Above Wilmington, the Delaware River is a noble tidal stream of about a mile wide, flowing between gently sloping shores, and carrying an extensive commerce. The great river soon brings us to the famous Quaker settlements of Pennsylvania. William Penn, who had become a member of the Society of Friends, was bequeathed by his father, Admiral Sir William Penn, an estate of £1500 a year and large claims against the British Government. Fenwick and Byllinge, both Quakers, who had proprietary rights in New Jersey, disputed in 1674, and submitted their difference to Penn's arbitration. He decided in favor of Byllinge, who subsequently became embarrassed, and made over his property to Penn and two creditors as trustees. This seems to have turned Penn's attention to America as a place of settlement for the persecuted Quakers, and he engaged with zeal in the work of colonization, and in 1681 obtained from the king, for himself and heirs, in payment of a debt of £16,000 due his father, a patent for the territory now forming Pennsylvania, on the fealty of the annual payment of two beaver skins. He wanted to call his territory New Wales, as many of the colonists came from there, and afterwards suggested Sylvania as specially applicable to a land covered with forests; but the king ordered the name Pennsylvania inserted in the grant, in honor, as he said, of his late friend the Admiral. In February, 1682, Penn, with eleven others, purchased West Jersey, already colonized to some extent. Tradition says that some of these West Jersey colonists sent Penn a sod in which was planted a green twig, to show that he owned the land and all that grew upon it. Next they presented him with a dish full of water, because he was master of the seas and rivers; and then they gave him the keys, to show he was in command and had all the power. [Illustration: _Penn's Letitia Street House, Removed to Fairmount Park_]