Unlike New England, the Mid-Atlantic region gained much of its population from new immigration and, by 1750, the combined populations of New York, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania had reached nearly 300,000 people. By 1750, about 60,000 Irish and 50,000 Germans came to live in British North America, many of them settling in the Mid-Atlantic Region. William Penn founded the colony of Pennsylvania in 1682, and attracted an influx of British Quakers with his policies of religious liberty and freehold ownership. ("Freehold" meant owning land free and clear, with the right to resell it to anyone.) The first major influx of settlers were the Scotch Irish who headed to the frontier. Many Germans came to escape the religious conflicts and declining economic opportunities in Germany and Switzerland.