William Penn statue may be permanently removed from Welcome Park, angering some

The National Park Service has withdrawn a proposal to permanently remove a statue of William Penn as part of its rehabilitation of Welcome Park in Old City, saying the plan was “released prematurely and had not been subject to a complete internal agency review.”

The sudden reversal posted Monday evening came after a barrage of complaints, often spearheaded by Republicans. But high-profile Democrats such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro also voiced concerns. In a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter, Shapiro wrote on Monday evening, “My team has been in contact with the Biden Administration throughout the day to correct this decision. I’m pleased Welcome Park will remain the rightful home of this William Penn statue.”

The National Park Service said Monday evening that no changes to the William Penn statue are now planned, but that plans to rehabilitate the park will continue.

“The National Park Service (NPS) remains committed to rehabilitating Welcome Park as the nation prepares to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence in 2026,” the statement said. “Upon completion of all the necessary internal reviews, the park looks forward to engaging in a robust public process to consider options for refurbishing the park in the coming years.”

It’s a sharp change from an announcement by NPS on Friday to remove the centerpiece statue of William Penn permanently and redesign the park to highlight Native American history. That plan marked a major shift, considering that the park was built on the site of Penn’s home, the Slate Roof House, and is named for the ship, Welcome, that transported him from England. Penn actually landed first in 1682 near the intersection of the Delaware River and Chester Creek in Chester.

» READ MORE: William Penn once wanted Chester to be Philadelphia. Here’s what happened.

Welcome Park is part of Independence National Historical Park and was completed in 1982 on designs by Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates to commemorate the 300th anniversary of Penn’s arrival.

The wide-open park across from the former site of City Tavern aims to tell the story of Penn’s vision for the city. Although a lesser-known area of Independence Park, it provides visitors with an overview of the city layout and history of Penn’s landing. The Penn statue includes a farewell ode to Philadelphia, imparting “what love, what care, what service, what travail have there been to bring thee forth.”

The National Park Service wants to rehabilitate the park in time for the 250th birthday celebration of America in 2026. The park on Second Street between Chestnut and Walnut Streets has fallen into disrepair with rows of broken granite floor.

Representatives for the National Park Service could not be reached for comment Monday after they sought public comment on the proposal to remove the statue.

Philadelphia Councilmember Mark Squilla, whose district spans Old City, said his office learned only on Monday of the proposal and had reached out to Independence Historical National Park’s Superintendent Steven Sims.

The NPS plans announced Friday called for “an expanded interpretation of the Native American history of Philadelphia” in consultation with Indigenous nations of the Haudenosaunee, Delaware Nation, Delaware Tribe of Indians, Shawnee Tribe, and the Eastern Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma.

Designs would keep some parts of the current park, including the original Philadelphia street grid, but the “Penn statue and Slate Roof House model will be removed and not reinstalled,” according to the originalplans.

Republican outcry

“The decision by President Biden and his administration to try and cancel William Penn out of whole cloth is another sad example of the left in this country scraping the bottom of the barrel of woke-ism to advance an extreme ideology and a nonsensical view of history,” Pennsylvania House Republican Leader Bryan Cutler (R., Lancaster) said in a statement.

Cutler said the treaty signed by Penn with Native Americans was historical and with “mutual respect shown between Penn and Native tribes.”

“This issue is also deeply personal to me,” Cutler said. “The first Cutlers came to Pennsylvania in 1685 on the ship Rebekah, not long after Penn’s arrival in 1682. They came to Pennsylvania because they were Quakers who shared Penn’s view of religious tolerance and peace.”

Cutler said removing the statue creates an “absurd and revisionist view of our state’s history.” He said he plans to introduce a resolution honoring William Penn and “encouraging” the National Park Service to halt the plan.

Pennsylvania State Sen. Scott Martin (R., Berks) and chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, on social media called the plan “absolutely disgraceful.”

Native Americans

Welcome Park, though not necessarily the statue of Penn, has also been the site of some resentment among Native Americans. The plot had been given to the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations from the Iroquois Confederacy) in January 1755 by John Penn, William Penn’s grandson. In the 1700s, Native American groups often visited Philadelphia for diplomatic and trade meetings. They sometimes numbered in the hundreds and visited so frequently that John Penn asked the Provincial Council of Philadelphia to consider setting aside a piece of land for these gatherings. The delegations often refused to negotiate treaties until they could stand on their own ground and build a council fire.

A 2020 Inquirer article chronicled a trip by six women from the Iroquois Confederacy in upstate New York to reconnect with the patch of tribal land on the site of Welcome Park.

» READ MORE: These Native American women came to Philadelphia to see their ancestral land. They found apartments and a parking garage.

“I anticipated a park in a natural pristine state. Like any other park, it would have trees, grass, water,” said Louise McDonald (Native name Wa’kerakátste), a Mohawk Bear Clan Mother from Akwesasne, N.Y. “I was frozen for a minute because I felt it had been choked and that it wasn’t a true representation of the original intentions of the space. It just seemed to be purposely buried with a cover-up narrative. There certainly seems to be a feeling of erasure intended to remove any spirit that would imply that we were once there.”

Penn in Philly

Philly is not without other William Penn likenesses. The statue of Penn atop City Hall is a landmark, visible from many parts of the city.

And there is another Penn statue at Penn Treaty Park off North Delaware Avenue at the corner of East Columbia Avenue and Beach Street. Legend says Penn and a local Lenape clan made a peace agreement under an elm tree. The original “treaty elm” has long been replaced, but the park contains an obelisk and plaque memorializing the agreement, as well as a statue of Penn.

The discussion of the Penn statue’s removal is not the first time in recent years that Philadelphia has seen a struggle over statues.

The statue of Frank L. Rizzo, the late mayor and police commissioner, was ordered removed from in front of the Municipal Services Building in 2020 by then-Mayor Jim Kenney amid sweeping protests after the murder of George Floyd. Also in recent years, people have petitioned to have the Christopher Columbus statue in Marconi Plaza removed, though it still remains.