THE FOUNDING OF PHILADELPHIA The woodlands were alive with color when William Penn arrived for the first time, in 1682. It was late October, still the best time of the year in the Northeast. But he wasn’t there to admire the countryside. He had already given it a name, of course. It was the same name as that of one of the early Christian cities in Asia Minor which, when translated, means “City of Brotherly Love”. (1) ______ Penn borrowed the name from them because it suited perfectly the ideal community he had in mind. The spot he picked, on the banks of the Delaware River, had a small harbor and a beach. (2) ______ What he wanted, he said, was a “green country town”. In his travels he had seen the great cities of Europe and hadn’t always liked what he saw. (3) ______ His new city would have a plan for growth and that, he was convinced, would make it one of the great cities of the world. For openers, he ordered that Philadelphia would have no crooked streets. (4) ______ He told his surveyors that he also wanted the roads to lead out of the city, so that it would be convenient to reach other cities yet unbuilt. (5) ______ He specified that no houses could be built within 200 paces of the harbor so there would be plenty of room for a future commercial center, and he asked that home builders center their structures on building lots “…so there may be ground on each side for gardens, orchards or field, that it may be a green country town which will never be burnt and will always be wholesome.”
Harris: Pennsylvania