He planned a city on the Delaware River, which was to be a port and the seat of administration. He wanted it to be like a small English town surrounded by gardens and orchards. However, the inhabitants had a different vision of their city.
In 1701, William Penn issued a charter establishing Philadelphia as a city. Initially poor, Philadelphia quickly became an important commercial center. The city's leading citizen, Benjamin Franklin (one of the later founding fathers of the United States) made a major contribution to the improvement and modernization of the city. He improved services and established new ones, some of the first in the country, including a fire brigade, a library, and a hospital.
Numerous philosophical societies were established there and were centers of the city's intellectual life, including the Philadelphia Society for Promoting Agriculture (1785), Pennsylvania Society for the Encouragement of Manufactures and the Useful Arts (1787), Academy of Natural Sciences (1787), and the Franklin Institute (1824).
