Captain George W. Ryan of the Independent Guards of Fredericksburg issued this discharge certificate to his brother-in-law Simon Stroh, who had served as a corporal and drummer for seven successive years from May 2, 1842, to May 7, 1849. With this certificate, Stroh was discharged from compulsory militia duty, “except in time of an Invasion, Insurrection, or Actual War,” according to the Pennsylvania militia law of 1818.

William Penn deeds 2,500 acres of land in Pennsylvania to English yeoman Thomas Herriot in September 1681 for £50. A year later, Herriot accompanied Penn on the Welcome, bound for Pennsylvania but died on the voyage.

This issue of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette includes communications between Lieutenant Governor Robert Hunter Morris and the Pennsylvania General Assembly regarding the proper mode of funding military forces to resist the French threat on the western border of the colony. Conflict between French and English forces there erupted into the French and Indian War, and globally into the Seven Years’ War.

It also includes details of a lecture by Ebenezer Kinnersley, a partner of Benjamin Franklin in experiments on electricity, and a brief notice of George Whitefield’s sermons in Philadelphia.

This issue of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette includes communications between Lieutenant Governor Robert Hunter Morris and the Pennsylvania General Assembly regarding responses to the French threat on the western border of the colony. Conflict between French and English forces there erupted into the French and Indian War, and globally into the Seven Years’ War.

It also includes details of a lecture by Ebenezer Kinnersley, a partner of Benjamin Franklin in experiments on electricity, and a brief notice of George Whitefield’s sermons in New York City.

This issue of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette reports addresses by two students at the Academy of Philadelphia, including seventeen-year-old Francis Hopkinson, who went on to write music and poetry, sign the Declaration of Independence, and design the American flag. Founded in 1751, the Academy provided classical education and instruction in practical skills. Most of the trustees had received a classical education and favored a similar curriculum for the academy, but trustee Benjamin Franklin favored an education that stressed practical skills. He advocated teaching all classes in English and emphasizing mathematics and science.

This issue of Franklin’s Pennsylvania Gazette reports the speech of Deputy Governor Morris of Pennsylvania to the General Assembly, urging them to prevent the French and their Native American allies from gaining control of the colony’s western border. The General Assembly responded that they were eager to assist but lacked any “Instructions from the Crown how to conduct ourselves on this important Occasion” and requested a recess until called together again.

A bound volume containing a remarkable issue—one of the most historic magazines ever printed.

“July 2.  This day the Hon. Continental Congress declared the UNITED COLONIES FREE AND INDEPENDENT STATES.”

Edward Hand apprises a Pennsylvania political ally of recent developments at the state convention for framing a new constitution. “Some time ago I forwarded you the plan of the Legislative Branch, & now send those for the Executive & Judicial, as agreed on by the Committee of the whole.”

The Maryland ratifying convention suggests some amendments along with their approval of the Constitution.

Financier of the Revolution forced into bankruptcy court: “Sixty days after date, I promise to pay unto Mr. Mathias Kurlin Junr or Order Thirteen Hundred & forty six Dolls & Sixty Seven Cents for value recd.”

Paine, as Clerk of Pennsylvania’s General Assembly, transmits a resolution to the state’s Supreme Executive Council [no longer enclosed- but about the boundary with Virginia] and requests that it be forwarded to the governor of that state. After years of wrangling, the two states had finally agreed that summer to settle their dispute by extending the Mason-Dixon line. 

Paine was involved in Pennsylvania politics for several years after his arrival in America in 1774 - he was associated with the men who drafted the state's new constitution in 1776, and Paine wrote a series of letters in local newspapers supporting the constitution.  In 1777 Paine was elected to the Committee of Correspondence of the Whig Society in Pennsylvania.  Needing other employment in order to supplement his income as a writer, he was appointed clerk of the Pennsylvania Assembly in November, 1779, shortly after resigning his position as secretary of foreign affairs for the Continental Congress. Any manuscript material from Thomas Paine, especially during the era of the American Revolution, is rare.

Pennsylvania founder William Penn supported James II during the Glorious Revolution, James’s attempt to regain the English throne. When William and Mary ascended the throne, Penn was suspected of treason.

The “greatest of early American maps … a masterpiece” (Corcoran).

“This monumental work is without question the finest printed cartographic document relating to North America to be published to date.” (Burden). No other English American colony was mapped in the seventeenth century on such a large scale, and in such amazing detail.

“As the loadstone attracts Iron, so ought acknowledgem^ts to pursue faviours … [I] dare not presume any further having soe lately recd soe great a marke of your bounty….”

Deputy Governor Anthony Brockholls of New York extends a cordial note to Governor William Penn in the midst of continuing deliberations between Penn and Lord Baltimore over the southern boundary of Pennsylvania and possession of Delaware.

“The Land of William Penn, and his ‘Great Town,’ the City of brotherly Love.”

In these brief remarks at Masonic Hall in Philadelphia in October 1825, President Adams proposed the above toast at the second annual meeting of the Penn Society and the 143rd anniversary of William Penn’s landing in America.