Test your colonial lingo IQ and discover the surprising stories behind the goods in Penn’s 1685 land deal.
Indigenous Peoples’ Day was August 9th, and what better time to revisit an interesting page from our local past: William Penn’s 1685 treaty with 13 Lenape chiefs for land. We found a reproduction in the archives of the Falls of Schuylkill Baptist Church one day, and were fascinated by the litany of line-items sealing a deal that seems to have included the area now known as East Falls.
Did Penn really “buy” all the property he claimed? Maybe. Depends on how seriously you take a real estate deal involving guns, glass bottles, pairs of stockings, and a barrel of beer. Of course, the whole concept of owning land was pretty stupid to many Native peoples, who understood the earth as something shared and sacred. So while Penn may have thought he was closing a deal, it’s more accurate to say he was opening a long, painful chapter in American history.
While Penn’s treaty is often romanticized, it also sits at the crossroads of cultural misunderstanding, shifting power, and loss. The goods exchanged — from the practical to the peculiar — tell their own story about daily life, trade priorities, and the values of two very different worlds whose legacies we’re still reckoning with today.
The weight of that cultural baggage is real, and the details are quite revealing. Each one is a little window back in time, to the start of colonial commerce, when even the simplest items bore great worth and meaning.
❓How many of these items can you identify? No prizes, no pressure — just a little trivia to sharpen your wits and maybe stir some reflection on the tangled history beneath our feet. This quiz has been adapted and expanded from an earlier post on EastFallsHouse.com.
❓SAY WHAT? A Colonial Trade Goods Quiz📜🪶
1. To measure a colonial “fathom” you would:
a. stretch out your arms
b. stand on tiptoes
c. stack items waist high
d. group by six
A fathom was literally the span of a man’s outstretched arms — about six feet — and comes from the Old English “fæðm” (embracing arms) and Old Frisian “fadem.” The term originated as a nautical term for measuring water depth, and by Penn’s day was used to measure rope, cloth, beads, etc. in trade with Native peoples. In a treaty like this, “three fathoms of duffel cloth” wasn’t some abstract unit — it was a practical length you could measure against your own body, a reminder that deals like this were conducted on a very human scale, even as they reshaped whole landscapes. ✅A
2. “Stroudwater” is a type of cloth used for:
a. furniture upholstery
b. waterproofing
c. military garments
d. bedding and pillow batting
Stroudwater cloth came from Stroud, an English textile hub famous for its fine woolens and the rivers that powered its mills. The most famous export? “Stroudwater Scarlet” — the striking red fabric used in British military uniforms, including the Redcoats of the colonial era. In the context of Penn’s Treaty, bolts of Stroudwater cloth were more than just yardage — they were valuable trade goods in the 17th century Atlantic world, prized by both Europeans and Native peoples. Brightly-dyed wool fabric could be cut into garments, used as blankets, or repurposed for ceremonial wear. Its inclusion on the treaty list hints at how deeply European textiles were woven into Indigenous trade networks long before Penn arrived. ✅ C
3. If you’ve got a “skipple” of salt, how much do you have?
a. 1 cup
b. 2 quarts
c. 6 gallons
d. 100 Imperial pints
A “skipple” was the colonial Anglicization of the Dutch schepel, a unit of dry measure equal to three pecks — and with two gallons to a peck, that’s six gallons total. In Penn’s day, salt was more than a seasoning; it was essential for preserving meat, fish, and even some vegetables before refrigeration. A skipple of salt could mean the difference between surviving the winter and going hungry, especially in an era when trade routes could be disrupted by weather, politics, or war. That’s why it made the treaty list, as both a practical necessity and a valuable trade commodity for Indigenous communities, who already used natural salt licks and brine springs but found European salt useful for new preservation methods introduced through colonial contact. ✅ C
4. Matchcoats are fur-skinned or woolen mantles worn by Native American:
a. chiefs
b. mothers
c. warriors
d. all of the above
Matchcoats were versatile garments — often made from animal hides or, after European contact, from wool trade cloth — worn by men, women, and leaders alike. The naturalist Peter Kalm, who traveled extensively through colonial America in the mid-1700s, described seeing them draped over shoulders, wrapped around the waist in warm weather, or pulled over the head in the cold. Many had blue or red stripes along the edges, a style that blended Indigenous clothing traditions with European textile goods like duffel and Stroudwater cloth.
By the time of Penn’s Treaty, European-made matchcoats had become common trade items. They offered warmth, status, and adaptability — but they also symbolized how imported goods were increasingly woven into daily life, reflecting both practical needs and the deepening entanglement of Native economies with colonial trade networks. ✅ D
5. A gimblet is a smaller version of which hand tool?
a. saw
b. vise
c. auger
d. mallet
A gimblet (or gimlet) is a small hand tool for drilling neat little holes in wood (also clay, bone, shell, etc.) without splitting it — think of it as the auger’s compact cousin. While the auger’s larger screw bit could bore deep holes for fence posts or beams, the gimblet’s fine point was perfect for smaller, more delicate jobs: fixing hinges, making pilot holes for pegs, or assembling wooden containers.
In the Penn Treaty list, gimblets might seem like an odd trade item until you consider that durable tools were highly valued by both Europeans and Indigenous communities. For Native artisans, metal tools like gimblets offered new possibilities for working wood — from canoe building to fashioning household objects — alongside traditional techniques. Including such tools in trade deals wasn’t just about utility; it was a way of introducing European technology into Native economies, for better and worse, reshaping material culture over time. ✅ C
6. A “Jew’s harp” is a folk instrument so named because:
a. the shape resembles Hebrew lettering
b. it was used in medieval Jewish canticles
c. Jewish merchants likely imported them from Asia
d. none of the above
Despite the name, the “Jew’s harp” (also called a jaw harp or mouth harp) has no proven connection to Jewish culture. Its origins trace back thousands of years to parts of Asia and Oceania, and it was introduced to Europe well before colonization of the Americas. The exact reason for its English name remains uncertain — some linguists suggest it may have been a corruption of “jaw harp” or “jeu-trompe” (French for “toy trumpet”), rather than a literal ethnic reference.
Small, portable, and easy to make, the jaw harp produces a distinctive twanging sound when held to the mouth and plucked. By Penn’s time, it had become a common trade item, valued for its novelty and entertainment. Archaeological finds show these instruments were actively used by Indigenous communities from Maine to Florida in the 17th and 18th centuries — a reminder that musical exchange was also part of the cultural blending and adaptation that accompanied trade. While it may seem like an odd inclusion in a land deal, such items added variety and amusement to everyday life, bridging cultures through shared experiences of music. ✅ D
7. Estimated distance “as far as a man can ride in two days with a horse”:
a. 70 miles
b. 20 miles
c. 150 miles
d. 10 miles
William Penn and his agents made at least seventeen land purchases from Native communities along the lower Delaware River. Some included “walking clauses,” vague distance descriptions that could be interpreted in ways favorable to the buyer. In one 1685 deed, the land was described as extending “as far as a man can ride in two days with a horse.” (Sure, women could ride too — but apparently no one in the 17th-century legal world was measuring their mileage.)
Three years later, this was formally surveyed as a line from Philadelphia to the Susquehanna River — about 70 miles. Such clauses might sound quaint today, but they carried real consequences. By turning a casual phrase into a fixed measurement, Penn could secure far more land than Native signatories may have envisioned. It’s a tidy example of how imprecise wording in a treaty could quietly work in the colonists’ favor. ✅ A
8. Red lead was used in the production of:
a. barrel hoops & rivets
b. ornamental paint
c. bullets & ammo
d. eye glass lenses
Red lead — a bright orange-red pigment made from oxidized lead — was a favorite base coat for colonial painters. Mixed with linseed oil, it created a durable ground layer that helped decorative paints stick and keep their color for decades. A recent exhibition of Southeastern Pennsylvania furniture from 1725–1850 showcased a Berks County kitchen cupboard whose vivid red-and-vermilion finish turned out to be entirely original, thanks to a red lead ground that refused to fade.
In Penn’s time, red lead wasn’t just for pretty cupboards. It was also used on ship hulls, iron fittings, and even roofing tiles to resist rot and corrosion — function and flair in one toxic little package. Its inclusion in treaty trade goods hints at the high value placed on pigments and paints, both for practical use and for decorative or ceremonial purposes. And yes, they knew it was poisonous… but safety standards weren’t exactly a thing in the 17th century. ✅ B
9. “Wampum” is a type of Native American currency made up of strings of polished:
a. animal teeth
b. shells
c. semi-precious stones
d. wooden discs
The word wampum comes from the Narragansett “wampumpeag“ which originally referred to a string of white beads made from the shells of local clams, which were prized as a source of food and spiritual connection to the land and sea. For millennia, Indigenous peoples along the East Coast crafted clam shells into eating utensils, scrapers, trowels, and even tweezers.
They also used shells to make beads and other forms of art for diplomacy, storytelling, and ceremonial exchange. After European contact, “wampum” became a convenient medium for barter, though settlers mistook the word as a catch-all for any beads used as currency. Traditionally, wampum came in two colors: white from the whelk clam shell and purple-black from the quahog clam’s growth rings.
In the 1600s, a fathom of wampum was worth about ten shillings — double that for purple, which was harder to make and more prized. The work was painstaking: the shells were so hard and brittle that they could not be shaped with machinery alone, requiring real skill, patience, and, ideally, a good gimblet. Europeans tried to manufacture their own, but counterfeiting proved more trouble than it was worth.
For Penn’s Treaty, wampum was a medium carrying both material value and symbolic meaning, bridging two very different systems of trade and trust. More than just a line item on a deed, wampum strings were documents in their own right — records of promises, relationships, and obligations — with a dignity most modern currency can’t match. ✅ B
10. Give yourself a hand if you know what’s a hand of tobacco:
a. a pound of raw leaves and stems by weight
b. a jar of dried, ground snuff
c. live transplants approximately 4 inches tall
d. about a dozen cured leaves
In colonial tobacco country, a “hand” was a neat bundle of a dozen or so cured leaves tied together by their stems, fanned out for even drying. Once tied, these hands were stacked flat and pressed hard into casks for storage and transport. When the tobacconist unpacked them, he’d snip out the central ribs, setting aside the coarse stems to grind into low-grade snuff, while sorting the leaves by size and quality for pipes, cigars, or chewing.
By the 17th century, tobacco was a major transatlantic cash crop, and hands were the standard unit of sale — small enough to handle, big enough to be worth trading. For Indigenous communities, who had long cultivated and used tobacco ceremonially, the influx of European-grown varieties and curing methods changed both availability and the market. And in Penn’s Treaty list, hands of tobacco were more than just a nicotine fix; they were a valuable, tradable commodity with deep cultural roots on both sides of the exchange. ✅ D
🤔 How well did you do? 🏆
Whether you aced the quiz or learned a few new terms, we hope it sparked a deeper curiosity about the everyday objects that shaped extraordinary moments in history. Penn’s Treaty is an interesting list of odd goods — but it’s also a snapshot of two worlds meeting, trading, and changing each other in ways that still echo today.
Looking at the past with fresh eyes helps us see the complexity behind familiar stories, and reminds us that history is never as simple as the headlines (or the plaques) make it seem.
If you enjoyed this, dig deeper into local history at The Local, where you’ll find great archives by Joe Minardi and Bob McNulty. Better yet, share your own family or neighborhood stories with us in the Comments below. You never know which “ordinary” details might become tomorrow’s history quiz. Thanks for playing! 🙌
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