John Penn (January 28, 1700 – October 25, 1746) was an American-born merchant who was proprietor of the colonial Province of Pennsylvania, which became the U.S. state of Pennsylvania following American independence obtained in victory in the American Revolutionary War. John Penn was the eldest son of the colony's founder, William Penn (1644–1718) and his second wife, Hannah Callowhill Penn (1671–1726). He was born in the Slate Roof House in Philadelphia, and was the only one of Penn's children to be born in the present-day United States. As a result, he was referred to as "the American" by his family.

Early life

Penn was born in Philadelphia and raised by a cousin in Bristol, England, where he learned the trade of merchant, specializing in linen. As a result of his father's will and by his mother's appointment, he received half of the proprietorship of the Province of Pennsylvania.

Province of Pennsylvania

Border dispute with Maryland

On May 12, 1732, as proprietors of the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania, one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America, Penn and his brothers Thomas Penn and Richard Penn signed an order creating a commission of three or more individuals they appointed that were responsible for "running, marking, and laying out" of any boundary between the Province of Pennsylvania and the colonial Province of Maryland. This was in accordance with a signed agreement between the Penn brothers and Charles Calvert, 5th Baron Baltimore.

Walking Purchase

Penn returned to the Province of Pennsylvania in September 1734 and attended the meetings of the Pennsylvania Provincial Council, but went back to England in 1735, to support the colony's rights in its boundary dispute with Maryland. The ultimate resolution of this dispute was the surveying of the Mason–Dixon line. Penn, his brother Thomas, and their agents were responsible for the Walking Purchase in which over a million acres of in the colonial areas of present-day New Jersey, southern New York state, and the Lehigh Valley and Northeastern Pennsylvania regions of Pennsylvania were swindled from the Lenape Indian tribe.

Death

Penn never married and died in Hitcham, Buckinghamshire, England. He was interred at Jordans. His will left his rights to the Province of Pennsylvania and Delaware Colony to his brother Thomas Penn.

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