Hi! Welcome to the PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY PAGE.
On this page, and the following pages, I am going to attempt to give everyone a little bit of PENNSYLVANIA HISTORY.
PENNSYLVANIA became a state on December 12, 1787. The state nickname is the KEYSTONE STATE, or the QUAKER STATE. The state flower is the Mountain Laurel. The state bird is the Ruffed Grouse. The state tree is the Hemlock. The state motto is: Virtue, Liberty and Independence. The state capital is Harrisburg.
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By 1682 the First Purchase of land had occurred. Then between 1684 and 1701 Nine Deeds had been acquired. In 1718, 1720, 1726 land was purchased from the Susquehanna and Delaware Indians. In 1736, more land was purchased from the Five Indian Nations. In 1737, what was called a WALKING PURCHASE was acquired. This was also from Indian lands. Then in 1749 land was acquired from the Nine Indian Nations. In 1754 and 1758 more land was acquired from the Treaty of Albany. The year 1768 saw another large tract of land acquired. This tract stretched from the upper right corner of the state down to the lower left corner. In 1784 and 1785 what was called the LAST PURCHASE was acquired. This took in the central northern counties and the northwest corner of the state. It was at this time, on December 12, 1787, that PENNSYLVANIA became a state. However, the last purchase of land to form the state was in 1789 and 1792 when Presque Isle (the part now known as ERIE) was acquired.
By 1728, PENNSYLVANIA had already formed 3 counties. They were BUCKS, PHILADELPHIA and CHESTER.
From these 3 counties come the rest of the 67 counties that make up our state.
Now for those of you doing research in NORTHEASTERN PENNSYLVANIA I will show you in the following maps how the NORTHEAST evolved.
As you can see from these 3 maps we evolved out of BUCKS COUNTY. From BUCKS was formed the county of NORTHAMPTON. Out of NORTHAMPTON came NORTHUMBERLAND. Out of NORTHUMBERLAND came our parent county of LUZERNE. (LUZERNE was made up of what is now the 5 counties of BRADFORD, LACKAWANNA, LUZERNE, SUSQUEHANNA, and WYOMING.)
I hope this brief history helps researchers as they look for ancestors in this beautiful state of PENNSYLVANIA.
I will be listing on these next few pages the 67 COUNTIES of Pennsylvania, the dates they were created, the Counties from which they were formed, and the County Seats. Under their respective Counties, I will also be listing the TOWNSHIPS, the dates they were formed, and from which townships or counties they were formed. Again, I am hoping that this information will help researchers who are looking for PENNSYLVANIA ancestors.
Here is a list of the 67 COUNTIES of PENNSYLVANIA. Each one is a link. If you click on a County name it will take you to the COUNTY with a list of its TOWNSHIPS.
At this time I would like to extend my deepest thanks to my dearest Friend and "Little Brother", Dale C. Shelhamer, for all of his help and encouragement. I would also like to thank him for the pic that has been used as the background of this page, the
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PENNSYLVANIA COUNTIES and TOWNSHIPS 2
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