This experiment would become, as he confidently predicted, "the seed of a nation.". Penn imagined a "free...sober and industrious people" living by their own laws. (Source: William Penn, Proprietor)
In 1681, William Penn laid out 11 parallel tracts of land to form a township, to be later named, which would later become the 21st Ward of the City of Philadelphia. These tracts were sold to speculators in England, who sold the land to the initial settlers. (Source: A Historical Sketch of the 21st Ward:)
In 1691, Wigard and Gerhard Levering purchased land in what is now central Roxborough. In 1694, Johannes Kelpius and his 40 followers, who would become known as the "Hermits of the Ridge", set up their monastery on a bluff, which is now occupied by the "Hermitage Estate." It was Kelpius, who, on May 25, 1706, referred to the area as: "Rocksburrow", after the many rocks and foxes burrows by their monastery.
Among the tracts sold were:
4B-------John Jennett to Henry Frey, 100 acres, 1692. Henry Frey to George Wood, 100 acres, 1729. George Wood to Andrew Wood, 100 acres, 1752.
4C-------Samuel Morris to Andrew Wood, 1 acre island, 1770.
(Source: Map of the Early Roxborough Tracts)
Wood's Barn is famous for an incident that took place on December 19, 1777. On patrol were 40 members of Lee's Virginia Dragoons. At nightfall they arrived at the house of Andrew Wood and asked for shelter. After they were fed, some bedded down in the house, while others slept in the barn.
Members of the British 16th Light Dragoons were also on patrol i Roxborough and discovered the American troops on the Wood property.
Andrew led the troopers staying in the house out the back door to safetly. The troopers in the barn did not fare so easy. The British set fire to the barn, and as some of the troopers tried to exit, they were shot down. Others remained in the barn and were burned to death. (Source: Historical Buildings of the 21st Ward)
Eighteen Virginia troopers were killed and are now burried in the Leverington Cemetery. Roxborough was then called Leverington after one of the early settlers, Gerhard Levering. The soldiers who escaped took refugee at the house of a later Levering, Abraham. His daughter Anna (16 years old at the time) bound their wounds, took them down to the Schuylkill River and rowed them across in a canoe on their way to Valley Forge. (Source: Levering Family history website)