Shackamaxon

Shackamaxon was a Lenape town on the Delaware River, on the land where Philadelphia later grew. A great elm beside the river became associated with a meeting between William Penn and Lenape leaders. The story of their agreement came to hold a special place in the memory of Pennsylvania's founding, with the tree standing as its enduring symbol.

According to tradition, Penn met the Lenape at Shackamaxon soon after his arrival in 1682 and pledged friendship beneath the elm. Later artists, most famously Benjamin West, pictured the gathering as a treaty of peace. Philadelphia expanded around the old town, and the elm itself fell in a storm in 1810. A monument was erected near its site in 1827 to commemorate the remembered meeting.