Moreland Township, is a defunct
township
A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries.
Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, C ...
that was located in
Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia County is a county in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. It is the most populous county in Pennsylvania. As of the 2020 census, Philadelphia County had a population of 1,603,797. The county is the second smallest county in Pennsy ...
.
History
In 1682,
William Penn
William Penn ( – ) was an English writer and religious thinker belonging to the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), and founder of the Province of Pennsylvania, a North American colony of England. He was an early advocate of democracy a ...
sold nearly 10,000 acres of land to
Nicholas More
Nicholas More (died 1689) was first chief justice of the colonial-era Province of Pennsylvania.
Early life and education
More, also spelled "Moore" or "Moor", was born in London, England, where he married his wife Mary.
In 1682, More immigra ...
.
[Buck, William J., Bean, Theodore Weber, ed; /archive.org/details/historyofmontgom00bean “Moreland Township”, ''History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania'' 1884, p. 978.] The land, referred to by Penn as the Manor of Moreland,
was located on the main branches of the
Poquessing and
Pennypack Creeks in the most northern portion of Philadelphia county.
In 1718, the Court of Quarter Sessions created the Township of Moreland from previous More family holdings as well as two strips of land between the Byberry and County Line Roads. Moreland Township was situated to the north of
Dublin Township, and westward of
Byberry Township. The rise of Moreland Township in Philadelphia County was 5 miles, its greatest length; 2 miles in width; area, 3,720 acres (15 km²). One of the principal villages was Smithfield, afterwards called
Somerton Somerton may refer to:
Places Australia
* Somerton, New South Wales
* Somerton Park, South Australia, a seaside Adelaide suburb
** Somerton Man, unsolved case of an unidentified man found dead in 1948 on the Somerton Park beach
* Somerton, Victoria ...
,
[Martindale, Joseph C., ''A History of the Townships of Byberry and Moreland in Philadelphia, PA'', 1867, revised by Albert W. Dudley, 1901; p. 52, 159.] which was partly in Moreland and partly in Byberry.
In 1784,
Montgomery County was created from parts of Philadelphia County, and subsequently, Moreland Township was divided into two townships, one in each county and each called Moreland. Thus from 1784-1854, there were two tangential Moreland Townships in the Philadelphia region.
In 1854, Moreland Township of Philadelphia County ceased to exist as it was incorporated into the
City of Philadelphia following the passage of the
Act of Consolidation, 1854
The Act of Consolidation, more formally known as the act of February 2, 1854 (P.L. 21, No. 16), is legislation of the Pennsylvania General Assembly that created the consolidated City and County of Philadelphia, expanding the city's territory to ...
.
Moreland Township of Montgomery County continued to exist until 1917 when it was split into
Upper Moreland Township and
Lower Moreland Township.
References
Resources
''Chronology of the Political Subdivisions of the County of Philadelphia, 1683-1854''()
*
courtesy o
ushistory.org'
- excerpted from the book at the ushistory.org website
{{Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
Municipalities in Philadelphia County prior to the Act of Consolidation, 1854
1854 disestablishments in Pennsylvania