Walking Purchase

To address the Lenape's misgivings and suspicions, Penn Land Office Agent and provincial secretary James Logan produced a map that misrepresented the farther Lehigh River as the closer Tohickon Creek, and including a dotted line showing a seemingly reasonable path that the walkers would take.

Provincial Secretary Logan hired the three fastest runners in the colony, Edward Marshall, Solomon Jennings, and James Yeates, to run on a prepared trail.

The walk occurred on September 19, 1737; only Marshall finished,[2] reaching the modern vicinity of present-day Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania, 70 miles (113 km) to the north.

This resulted in an area of 1,200,932 acres (4,860 km2), only slightly smaller than the size of Rhode Island, located in seven present-day counties in eastern Pennsylvania: Pike, Monroe, Carbon, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lehigh, and Bucks.

The most striking difference was Penn's ability to cultivate a positive relationship based on mutual respect with the Native Americans inhabiting the province.

"[3]The District Court recounted the Delaware Nation's allegations: Penn's sons were less interested than their father in cultivating a friendship with the Lenape.

Believing that their forefathers had made such an agreement, the Lenape Chiefs agreed to the terms of the deed and consented to the day-and-a-half walk.

In addition, Thomas Penn promised that the fastest runner would receive five pounds sterling (equal to £1010.92 today) and 500 acres (200 ha) of land.

In the end, the runners of the Walking Purchase of 1737 procured 1,200 square miles [more than 1 million acres] of Lenni Lenape land in Pennsylvania.

In response, the Lenape began their movement westward in compliance with their ancestors' purported agreement to the terms of the Walking Purchase's deed.

As a result of the Walking Purchase, members of the Lenape, now recognized as The Delaware Nation, were segregated into pockets or parcels of land surrounded by non-tribal settlers.

[4] The Third Circuit upheld that aboriginal title may validly be extinguished by fraud, and further held that the tribe had waived the issue of whether Penn was actually a sovereign purchaser.

[4] Therefore, the Circuit did not consider the merits of the tribe's argument that: The Delaware Nation claims in its appeal that the King of England—not Thomas Penn—was the sovereign over the territory that included Tatamy's Place.