West Jersey’s Quaker proprietors included William Penn (1644–1718), who developed a grand ambition to procure his own, larger colony. To cancel a debt of £16,000 owed to Penn’s late father, Admiral William Penn, the king agreed in 1680 to grant the younger Penn 45,000 square miles west of the Delaware River as the colony of Pennsylvania (“Penn’s Woods”). In 1682 the Duke of York also assigned to Penn the old Swedish-Finnish-Dutch settlements on the lower Delaware River (the future colony and state of Delaware).
