Philadelphia, August 6, 1695. Manuscript document in the hand of secretary Patrick Robinson, signed by Deputy Governor of the Province of Pennsylvania, William Markham, appointing Joseph Growdon, William Biles, Henry Baker, Richard Hough, and John Swift, justices of the peace for Bucks County; counter-signed by Robinson. Official red wax seal in top left. Creasing from old folds, small separations along center vertical fold.

A scarce and early Pennsylvania document, signed by the province's first deputy governor, William Markham, appointing prominent early Quakers Joseph Growdon (1652-1730), William Biles (1644-1710), Henry Baker (1634-1701), Richard Hough (ca. 1650-1705), and John Swift (1647-1733) as justices of the peace for Bucks County. These five men were some of the earliest European settlers in Pennsylvania, and Bucks County in particular, and became leading figures in the early colony's political and civic affairs, with each serving at various times on the colony's Assembly and Provincial Council.

Growdon, a First Purchaser along with Markham, emigrated to Pennsylvania in 1684, and was instrumental in the settlement of Bucks County. He served on the Pennsylvania Assembly from 1686-1722 and on the Provincial Council from 1687-93. He served as 6th speaker of the Assembly, a position he held seven times throughout his long legislative career.

Biles emigrated to America in 1679, before Penn's charter, and became one of the region's largest landholders. Influential in the civic life of early Pennsylvania, he was one of the nine original justices of what became the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and served as one of the three original members of the Council to represent Bucks County. He served on the Council from 1683-1700, and on the Assembly from 1686-1708.

Baker was a prominent Quaker in England, before settling in Pennsylvania in 1684. One of the first settlers in Bucks County, he served as foreman of the first grand jury of Bucks County in 1685, and was a member of the commission appointed in September 1692 to divide the county into townships. He was made a Justice of the Bucks County Court in November 1689, and served as a Member of the Provincial Assembly, in 1685, 1687, 1688, 1690, and 1698.

Hough arrived in Pennsylvania in 1683, and became one of the early colony's most prominent men. An ally of James Logan, Hough represented Bucks County in the Provincial Assembly, in 1684, 1688, 1690, 1697, 1699, 1700, 1703, and 1704-05, and was a member of the Provincial Council in 1693 and 1700. He was appointed a justice in 1700 by William Penn, along with two other men, to a court of inquiry to investigate the affairs of the province, and served on the commission to divide Bucks County into townships. Upon his death, William Penn wrote of him, "I lament the loss of honest Richard Hough. Such men must needs be wanted where selfishness and forgetfulness of God's Mercies so much abound."

Less is known about Swift, but he is known to have been one of the first settlers in Southampton, and was a member of the dissident Quaker sect known as the "Keithians," which provoked the first schism in Quakerism in America.