HARRISBURG — Thirteen years ago, after covering Tom Corbett’s inauguration as the commonwealth’s 46th governor, I stopped then-State Archivist David Haury as he was gingerly walking away from the ceremony carrying with him an extraordinary relic: William Penn’s 1698 family Bible which Corbett had just used for his swearing-in ceremony.
Flanked by security, Haury was wearing gloves to protect the rare artifact he said was on loan for the day from the Pennsylvania Historical Society. And he let me have a moment to consider the extraordinary history in front of me.
Chris Sulpizio, who was watching with curiosity nearby, asked me whose bible it was. When I said Penn, the suburban Philadelphian said, “Isn’t he the Quaker Oats guy?”
Sulpizio was kind of right, although through the years, Quaker Oats has denied the imagery on its iconic cylinder packaging was Penn, advertising from 1909 suggests the opposite.
His other association with Penn was a sports-related superstition called “The curse of Billie Penn,” which according to Philly lore began after the 1987 construction of the Comcast Center exceeded the height of Penn’s statue atop City Hall, a slight to Penn that allegedly caused Philly sports teams not to win championships.
In 2007, the ironworkers set out to undo that curse when they placed a tiny statue of Penn on the top beam of the Comcast Center. One year later, the Phillies won the World Series.
Penn was much more than an image on a cereal box or the harbourer of vengeance on three sports teams. He was a statesman, the founder of the state in which 13 million people live, and a Quaker who found his way to that religion because of his profound belief in religious freedom.
Nor was he perfect. As I wrote in 2011, Penn was born into moderate wealth, a bit of a disappointment to his father for refusing to follow him into the British admiralty. He deplored religious oppression of Quakers and other non-Anglicans so much that despite the pressure from his family he became a Quaker.
Pennsylvania was designed by him to be a sanctuary for persecuted Catholics, Protestants, Quakers, and Jews. His land purchases among native Indian tribes were negotiated, and he was adamant that women were equal to men. His flaw was his ownership of slaves, and according to Penn’s personal documents, he owned 12, some of whom he freed, some of whom he did not, before his death.
As with many of the men and women who came before us, despite all of the good he oversaw, Penn was a flawed man his ownership of slaves underscores an otherwise unblemished life.
In October of 1983, Ruth Seltzer of the Philadelphia Inquirer wrote of William Penn’s statue unveiling at America’s newest national park.
“Welcome Park, which is located on Second Street between Walnut and Chestnut Street was the site of the Slate Roof House where William Penn lived in 1700 and 1701. … At yesterday’s event, the little William Penn statue was a quiet reminder of Philadelphia’s founder,” she said.
Mayor William Joseph Green, a Philly Democrat, said at the time, “William Penn left us a magnificent heritage. I hope people from here and all over the world will recognize what a significant contribution he made to all mankind.”
In the name of inclusion, at least here, Penn will not be remembered in the spirit of which Green spoke. On Saturday, the National Park Service noted that Penn will no longer be at the Welcome Center here on Second Street. He is being removed in the name of inclusivity.
In its release, the National Park Service said it was looking for public input on plans to remove of the Penn statue and the Slate Roof House from Welcome Park, which was named after the ship Welcome that brought him to Philadelphia 300 years ago.
Park officials noted they want to remake the park to be more inclusive to visitors.
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As one can imagine, the responses to the National Park Service were not what they probably expected. They ranged from a cheeky, “This will eliminate the racial divide for sure,” to the disappointed, “Your behavior is shameful,” to the simple and most common response of “Don’t.”
The National Park Service is taking public input for what it should do on its website. It is not, however, taking public input for keeping Penn there. That appears to be a done deal, and he will be removed. It will be interesting to see if the other Penn statue will meet the same fate as this bronze one, you know, the one on top of city hall that caused the Philly teams to have a decadeslong losing streak.