The city of Allentown was first home to people in 1735. It was then named a Northampton town (Northampton-Towne) in 1762 by William Allen, a rich shipping merchant, Chief Justice of the Province of Pennsylvania and mayor, or leader, of Philadelphia in the past. The town was made on a 5,000-acre area Allen got for money in 1735 from the sons of William Penn. Allen hoped that Northampton-Towne would become a commercial center because of it being on the Lehigh River and how it was near Philadelphia. Allen gave the area to his son, James, who built a summer home, Trout Hall, there in 1770.