Volume 8 Number 041 William Penn’s Holy Experiment - II Lead: Quaker William Penn used a long overdue debt to establish a refuge for religious toleration in North America. His holy experiment became the colony of Pennsylvania. Intro.: A Moment in Time with Dan Roberts. Content: Born in the heady days of puritan ascendancy in 1644, William Penn was the son of an ambitious parliamentary naval officer William Penn, Sr. His father’s victories and his secret correspondence with exiled royalists secured for the Admiral important posts after the restoration of King Charles II. Diarist Samuel Pepys, a neighbor of the Penns, recorded that the young man was a fun-loving, merry fellow but who possessed a principled stubborn streak that would later emerge when his interests turned to religion. About 1667 the previously dipsacaceous younger Penn, to the horror of his family, embraced Quakerism, the Society of Friends, that Protestant sect that advocated equality before God, pacificism, and religious toleration. In England’s class-conscious society, unusually severe persecution was reserved for the Quakers. Better-connected and educated than most of the Friends, Penn quickly rose to leadership as an outspoken advocate. He was imprisoned, forced to endure a decade of persecution and soon despaired of any serious reform in England. He began looking to the New World and there his Father’s friendship with the royal family rich dividends. The King owed the elder Penn a large debt. After his father’s death, the younger Penn exchanged the debt for an enormous land grant, the largest ever granted to an individual, on the western shore of the Delaware River. There he and his followers in 1682 established a refuge for all religions. The King called it– Penn’s Woods – Pennsylvania – in memory of his old friend the admiral. At the University of Richmond, this is Dan Roberts. Resources Bronner, Edwin B. William Penn’s Holy Experiment: The Founding of Pennsylvania, 1681-1701. New York: Temple University Publications (Columbia University Press), 1962. "Friends, Society of" Encyclopædia Britannica <http://search.eb.com/eb/article?query=quaker&eu= 117346&tocid=40154> Hudson, Patricia. Penning a Legacy. New York: Gale Group, 1999. Wildes, Harry Emerson. William Penn. 1974. Copyright by Dan Roberts Enterprises, Inc. .