USA > Delaware > History of the state of Delaware, Volume II > Part 30
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I. THE SWEDISH LUTHERANS.
The earliest Swedish Lutherans in America came over with the Dutch colony to Manhattan Island in 1626, but they did not succeed in establishing public worship until 1657, owing
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to the severe laws and heavy penalties enforced against them by the Dutch colonists, who showed therein the same hateful spirit of ecclesiastical intolerance which in the mother-country, but a few years before, had stained the hitherto untarnished Dutch name with the blood of the martyr-patriot, John of Barneveldt.
The first Swedish expedition which landed at Fort Christina, near Wilmington in 1638, like that of the Pilgrims, consisted of two vessels, the larger one, a ship of war, the Kalmars Nyckle or the Key of Kalmar and a smaller one the Gripen or the Griffin, containing about fifty souls in all, and under the command of Peter Minuit, a Prussian of Huguenot ex- traction, formerly governor of Manhattan, but then in the em- ploy of the Swedish government.
The little log church at Christina, erected in 1638 within the fort itself, was the first Lutheran Church in America, and the first meeting place for Christian worship in the State, and was used by the Swedes till the building in 1646 of a church at Tinicum near Philadelphia, consequent upon the removal in 1643 of the capital from Christina and the establishment at Tinicum, by Governor Printz, of the new capital and Fort Printzhof. The leading citizens followed him thither, and the original church appears to have been abandoned, most of the travel in these days being by water, a few more miles to church made little difference to the pious Swedes.
The second Swedish church was built at Sandhuken, New Castle, in 1643, and in 1667 the third, a wooden church was erected by the joint efforts of the Dutch and Swedes at Crane Hook, about a mile and a half from Fort Christina on the south side of the Christina creek, and both the Dutch and the Swedes worshiped therein. Ferris in his History of Delaware, quotes an old deed dated 1690 conveying the title to the Crane Hook church site, and writing in 1846, says, "A few years since, on a visit to the spot, no tombstone or other trace of the graveyard could be discovered. The wooden church was en- tirely gone, the only vestige of the building being four large
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OLD SWEDES CHURCH, WILMINGTON. BUILT A. D. 1698.
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rocks which had served for corner-stones. An orchard now
occupies the church and graveyard sites." Services were con- tinued in this church for a period of thirty-two years, up to the building in Wilmington in 1699 on its present site, of Holy Trinity Church, or, as it is with loving familiarity styled, " Old Swedes " wherein, with the exception of a few intervals, the longest from 1830 to 1842, when the decayed condition of the building caused its temporary abandonment, services, first in Swedish and later in English, have been held con- tinuously up to the present time. The first Swedish pastor was Reorus Torkillus, who came over with Governor Hol- lander in April, 1640, in the famous "Key of Kalmar" which brought the second Swedish expedition to Christina. Both Hazzard and Scharf are in error in stating that Torkillus came over with Governor Minuit. Torkillus was born in Gothland in 1608, married at Christina, and left at his early death there, in 1643, a wife and one child "whose descendants" says Ferris, "perhaps remain among us under some Anglicised name." He seems to have been taken ill early in the year, his spiritual labors at Christina were, therefore of brief dura- tion. Of him little else is known, one account saying that he was buried in Fort Christina and another in Old Swedes churchyard.
Scharf in his History of Delaware, correctly says "He was the first religious teacher in New Sweden " but Spotswood in his sketch of the Presbyterian Church in New Castle errone- ously ascribes to John Campanius "the honor of being the first to proclaim the glad tidings of salvation in this Western World." Campanius, who was the second Swedish pastor and who arrived in 1643 with Governor Printz, the successor to Hollander, has however, the greater honor of being the first Christian minister to attempt the evangelization of the Indians, his missionary work among the red men here in Delaware being four years earlier than that of John Eliot " the famous apostle to the Indians" in New England, whom Bancroft terms " the Morning Star of Missionary enterprise." It is,
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possible, however, that Campanins must share the honor of anticipating Eliot's preaching, with the learned Dutchman, John Megapolensis, whom Broadhead says preached at Fort Orange in 1643, to the Mohawks in their " heavy tongue."
To Campanius, though beyond all question, belongs the further honor of being the first to translate a religious work, Luther's Shorter Catechism, into an Indian tongue, and to make an Indian vocabulary of the Lenni-Lenape or Delaware, and to reduce that aboriginal speech to writing. He began his translation in 1646, and finished it in 1648, long before Eliot, in 1661, translated the Bible into the language of the Algonquin Indians in New England. Hazard says Campanius was " the first missionary among the Indians, at least in Penn- sylvania." This translation was printed at Stockholm in 1696. A copy of the work is in the library of the American Philo- sophical Society of Philadelphia, and perhaps another at Gettysburg College. Campanius curiously accommodates the Lord's Prayer to the circumstances of the Indians by render- ing "Give us this day our daily bread," "give us a plentiful supply of venison and corn." Campanius ministered to the Swedes at Christina and Tinicum until 1648, when he returned to Sweden.
The next Lutheran pastor was " the notorious Lawrence Lock," as Holcomb dubs him, or Lorentius Lokensius, Lars Lock, etc., as he is variously known. He succeeded Campanius in 1648. Hazard says : " He was a man of evil character and turbulent passions, constantly getting into trouble and bring- ing disgrace upon himself and flock, indeed his misdeeds more than once drew upon him the sentence of the civil courts, as for example, when in 1669, he was arrested, sent to New York, and fined 600 gulden for taking part in the 'Long Finn' insurrection against the English." His name appears May 19, 1679, as having charge of a church. Scharf says he died in 168S. Megapolensis styles him "a man of godless and scandalous life, a rollicking earl more inclined to look into the wine can than pore over the Bible." The consensus
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of opinions gives him a hard name, though Pennock Pusey and Dr. Horace Burr seek to soften this severe verdict.
For some years after the capture of New Castle by the Eng- lish in 1664, but little attention seems to have been paid to religion. The disreputable Lock appears to have been the only Swedish minister, or indeed, the only one of any sort on the Delaware river for several years. The Rev. George Foot in his admirable "Sketch of Old Drawyers," says that in 1675 there were but three churches in the then states of Pennsyl- vania and Delaware. This is shown by an order made by Governor Andros at a special court at New Castle, May 14, 1675, " concerning the Church in this town-the meeting- place at Crane Hook. That the Church at Tinicum Island do serve for Upland (Chester), and that the Magistrates of Upland do cause a Church to be built at Wickegkoo (Wic- acoe, Philadelphia), the Court to raise a tax for its building and the maintenance of the minister, of all which they are to give an account at the General Court and there to the Gov- ernor for his approbation (signed) E. Andros."
From this we may observe that in the early days there was within the borders of Delaware as complete a union of Church and State on behalf of Swedish Lutheranism as the annals of Virginia or New England disclose on behalf of Episcopalianism or Congregationalism in those regions. In 1670 Dominie Fabritius, not a Swede, but a Dutch or Polish Lutheran min- ister, Holcomb says, visited New Castle, and finally came to surpass, if possible, the ill record of Lars Lock. He was re- peatedly fined and twice suspended from his office of minister, the last time in 1675 permanently, though it would seem that Governor Andros restored his functions, for we hear of his preaching in later years. In 1674 his wife at Albany, whence he had come, successfully petitioned the burgomaster for relief " against her unfaithful husband, a drunken soi-disant Luth- eran minister, who had driven her and her children out of her house, in winter time, too." He left New Castle in 1675, after being roundly scored and fined in a certain dyke quarrel, and
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two years afterwards was appointed to the Wicacoe Church, now Gloria Dei Episcopal Church, Philadelphia, where he remained but part of a year. In 1682 he became blind, and so remained until his death in 1693. Acrelius mistakenly says he died in 1691, for it appears that in 1693 he cited the church wardens to give him support, alleging his poverty and blindness. It is but just to add that, it is said, "he did the best he could for both churches until he died." The old Swedish records show that he ceased to be pastor there in 1691, but do not say when he died.
Between Lock and Fabritius appear several less noted names, that of Israel Halg, 1650, and a chaplain in 1652, and another in 1655. Even before Fabritius had become quite disabled, the Swedes sent two petitions to Sweden for minis- ters, Bibles and hymn-books, but their letters were never received. In 1691 a third fruitless appeal was made, this time to Holland. Though their situation was dark and un- promising, they kept their churches open, appointing two worthy young men as lay readers. The manner in which these pastorless Swedes on the Delaware finally got spiritual leaders forms a touching episode in their history, and so well illustrates the earnest, simple-hearted character of this pious folk that it merits particular mention.
About this time a nephew of Governor Printz came to Del- aware, and being himself a Swede made the acquaintance of his countrymen, and upon his return to Sweden described their unhappy condition to John Thelin, postmaster of Got- tenborg, through whose efforts a new petition was finally brought to the attention of the King, Charles XI. This affecting letter is well worthy being quoted entire, so pleasingly in the homely language of feeling and truth does it portray their almost Arcadian situation, their life of simple, rural thrift and honest toil with its glimpses of the men "plowing, sowing and tilling this rich and fruitful country, our wives and daughters spinning wool and flax and many weaving, so that we are richly supplied with meat and drink, and send
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out to our neighbors bread, flour and oil," and then closing with devout expressions of deepest gratitude to God and duti- ful submission and loyalty to their English rulers.
Accompanying the epistle was an exact census of the entire colony, numbering 139 families, or 939 persons. It was signed by thirty persons, and made a deep impression in Sweden, where it was widely read and even copied. But so slight was the communication between Sweden and this coun- try at that time, and so many were the delays, that nearly three years elapsed before the desired relief reached the colony in February, 1696. Three young men were chosen, Erick Bjork, Andrew Rudman and Jonas Aureen. The King called the three clergymen into his Cabinet and, taking each by the hand at parting, bade them apply directly to him for all they might need, and also furnished them $3,000 for their own expenses and a stout ship for their convoy. He also donated 1,500 religious books, all bearing the King's stamp in gold, among others 500 copies of Campanius' Indian translation of Luther, whose pending issue delayed their sailing for a few days. "Go now," said King Charles, "in the name of the Lord to the place where I send you, and may he make your undertaking successful." Their arrival was hailed by their exiled countrymen with tears of joy.
In his highly entertaining diary, Bjork tells how, after duly notifying the English authorities, showing their passports, etc., Rudman, Aureen and himself assembled for the first time in the Crane Hook Church, July 2d, 1697, and presented their credentials to the congregation. Rudman went to the Wica- coe Church and Bjork remained at Christina, and on Sunday, July 16th, began his first service in the Crane Hook Church. His parish at that time embraced the settlements on both sides of the Delaware from Upland (Chester) to St. Georges; thus he and his unreliable Aureen were the only clergymen, and his log cabin at Crane Hook the only church in all that region. "The population," says Bjork, "is very thin, and scattered all along the river shore, so that some have sixteen
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miles to walk or ride to go to church, notwithstanding, they very regularly attend on Sundays."
Bjork was not only the pastor for all the Swedes in this wide extent of country, but soon was preaching to the English settlers in their own language and generally performing all needful pastoral offices for them and the few Dutch who had been incorporated into the Swedish fold. In July, 1698, after composing the various conflicting interests of the widely separated members on both sides of the Delaware, it was unanimously decided to build a new church at Christina, which, on the insistent advice of Bjork himself, was made double the dimensions proposed by the people. This building (the fourth Swedish Church built in the State), with later additions and alterations, is the famous and venerated " Old Swedes." As joyously and as zealously as the exiled Jews of old rebuilt their temple did these godly pilgrims by their own labors erect this later temple, whose materials, wood, stone and iron, were prepared by hand, tradition even declaring that the women carried stone in their aprons to the masons. They chose their church wardens September 19th, 1698, and from that time to this there has been an unbroken record of the wardens and vestrymen of " Old Swedes."
The church cost about eight hundred pounds or $4,000, fully equal to $10,000 now, surely a goodly sum for those days, of barter and wampum money. Much of this sum was bor- rowed on the personal recognizance of Bjork, £130 of which he gave to the church. Through his tireless efforts also a farm of 500 acres to serve as a glebe, was bought of John Stalcop. On this tract now stands the old City of Wilmington. " Though much lessened in value through mismanagement and dishonesty," says Scharf, " it has still borne the church through many seasons of depression and weakness." Through his services to the English settlers, Bjork began that intimate relation with them and their clergy, which lasted harmoni- ously one hundred years, and led at last to the adoption of the Swedish churches into the Protestant Episcopal communion
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when they ceased to understand their mother tongue, or to have any direct connection with their mother church. Thus did Bjork in three or four years lay the foundations for the lasting prosperity of this depressed and discouraged colony, by his words and his deeds infusing life and energy into the people, and gaining at once their confidence and faithful co- operation by his unremitting unselfish devotion to the com- mon weal of both church and State.
Above all the characters, whether cleric, lay, or martial that figure in this earliest period of Delaware's history, he towers pre-eminent, a noble sea mark across the dim vista of the years. Scharf pays him the following tribute not less eloquent than just : " Thus was completed in 1699 this substantial church building which shall stand for ages a testimony to future generations of the piety, zeal and perseverance of that humble servant of Christ, but really great man, the Rev. Erick Bjork, and it may be truly said that of all the names of those who have helped to make our beloved commonwealth what it is, none should be remembered with greater reverence and gratitude than his." In June, 1714, Bjork was recalled to Sweden by Charles XII writing from Adrianoble, Turkey, where he was refuging after the fatal battle of Pultawa in 1709.
Pending his return two other ministers came, A. Hesselius and A. Lidenius, who labored together until 1712, when the latter was appointed provost over all the churches. Hesselius returned to Sweden in 1714 to serve as provost and as pastor of the great Coppenburg Church at Fahlum in Dalecartin, where he preached to a great age, and died in 1740. In 1718 there was sent by the mining company at Fahlum a beautiful chalice and paten of silver, a loving remembrance from Hes- selius to his first charge in the wilderness. This communion service is still used in the churches of the parish on anni- versary and other special occasions.
About this time the members on the east side of the Dela- ware built a church and formed their own pastorate, and henceforward Holy Trinity was confined to the west side of
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the river. Israel Acrelius was pastor from 1749 to 1756, and wrote a valuable history of the Swedish settlements on the Delaware. From 1756 to 1758 Erick Unander greatly im- proved the church finances, and by having the church incor- porated, saved one-half of its property. Andrew Borrell was set over all the churches in 1758, and labored till 1767, preaching in English his last sermon in great feebleness shortly before his death. Lawrence Girelius, the last of the Swedish ministers, labored from 1767 to 1791, at which date, after his departure, the church at Christina united with the Protestant Episcopal Church, as also finally did all the Penn- sylvania and New Jersey churches.
It remains for the chronicler, sinking for a moment the his- torian in the philosopher, to endeavor to estimate the char- acter and value of the moral and ethnic forces flowing from the coming of this Scandinavian folk, who although they have not imposed upon posterity their language, their religion, nor their laws, have nevertheless played no minor part in laying the racial, civil and religious foundations of this common- wealth on the Delaware. And even if the influence which this early religious movement has undoubtedly had in shaping the character of the founders of our State and its policy, did not warrant so extensive a reference, the peculiar interest which upon purely antiquarian grounds the history of a people's origin possesses for their descendants, would reason- ably demand it.
As a race these early Swedes were strong of limb and sound in body, in their living frugal and simple, markedly laborious and industrious, domestic in their tastes and habits, in trade among their neighbors, white or red, not less honorable than thrifty ; while above every other virtue which adorned the character of this noble people were they in their very natures, law-abiding, reverent and religious, loyal alike to country and God. These early Swedish emigrants were then almost always what to-day they are, an educated class, and arriving at the very time when all Protestant Europe, under the leadership
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of their hero King Gustavus Adolphus, was engaged in a momentous struggle for civil and religious liberty, they were themselves deeply imbued with those noble sentiments for whose achievement he gave his life on the epochal field of Lutzen.
Their relations with the Indians, whether in trade and bar- ter or acquiring their rights to the soil, were marked by the same just and humane policy which afterwards pursued by Penn deservedly made his name illustrious. And the immu- nity they thus secured would almost warrant for the Swedes the declaration " that never was a drop of Quaker blood shed by an Indian." It cannot therefore be questioned that the early settlement of Delaware by these one thousand odd sons and daughters of the rugged old Norse race, so near kin to our own Anglo-Saxon, was a highly fortunate event, and one which in many ways, racially and otherwise, has wrought happy results which will long endure. Many and glowing have been the eulogies paid these subjects of the great Gus- tavus, who sought to realize his splendid dream of founding in the New World an asylum for the oppressed of the Old. The Rev. William M. Reynolds, D. D., in his Introduction to his translation of Acrelius, says: "The Swedish colony on the Delaware has deeply and widely affected the state and national character." The scholarly Prof. Gregory B. Keen, in his translation of Sprinchorn's " New Sweden," declares that " This virtuous and industrious people formed the nucleus of the civilization afterwards expanded under Penn in New Jersey and Pennsylvania."
Dr. Horace Burr, the versatile and erudite physician and author so well known to Delawareans, says, in his translation of the Records of Old Swedes: "The Swedes were a religious folk, and almost all public interest centered in the church." Again : "A very considerable part of the population of Wil- mington and surrounding country, except the families coming in within the last half-century, are in a greater or less degree of Swedish descent; indeed it is rare that among the older
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families one is to be found that is not more or less of Swedish blood." And referring to the Swedish ministers "holding a pastoral relation to the whole population " he adds : "The influence of those educated and refined Christian gentlemen was undoubtedly a great power for good in the formation of the character of the people." He styles the " Old Swedes " Church the most noted and venerable of the architectural remains of colonial days on Delaware soil. "Long may it stand a monument to the memory of its projector and builder, the zealous, earnest and patient Erick Bjork and his faithful fellow-laborers, a blessing to the surrounding inhabitants and an object of veneration and care of the citizens of Wilmington, whether they trace their descent from those who helped rear the walls or are of other lineage." The venerable structure is now in an excellent state of preservation, and a goodly con- gregation statedly worship within its consecrated walls.
The Lutheran Church has now (1905) two representatives in the State, both in Wilmington, the Zion German Lutheran Church, of which Rev. P. Isenschmid is pastor, and St. Ste- phen's, under the pastoral charge of Rev. Frederick Doerr. Both churches give evidence of thrift and growth.
II. THE DUTCH REFORMED CHURCH.
The Dutch Church never was established in Delaware ; but it was the second denomination to form a church here. The Dutch fort at Casimir (New Castle), was taken May 31, 1654, by the Swedes under Governor Risingh, and renamed Fort Trinity, and held until 1655, when it was retaken by the Dutch under Governor Stuyvesant, to whom also two weeks later, the Swedish fort at Christina surrendered, and the Swedish power in America was gone forever. During this brief occupancy a Swedish minister named Petrus Hjort lived at Fort Casimir, and " was the first minister of any kind sta- tioned there," says Holcomb. Scharf says Welius was the first.
About 1657 a regular church was organized at New Amstel
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(as the Dutch called New Castle) by Rev. John Polhemus. He placed it in charge of a pious schoolmaster named Everet Peterson. In 1658 Rev. Evardus Welius, a very estimable young man in gifts and character, cavie over from Amster- dam, in company with four hundred emigrants, and became the first regularly appointed Dutch minister to settle in New Castle. This gifted young missionary martyr fell a victim in 1659 to an epidemic of dysentery, then raging in New Castle. The schoolmaster resumed charge till 1662, when Rev. War- nerus Hadson was sent from Holland, but died at sea. The Rev. Petrus Tasschemaker was pastor in 1678, and for sev- eral years thereafter, probably succeeding the unruly Fabritius, who had been deposed from the ministry. He was examined by the New York Council, at the request of the people of New Castle, and then ordained as a minister of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1680 he got an order from the court against the estate of one Wharton for 50 guilders, about $20, for preaching decedent's funeral sermon, and also one for salary against R. Hutchinson, one of the signers of his maintenance. He went to Schenectady, N. Y., in a year or two, where he was horribly mutilated in the massacre of 1690.
The Dutch church was a small wooden building which stood between the market square and the river near the site of the old Fort Casimir. By some it is claimed that the present Presbyterian church occupies the site of the old Dutch church, which seems to have been abandoned before 1700, after the people had for sometime worshiped therein as an independent congregation. The last Dutch minister left New Castle in 1689. Because of its few numbers and its brief duration the influence of this one Dutch church was not very great. It seems to have left no records in Delaware, nor has it to-day any representative in the State.
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