A History of St. John’s Episcopal Church, Concord 1702 – 2020

576 Concord Road      Glen Mills, PA 19342

Compiled by the Rev. Daniel W. Hinkle, Interim Rector

 “In the beginning…”

(Genesis Chapter 1)

        On March 5, 1681, the English King Charles II granted a Charter of land to the Quaker Gentleman, William Penn. This Charter was for land located across the Atlantic Ocean eventually known as “Penn’s Woods” or Pennsylvania. From  its founding as an English colony in 1681 until the beginning of the French and Indian War in 1754, the relationship between the local Delaware, or Lenape, Indians and the English settlers seems to have been relatively friendly here in what William Penn envisioned as his “Peaceable Kingdom.” However, what, in the first place, gave a foreign king from across the wide ocean the right to grant to one of his subjects land here in the North American continent, already inhabited by others… is an important question of Native American justice that rarely if ever gets raised in the early histories. This question has again come front and center in present day American politics regarding immigration policy. From the perspective of the Native Americans, our early English forebears were themselves illegal immigrants.  READ MORE…..