Sold – William Penn Grants Land

Pennsylvania, the colony he founded, was the first open to all, regardless of religion. As such, Penn set an important precedent followed by the U.S. Constitution. Coming from a Welsh background, Griffith Jones was a Quaker from Surrey, England who belonged to Horsley Down Monthly Meeting and the Meeting for Sufferings, a type of legal defense organization to assist persecuted Quakers. He himself had been imprisoned in 1677 with a group of Quakers who would not pay for rebuilding the local Anglican church. Jones bought 5,000 acres of land in the First Purchase and sent 15,000 bricks to Philadelphia to build a house.

Later, he represented Kent County (now in Delaware) in the Provincial Council.

Document Signed, on vellum, April 13, 1684, granting to Griffith Jones 300 acres of land in Philadelphia, bounded by Second Street, Front Street, Walnut Street, and by land owned by Robert Greenaway which was located just to the north. Jones is required to improve the lands and to pay three English shillings per hundred acres every March 1 to Penn or his heirs.

This is the location in Philadelphia’s Old City where for many years the Bookbinder’s restaurant was located. The document has a bold signature of Penn on the bottom flap to the left of the pendant paper and wax seal, which is in a remarkable state of preservation. Most of the grants Penn made were signed while he was still in England, so those signed in Pennsylvania are much less common. Moreover, only a small percentage of them were for grants in Philadelphia; most were in outlying counties. This one is of particular interest because the grantee was a prominent citizen, one who had suffered for his Quaker beliefs in the Old Country.