Credit: From the 1748-1898 History of Reading, Pennsylvania compiled by Morton L. Montgomery for the Executive Committee, Reading, Pa. Times Book Print, 1898
The town of Reading began in 1748 when the Penn family laid out plots of land at a ford across the Schuylkill River along the road between the Tulpehocken settlements and Philadelphia. They then appointed three commissioners to sell the 520 lots.
