A goose sips water from a shallow embankment in Schuylkill River. The Schuylkill River is a river in Pennsylvania that William Penn chose in 1682 as one bank of the confluence upon which he founded the planned city of Philadelphia on lands purchased from the native Delaware nation. It is a designated Pennsylvania Scenic River, and its whole length was once part of the Delaware people's southern territories. Its upper end rises in what are called the richest anthracite coal fields in the world.