Springetsbury Manor
Wrightsville, York County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Established by warrant of June, 1772; resurveyed in 1768. Extending from the Susquehanna to about 18 mi. west, and about 3 mi. on each side of this highway, it was the largest reserved estate of the Penns in Pennsylvania.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the colonial era the Penn family, as proprietors of Pennsylvania, reserved for themselves vast private estates carved from the province they governed. Springetsbury Manor, stretching from the Susquehanna some eighteen miles westward and about three miles to each side of this road, was the largest such reserved holding of the Penns in the colony. These proprietary manors let the founding family profit as landlords over the very land they administered.
Why it matters
The manor embodies the proprietary system that governed colonial Pennsylvania, a form of quasi-feudal landholding whose tensions helped drive the push toward independence and republican land policy.
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