Walking Purchase
Springfield Township, Bucks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Measured 1737, according to a supposed Indian deed of 1686, granting lands extending a day-and-a-half walk. Using picked men to force this measure to its limit, Thomas Penn reversed his father's Indian policy losing Indian friendship.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In 1737 Pennsylvania's proprietors invoked a supposed 1686 deed promising land as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. Thomas Penn hired the fastest walkers he could find and had a trail cleared in advance to stretch the distance to its absolute limit. The maneuver seized far more Lenape land than expected and shattered the goodwill his father, William Penn, had cultivated with Native peoples.
Why it matters
The Walking Purchase became a byword for how legalistic trickery dispossessed Native nations, marking a turning point in relations between Pennsylvania and the Lenape.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Thomas Penn
- · William Penn
Related events
- · Walking Purchase of 1737
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gallows Hill - PLAQUE
Springfield Township, PA · est. 1925
This spot marks a stage of the notorious "Walking Purchase" of 1737, when Pennsylvania's proprietors held the Lenape to a land deal measured by how far a man could walk in a day and a half. Rather than an honest stroll, Edward Marshall and his companions were trained runners who followed cleared paths at a punishing pace, seizing far more territory than the Delaware had expected to give. From the Old Durham Road they pressed northwest through the country that became Bethlehem and the Lehigh Gap.
Gemein Haus - PLAQUE
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1931
Raised in 1741 as Bethlehem's first house of worship, the Gemein Haus stood at the heart of the Moravians' remarkable communal experiment in colonial Pennsylvania. Its rooms sheltered a roll call of Moravian leaders — including the reforming Count Zinzendorf — and hosted the community's celebrated 1749 "Great Wedding." Most strikingly, it housed a school devoted to studying and teaching Indigenous languages, part of the Moravians' unusual missionary engagement with Native peoples of the region.
Moravian Cemetery
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1953
Consecrated by Count von Zinzendorf, this burial ground served Moravian Bethlehem from 1742 to 1910. In keeping with the community's belief that all are equal in death, only flat gravestones were permitted, laid in orderly rows without grand monuments. Here rest people of many nationalities and races — European settlers alongside Native American and African converts — a quiet testament to the Moravians' unusually inclusive spiritual vision.
Heckewelder House
Bethlehem, PA · est. 1953
This 1810 house recalls John Heckewelder, the Moravian missionary who spent decades among Native peoples on the frontier as a preacher, interpreter, and keen observer of their lives. His written works on American Indian languages and customs became important early sources, drawn on by scholars and even by novelists shaping the nation's image of the frontier. In an age of mounting conflict and displacement, Heckewelder tried to bridge two worlds through faith and the written word.