The New International Encyclopædia/Penn, John (1729-95)

PENN, John (1729-95). A proprietary Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania. He was born in London, and was a grandson of William Penn. After a course in the University of Geneva, he went to Pennsylvania, where, in 1753, he became a member of the council. He was a member of the Albany Congress of 1754, and in 1763 became Lieutenant-Governor of Pennsylvania, which office he held until 1771, and then, after a visit to England, from 1773 to 1775. When the Revolutionary War broke out, although he attempted to maintain a neutral attitude, his authority was soon superseded by that of a revolutionary government, and in 1777 he was imprisoned, but after a few months was released. He received one-fourth of the £130,000 voted by the Legislature in compensation for the confiscated proprietary rights, and the same share of a £4000 annuity later granted the proprietors by the English Government. Consult: the Pennsylvania Archives; and Sheperd, Proprietary Government in Pennsylvania, vol. vi. of the "Columbia University Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law."