significant that ten years before Thomas Penn's death and the beginning of the American Revolution the Pennsylvanians were petitioning that jurisdiction over the province be transferred from the proprietors to the Crown.
Thomas Penn died on March 21, 1775.
Achievements
Thomas Penn was best known as the founder of the Province of Pennsylvania and United States state of Pennsylvania.
Connections
On August 22, 1751, Thomas Penn married Lady Juliana Fermor (1729 - 1801), fourth daughter of Thomas, first Earl of Pomfret. Of his eight children, four died in infancy. The others were Juliana, John, Granville, and Sophia Margaretta.
