Province Island was a low island of 342 acres near the mouth of the Schuylkill River. On it the province of Pennsylvania had erected a “pest house” for the quarantine of sick immigrants and rented a portion of it for truck farms.

William Hamilton (1745–1813), son of Andrew Hamilton the younger, owned Woodlands, an estate on the Schuylkill River three miles from Philadelphia. Although he supported the colonists in their dispute with Britain, he disapproved of the Declaration of Independence. Hamilton was greatly interested in horticulture and after the Revolution introduced from England many specimens of plants and flowers (WARD [1] description begins Townsend Ward. “A Walk to Darby.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 3 (1879): 150–66. description ends , 160–62; BLACK [1] description begins R. Alonzo Brock, ed., “Journal of William Black, 1744.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 1 (1877): 117–32, 233–49, 404–19; 2 (1878): 40–49. description ends , 1:242).