The odyssey of Thomas Holme, William Penn’s first surveyor general, began when Holme enrolled in the war against Charles I and proceeded through England, and, finally, to William Penn’s Province of PA. He was a captain in Cromwell’s army, a Quaker minister, author, and administrator, and landholder and merchant. It was from this life that William Penn drafted him to be the first surveyor general of his province. There he laid out the city of Phila., oversaw the surveying and settlement of southeastern PA, and participated in the formation of the gov’t. that has been called the protopye of the gov’t. of the U.S. Throughout the struggles of the first dozen years of PA he was a partisan and defender of the interests of William Penn. Maps.