Support Marquand Park



Prefer Check?

Marquand Park Foundation, P.O. Box 415

Lover's Lane, Princeton NJ 08542

Common Name

The Penn Treaty Elm

Inventory Numbers: 734


In the Penn Treaty park close to Benjamin Franklin Bridge in Philadelphia on land once owned by Indians of the Lenape Turtle Clan, William Penn signed a peace treaty with Chief Tamanend immortalized later in paintings by Benjamin West and Edward Hicks. The treaty would last almost a century until it was broken in the Penn’s Creek Massacre of1755. Voltaire called it “… the only treaty never sworn to and never broken”.The legendaryelm tree under which the treaty was conducted fell during a storm in 1810. Luckily, two local families took cuttings and seedlings from the tree andgave their offspring to University of Pennsylvania Hospital and Haverford College. A descendant of the Haverford Elm was recently planted at the site where the Penn Treaty took place more than 300 years ago. Our seedling is also a distant relative of the original Penn Treaty Elm.

Top