To this Colony, thus founded, the oppressed and persecuted of many lands came for refuge. The Quakers soon surpassed all others and were the dominant element to the time of the Revolutionary War. Some of the Quakers were of Welsh stock, a large colony settling in the "Welsh barony" in Montgomery and Delaware counties. The Mennonites came in great numbers in 1682-83 under their re markable leader, Pastorious, and settled in Germantown, which was long the leading German community in America and the home of many early industries in Pennsylvania. Other large colonies of Germans from the Palatine countries, and belonging to the Lutheran or Reformed churches, settled on fertile lands running from Easton, through Allentown, Reading and Lebanon to the Cumberland valley. The Moravians founded important centres at Nazareth and Bethlehem. Finally the Scotch-Irish, Presbyterian in religion, an active, restless pioneer element ar rived and took up the back country positions on the frontier. Because of their difference from the Quakers and Germans in temperament, and because of the peculiar frontier problems which they faced, they formed an element of opposition to the ruling element all through the 18th century. After 177o large colonies of Connecticut "Yankees" settled in the beautiful northern Wyom ing and Muncy valleys, which were claimed by Connecticut.
Pennsylvania was early involved in serious boundary disputes with Maryland, Virginia, Connecticut, New York and Delaware, the first three involving considerable bloodshed between the set tlers before they were decided. A decree of Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, in 1750, settled the Maryland-Delaware dispute and led to the survey, 1763-67, of the boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland by Mason and Dixon, a line which acquired con siderable importance later as separating the free and the slave States. In 1784 Virginia agreed to the extension of the line and to the establishment of the western boundary of Pennsylvania at a meridian drawn from a point on the Mason and Dixon line five degrees of longitude west of the Delaware river. The 42nd paral lel was finally selected as the northern boundary in 1789, the dispute with Connecticut over northern Pennsylvania having been decided in favour of the latter State by a court of arbitration of the Continental Congress in 1782. In 1792 the Federal Gov ernment sold to Pennsylvania the small triangular strip of terri tory north of the 42nd parallel and bordering on Lake Erie in order that the State might have a good port on the Great Lakes Upon William Penn's death in 1718 his widow became pro prietary, and after her death in 1733, the proprietorship fell to John, Thomas and Richard Penn. Except for differences between the governors appointed by the proprietors and the popular assembly over the matter of taxing the proprietors the assembly had little to contest for, and the degree of civil liberty attained in the province was very high. On the whole the Colony was
happy and prosperous, trade being good in Philadelphia and the Germans having established some of the most thrifty farming communities in the Colonies.
The French and Indian War broke rudely in upon this peaceful expansion. No longer was it possible to keep the numerous settlers from trespassing upon the Indian's lands or otherwise provoking him, nor were the Scotch-Irish of the frontier tem peramentally as pacific and con siderate as the Quakers and Ger mans had been. Furthermore, the heirs of William Penn were guilty of several sharp land deals which made the Pennsylvania tribes resentful. It was fertile soil for French propaganda. In 175o the French began building a line of forts in the Ohio valley to back up their claims to the territory, among them a fort at Presque Isle (on the present site of Erie), Ft. Le Boeuf (at Water ford in Erie county), and Ft. Venango (within the limits of the city of Franklin). Virginia, claiming western Pennsylvania at this time, sent George Washington to build a fort at the con fluence of the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, but his work men were driven away by the French who finished the fort and named it Ft. Duquesne. Washington met and defeated a force of French and Indians at Mountain Meadows, but was later be sieged in a hastily thrown up breastwork (Ft. Necessity) by a larger force and forced to surrender. The English upon being informed of the French movements sent an expedition under Gen. Braddock against Ft. Duquesne, but on July 9, 1755, when but a few miles from the fort, Braddock's column was set upon by the French and Indians and cut to pieces, only 459 out of 1,386 men escaping. During this year the frontiers of Pennsyl vania suffered greatly, scarcely a lone and exposed household escaping attack. Most of the settlers fled to a line of 17 forts which had been established under Franklin's direction in the mountain gaps. In 1758 a second expedition against Ft. Duquesne, under Gen. Forbes, was successful. The fort was rebuilt, and named Ft. Pitt after the English prime minister, and the log settlement was named Pittsburgh. With the fall of Montreal in I760 all Pennsylvania came definitely into English hands.
Indian wars were not past, however, for when Pontiac's rebel lion broke out in 1763 every fort on the frontier was besieged, and Presque Isle and Venango were easily taken by the Indians. The settlers again fled back over the mountains. Col. Henry Bouquet, after defeating the Indians in a desperate engagement at Bushy Run, reached Pittsburgh in time .to relieve the fort, and marched on into Ohio, where he inflicted heavy defeats upon the Indians.