In 1644, Jöran Kyn[1] was granted land between what are now Chester and Ridley Creeks for 1-1/2 miles inland. At its northwestern limit (present-day Crozer Theological Seminary) his tract was a half-mile across following a diagonal line that ran from the banks of Chester Creek eastward to Ridley Creek. Kyn named it Öland[2] after the island of the same name on the Baltic Coast of Sweden, from where many of the Swedes came. To the Lenape, the region was know as Me-co-pon-ack-a, to the Dutch it was Oplandt, and the English referred to it as Upland (which was later renamed Chester).

It was primarily a tobacco plantation of little significance at first. In 1645 no mention of it was made in a report by Andreas Hudde, a Dutch agent sent to document the number, condition, armament, and military force of the Swedes. By 1648, settlement had taken place since it received mention in a report "as an unfortified place, but some houses were built there." In 1675, the first member of the Society of Friends (also called Quakers) known to have resided within the boundaries of Delaware County purchased an estate at Upland. Robert Wade bought the tract of ground known as Printzdorp from Justina Armguard Pappegay (also spelled variously Pappegoya, Passygoya, and Passygay), the daughter of New Sweden's Governor John Printz. Here he erected the famous "Essex House"[3].

Yet nothing about its early beginnings foreshadowed how Upland County would become a British judicial center by 1676 or an economic hub by the time William Penn arrived in 1682.

The Boundries of Olde Upland County

The boundries of political subdivisions in the New World were specific in settled areas, but all-inclusive at their extremes. Upland County was no exception. The name Upland was attributed to all of the inland settled area from ... in what now almost appears to be prophesy ... "the river to where the sun set" (the wording used when Peter Minuit purchased New Sweden from the Lenni Lenape in 1638). It encompassed specifically the modern counties of Delaware, Chester, and Lancaster -- since these were primarily the settled areas at the time of William Penn's arrival in 1682. However, it can be argued to have included all of present-day southern Pennsylvania, since at the time of its incorporation out of olde Upland County (by then called Chester County), Lancaster County extended from the Schuykill River to the far western border of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania.

There is a detailed account of its southern border with New Castle County, Delaware (to avoid strife with neigboring settlements). A court held in Upland (now the city of Chester) in 1678 recorded the southern boundry as follows:

This county of upland to begin from ye north syde of oele fransens creeke, otherwise called steenkill lying in the boght above ye verdrietige hoeck, and from the said creek over to ye singletree point on the east syde of the river.

This description is difficult to understand today, but Edward Arnstrong made sense of it in his Record of Upland County. "Oele francens Creeke" (also known as Steen Kill or "Stoney Creek") is now known as Quarryville Creek which empties into the Delaware River approximately four miles below Naaman's Creek. "Verdrietige Hoeck" was a Dutch term -- "Verdrietige" means "grievous" or "tedious" (referring to difficulty in navigation) and "hoeck" was a corner, or hook of land. "Singletree Point" was a point of land on the New Jersey shoreline probably where a single tree rose above the swampy tidal flats -- today it is known as "Old Man's Point," one mile below the mouth of "Old Man's Creek" (today Oldman Creek). A vestage of this line remains where Gloucester and Salem Counties of New Jersey meet New Castle County, Delaware [see map].

Later, in 1693, the southern boundry was moved northward to the mouth of Naaman's Creek. For eight years this boundry stood, until a circular one was designated in 1701.

There is no Upland County today ... Where did it go?

William Penn made it go away. On March 4, 1681, Charles II of England signed the charter which conveyed to William Penn[4] an enormous tract of land now known as Pennsylvania. The crown owed a large debt of sixteen thousand pounds to the Penn estate in repayment for the military services of Sir William Penn, an Admiral in the Royal Navy and William Penn's father. But repayment of the debt was not the only reason that William Penn was awarded such a large grant of land. The truth is that the British government was more than happy to send Penn to the New World. He was a troublemaker, and the controversial Quaker[5] religion he followed was in direct oppositon to the Anglican Chruch, a crime punishable by imprisonment. Penn had been in out of prison number of times for preaching his heretical views[6]. It was small wonder that the British government and the Crown wanted Penn and the peace-loving Society of Friends to leave England as soon as possible.

In August of 1682, Penn was additionally deeded the three counties of present-day Delaware by the Duke of York, and one week later sailed for the New World aboard Welcome. He arrived in Upland in October, after a brief stop in New Castle to take posession of the recently-aquired three lower counties. In Smith's History of Delaware County, he states:

Without reflection, Penn determined that the name of the place should be changed. Turning round to his friend Pearson, one of his own society, who had accompanied him in the ship Welcome, he said, "Providence has brought us here safe. Thou hast been the companion of my perils. What wilt thou that I should call this place?" Pearson said, "Chester," in remembrance of the city from whence he came. William Penn replied that it should be called Chester, and that when he divided the land into counties one of them should be called by the same name. Thus for a mere whim the name of the oldest town, the name of the whole settled part of the province, the name that would have a place in the affections of a large majority of the inhabitants of the new province, was effaced to gratify the caprice or vanity of a friend.

While the story that Robert Pearson[7] asked William Penn to rename Upland County to Chester County is entertaining and compelling, it cannot be substantiated. Three weeks after his arrival, Penn issued a statement to hold elections for General Assembly that would convene at Upland. A letter requesting several gentlemen to meet him is dated "Upland, October 29, 1682." Penn undoubtedly changed the name of Upland to Chester, but probably not in such an overly dramatic fashion. By December of 1682 he had written, "That an Assembly was held at Chester, alias Upland." Most likely he changed the name because of the English settlers who had overrun the village previously occupied by the Swedes[8].

Footnotes

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¹Jöran Kyn (or Keen) had a peculiar complexion known as "snohuitt" or "snow white." If so, he may have been an albino. He was one of the earliest European residents upon the Delaware River within the boundaries of the present State of Pennsylvania, and for more than a quarter of a century was the chief proprietor of lands at Upland. Kyn was born in Sweden about 1620, and came to America with Governor Printz aboard the ship Fama. At first he lived at Tinicum as a soldier and personal body-guard to Printz. His duty was to attend daily upon the Governor and travelled with the dignitary wherever he went. For his service, Kyn received the grant of a royal tract of ground in 1644 and it is believed that when Printz left the colony in 1653 to return to Sweden, Kyn resigned his military position and gave his undivided attention to agriculture.

²Öland is a small island off the coast of Southeastern Sweden in the Baltic Sea. It contains ancient ruins, medeival fortifications, and over 400 windmills. The biggest Iron-Age ring fort on the island -- Gråborg with a diameter of 200m (656ft) -- is located in the south of the island. Nearby, Eketorp has been partly reconstructed as a museum to show what a fortified medieval village must have looked like. Equally impressive to the north are the ruins of Borgholm Castle, which was eventually burned and abandoned early in the 18th century. Also prominent are the lighthouses at the northern and southern tips of the island. Öland is reached from Kalmar via a 6000m (19,680ft) bridge, the longest in Europe, and is a popular place to celebrate Midsummer.

³The Essex House stood at the present-day northwest corner of Second and Penn Streets, Chester. It was one and a half stories high with its southeast corner facing the river. The rear, or southwest side, faced Concord Avenue, and its front extended the entire length of the building to Chester Creek. Almost one hundred and ten feet to the southeast stood the trees under which Penn landed, seven years after Wade became the owner of the estate.

⁴William Penn was born in 1644. He was both pious and athletic, as well as exhibiting a propensity for controversy and the courage to speak his mind. He was expelled from Oxford for nonconformity, and in 1667 became a Quaker. The next year he was committed to the Tower for an attack on the orthodoxy of the day. During his imprisonment he wrote an essay on self-sacrifice called No Cross, No Crown. After his release he continued to be imprisoned for his ideas, and turned to America as a possible refuge for the persecuted Friends. In 1682 he travelled to the New World and created a colony of religious toleration that he called his "Holy Experiment." After two years, he returned to England and during the Revolution of 1688 was labelled a Jacobite. He eventually obtained the blessings of William III, and resumed his preaching and writing. In 1699 he returned to his colony, but two years later left for England to oppose a proposal that would convert his province to a crown colony. Queen Anne received him favorably and he remained in England until his death in 1718.

⁵The Quaker sect, or Society of Friends, was founded in 1647 by an English preacher named George Fox who believed that the religious services of his time were too rigid and structured and that all individuals carried within them the Inner Light of Christ. The Society of Friends didn't have clergy or churches. Instead, they held meetings where participants meditated silently and spoke up when the Spirit moved them. They favored plain dress and a simple life rather than aristocratic ways. The Society of Friends emphasized a direct relationship with God in which an individual's conscience, not the Bible, was the ultimate authority. When it came to moral decisions such as war, Friends were answerable to a higher authority than that of the state. This road was not always an easy one to follow and their refusal to participate in military actions brought them fines, imprisonment, and persecution. The Society of Friends were known derisively as Quakers. They were probably first called Quakers by a seventeenth-century judge who wanted to insult them. Detractors of the Religious Society of Friends used this term to mock the way that some members would become so overwhelmed during a service that they would shake. The Society of Friends, however, accepted the name.

⁶During one instance, Penn and a friend had gone to a Quaker Meetinghouse in London, only to find it locked. They began preaching in the streets and were promptly arrested and thrown in prison. During his trial, the judge ordered the jury to render a verdict of guilty (a common practice of the day in British jurisprudence), but Penn spoke so effectively about their rights that the jury aquitted him of all charges. They were soon imprisoned for defying the court, an action that led to a famous trial in which the rights of jurors under British law were re-affirmed.

⁷There remain many questions regarding Robert Pearson. In meeting records for the Society of Friends, in which detailed notes were always meticulously recorded, the name Robert Pearson never appears even though he is supposed to be a member of high standing. The first Pearsons of record in the colony were named Thomas Pearson, both of whom didn't arrive until 1683.

⁸Four years after Penn landed, in a report dated 1704, there appears the following sentence: "The county is so called because most of the inhabitants come from Cheshire, England. Chester, the chief town of the county, is finely situated on the river Delaware."