Yeah, I know — William Penn’s a Pennsylvania guy. But this one’s our story too. In 1701, he met with the Lenape one final time. A Lenape leader struck his chest three times — a covenant “made in their hearts.” For the Lenape it meant completeness; for Penn, perhaps the Trinity. A moment of shared peace between New Jersey’s Original People and a Quaker dreamer on the Delaware.
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Sources:
William Penn in Pennsylvania (1699–1701): The Papers of William Penn, Vol. 4: 1701–1718 (Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, 1987).
Quaker Observer Quote: summarized from Albert Cook Myers, William Penn’s Own Account of the Lenni Lenape or Delaware Indians (1937).
Lenape diplomatic gestures: described in Jean R. Soderlund, Lenape Country: Delaware Valley Society Before William Penn (2015); and Evan Haefeli, “The Great Haudenosaunee-Lenape Peace of 1669” (New York History, 2023).
James Logan Correspondence: Letters and Papers of James Logan, 1700-1751, Pennsylvania Archives, Series II.
Iroquois peace-message reference: paraphrased from Documents Relative to the Colonial History of New York, vol. 5 (1855).
