The names chosen for a development can be boring usually and other times they can be extremely interesting. Ever since moving to Big Elk we have wondered about the road names. Some are fairly obvious, but it is not till you do a little historical research that the others become meaningful.
For example our road Thomas Penn is quite obvious, son of William Penn who after his father died in 1718 travelled to Pennsylvania in 1732 to become the Proprietor of Pennsylvania. William, who had actually been in the Tower of London because of his Quaker views, had been given land in Pennsylvania in 1681 after a charter from Charles II.
His three sons inherited the land equally, and Thomas came to Pennsylvania in 1732 and negotiated with the Lenape Indians in 1737 to extend the land owned by the family by some 1.2 million acres, this land was added to the Province of Pennsylvania. It became evident later that Thomas had swindled the Indians who had been friendly towards his father when he was establishing the land initially. When his brother John died, he left his share to his brother Thomas who became the Chief Proprietor from 1745-1775 when he died. Thomas due to many of his actions of overturning legislation from the Pennsylvania General Assembly was not popular in the colony. Thomas married Lady Juliana Fermor in 1751 and had seven children.
Christiana Manor was probably named after Christiana Gulielma Penn born 1733 and lived till 1803.
Guglielma Springett was William Penn's first wife, and in fact in the history books her name is spelt Gulielma. Her father died just before she was born and her mother remarried Isaac Pennington. Gulielma met Willam Penn and went on to have several children.
- Gulielma Maria b. 23 January 1673, d. 17 May 1673
- William and Mary (twins) b. February 1674, d. May 1674 and December 1674
- Springett b. 25 January 1675, d. 10 April 1696
- Letitia b. 1 March 1678, d. 6 April 1746
- William b. 14 March 1681, d. 23 June 1720
- unnamed infant b. March 1683, d. April 1683
- Gulielma Maria b. November 1685, d. November 1689
Lady Letitia Penn married William Aubrey who loaned William Penn her father money on extremely unfavourable terms and there was a lot of bitterness as a result. In fact her gravestone in England is marked as Letitia Penn. She had accompanied her father and his second wife to America before getting married in England. She was also given land in Northampton County k own as the Barony of Nazareth and her rent was one red rose annually to be presented to her brothers on June 24th. In fact the Red Rose Inn was the principal inn in the barony till 1783 and the land was sold to the Moravians in 1741.
I believe the land bought by Ryan/NVR was the Hood Farm, hence the obvious use of that name for the entrance road into the Big Elf development.
Let me know if you know anything else about the people featured in our road names. History is always interesting.
And remember, if you are interested in buying a home in the development of Big Elk and want buyer representation, I can represent you as I live here and know the homes. Contact Nick Vandekar, Selling the Main Line and Chester County with Long & Foster Real Estate, office 610-225-7400, cell or text 610-203-4543, or email Nick@VandekarTeam.com.
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