William Penn Day

Celebrate the landing of William Penn in America! Attendees will get to hear about the Treaty William Penn made with the Leni Lenape from the Penn Treaty Museum at 12 PM and hear music of the time preformed by Delaware Music School’s Suzuki Academy at 3 PM. 

Rethinking the Treaty of Friendship

William Penn’s meeting with Lenni Lenape tribal leaders in 1682 at Shackamaxon was, according to Voltaire, the “only treaty never sworn to and never broken.” No written treaty survives, yet early references abound and Lenape oral history supports the evidence. Speaker Penny Dwyer will explain how a fascination with the story of the Treaty of Friendship evolved over centuries and manifested in relics, works of art and commercialism.

Penny Dwyer is Curator at the Penn Treaty Museum, Philadelphia.