A superb early land grant for John Miller for a significant tract of Providence, Pennsylvania, then in Chester County, now part of Delaware County. Established very early in William Penn's "Holy Experiment," these townships were settled primarily by English Quakers in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, making a 1726 patent a document from the foundational era of settlement in the valley.
A superb two page large format patent with manuscript details of the patent on one sheet, then, neatly sewn, a second sheet bearing the hand-drawn survey and signature of surveyor, John Taylor.
John Taylor, often referred to as Dr. John Taylor because he was also a practicing physician, was a prominent figure in the colony. His family was a multi-generational surveying dynasty; his father, Isaac Taylor, and his uncle, Jacob Taylor, were both highly influential surveyors for William Penn and James Logan. John Taylor took over as the chief surveyor for Chester County, which at the time covered a massive, sprawling portion of southeastern Pennsylvania.
Beyond surveying, Taylor was a powerful local capitalist, assemblyman, county commissioner, and the sheriff of Chester County during the 1720s. He also founded Sarum Forge in 1721 along Chester Creek, which was one of the earliest and most important industrial ironworks in the American colonies.
This document by descent through the Miller family, including George Miller, sometime Clerk of the Providence Meeting House of Quakers, and early abolitionist. A very attractive item.
