The story below was previously published in the Merion Friends Meeting April 2021 Newsletter. The article was written by Janet Frazer.
Lower Merion Township’s official history begins in 1682 after Penn established his colony and sold the land to the Welsh Quakers who founded Merion Friends Meeting. But the area was not empty when these travelers arrived! Quaker Thomas Evan’s son reported that when his father arrived in Merion that year he was thirsty and given a drink of water by an elderly Swede and his wife. Dr. Edward Jones later recalled that shortly after his family’s arrival, “the Indians brought venison to our door for six pence ye quarter .” Thomas Paschal, an immigrant from Bristol, England, who lived at Kingsessing (Southwest Philadelphia) wrote in 1683 that “Swedes provide food and housing for the newcomers but also essential services in negotiating with the native Indians”. So the Delaware Valley was not an unoccupied wilderness when the Quakers arrived.
