RARE WILLIAM PENN SIGNED LAND GRANT TO "FIRST PURCHASER" QUAKER CABINET MAKER IN THE EARLIEST YEARS OF THE PROVINCE OF PENNSYLVANIA 

Manuscript land indenture signed by William Penn (1644–1718), as Proprietor and Governor of Pennsylvania. Warminghurst [West Sussex, England]: 11 October 1685. 1 page, 9 1/4 x 14 1/2 inches. Retains Penn's affixed red wax seal, with docketing by an administrator in Philadelphia to the verso.

Pennsylvania land deed executed shortly after Penn’s first return to England from the New World. Writing from his estate at Warminghurst, Penn acknowledges a land transaction with John Tiby, then a London tradesman, reading in part: "I have bonded from John Tiby of London Joyner the sum of five pounds of lawful English money which said five pounds is the Consideration money for the purchase of two hundred fifty acres of Land in Pennsylvania... Of and from which said five pounds I the said William Penn Doo hereby for my selfe my Heirs and Assignes Remise Release and Quitt Claim the said John Tiby..."

Four years prior to this transaction, in 1681, King Charles II granted Penn a massive royal charter in North America to settle a staggering £16,000 debt owed to Penn’s father, Admiral Sir William Penn. Seizing the opportunity to establish a haven for his fellow persecuted Quakers, Penn founded his proprietary colony on the principles of religious tolerance, participatory democracy, and fair dealings with indigenous populations.

Having personally surveyed the wilderness of his new territory before his return to England, Penn recognized that the survival of his "Holy Experiment" hinged on physical infrastructure. Rather than courting aristocratic speculators, Penn aggressively marketed land to working-class British tradesmen, such as Tiby, a "joyner" (cabinetmaker), whose practical skills were required to saw timber, construct homes, and physically build the colony's capital from the ground up.

John Tiby (1644–1687), a fellow Quaker, was born in Bugbrooke, Northamptonshire. By 1660, he was apprenticed to a London cabinetmaker, William Boyfield, eventually taking on an apprentice of his own in 1671. While Tiby’s motivations for leaving London remain unknown, his desire for a fresh start is understandable, having survived both the Great Plague and the Great London Fire of 1666, alongside witnessing the tragic loss of several stillborn children. Tiby became a documented "First Purchaser," buying into the colony early on and immigrating on one of the very first fleets of dispatched ships. 

Tiby and his surviving family sailed to Pennsylvania aboard the Welcome in 1682, traveling alongside William Penn himself, who granted Tiby an initial 250 acres of land on August 12 of that year. Tiby's contributions to early colonial material culture are codified in William MacPherson Hornor Jr.’s landmark reference text, Blue Book: William Penn to George Washington (1935). Tiby passed away in September 1687, and his burial is recorded in the Bucks County, Pennsylvania Quaker meeting logs. As a First Purchaser, his land was classified as private real estate and passed directly to his beneficiaries named in his will, free of initial purchase debts. After his death, Tiby's "Working Tooles" were appraised at £5-19-0, and his "Red Ceder boars" and "10 pound of Glew" are a testament to Tiby's success as a thriving tradesman in Colonial America.

A significant Pennsylvania land grant. 

[Colonial America, Manuscripts, Signatures, William Penn, Ephemera, Quakers]