USA > Pennsylvania > Philadelphia County > Philadelphia > Annals of the Swedes on the Delaware (history of Old Swedes Church of Philadelphia) > Part 2
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ernment, he was to receive them under allegience, though not without endeavouring by gentle means, to effect their removal. 3rdly. Respecting the Indians; the governor was directed to confirm, imme- diately after his arrival, the treaty with that people, by which they had conveyed to the Swedes the western shore of the Delaware, from Cape Henlopen to the Falls of Sanhickan (Trenton,) and as much inland as gradually should be wanted. Also, to ratify the bargain for land on the east side above mentioned; and in these and future purchases, to regard them as the rightful owners of the country. He was to treat all the neighbouring tribes in the most equitable and humane manner, so that no injury, by violence or other- wise, should be done to them by any of his people. He had also in charge to accomplish, as far as prac- ticable, the embracing of Christianity by them, and their adoption of the manners and customs of civil- ized life.
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Governor Printz chose Tinicum, then called Ten- ackongh, and Tutaenungh, for his residence. He erected a fort on the shore, to which he gave the name of New Gothenburg. A decent church was also built there of wood, which was consecrated by Cam- panius, Sept. 4, 1646. The trade of the Swedes being interfered with by the Dutch, the fort at Elsing- borough, called by the Swedes Helsingborg, was erected by Printz, to command the river, but became
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untenable from the great multitude of musquitoes, and was nicknamed Myggenborg, or Mosquito Fort. Upon the erection of this fort, the Dutch left Fort Nassau, opposite Tinicum, and took possession of Sandhuken (now New Castle) on the west side, where they built Fort Casimir. The governor protested against it, as encroaching on Swedish ground, but had not sufficient force to prevent it. He made proper representations to his government on the subject, and requested a speedy reinforcement ; but weary with the delay, and apprehensive of violence from the Dutch, from the hostile disposition manifested by them, and their near neighbourhood,* he resolved on returning to Sweden, and in 1652 left the country, after a resi- dence in it of ten years. He had become unpopular by the exercise of a too rigid authority.
In the mean time, John Claudius Rising had been sent from the mother country as commissioner and assistant to Governor Printz. On his arrival, the governor had already sailed for Sweden, and had left his son-in-law, Mr. John Pappegoia, as deputy-gov- ernor in his place. He also, two years afterwards, returned to his native country, and left the govern- ment in the hands of Mr. Rising. With this last named gentleman came Peter Lindstrom, engineer and surveyor-general, with several military officers and other agents. Mr. Rising immediately offered to the
* Five miles from Fort Christina.
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English and Dutch, and also to the Indians, a renewal of the former friendship. During the administration of Printz, other vessels, besides those above-mentioned, arrived at different times, from the mother country. These were, the Black Cat, with ammunition and goods for the Indians-the Swan, a second time, with people, in 1647; and afterwards the Key and the Lamb.
Soon after Mr. Rising became governor, he invited ten of the Indian Chiefs to a friendly conference. It was held at Tinicum, on the 17th of June, 1654. He saluted them, from the Swedish Queen, with assurances of her favour, put them in mind of the purchase of the lands already made, and requested a continuation of their friendship. He distributed various presents among them, and gave a good entertainment to them and their company. They were much pleased, and assured him of a faithful affection. Mr. Campanius has given a very particular account of this confer- ence, in which he represents one of their chiefs, named Naaman, as making a speech, in the course of which "he rebuked the rest for having spoken evil of the Swedes, and done them an injury, hoping they would do so no more, for that the Swedes were very good people." He also observed that "the Swedes and the Indians had been as one body and one heart, and that thenceforward they should be as one head, at the same time making a motion as if he were tying a
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strong knot; and then made this comparison, that as the calabash was round without any crack, so they should be a compact body without any fissure."
Campanius represents the Indians as having been frequent visitors at his grandfather's house. In the conversations he there had with them, we are told, "he generally succeeded in making them understand that there was one Lord God ; that he was self-existent, one and in three persons ; how the same God had made the world from nothing, and created man from whom all other men had sprung; how Adam afterwards, by his disobedience, had sinned against his Creator, and involved in the penalty of that sin all his descendants ; how God sent upon earth his only Son, Jesus Christ, who was born of the Virgin Mary, for the redemption and salvation of Mankind; how he died upon the cross, and was raised again the third day ; and lastly, how after forty days he ascended to heaven, whence he will return at a future day to judge the quick and the dead, &c." The Indians took so much interest in these instructions, and seemed so well disposed to embrace the Christian religion, that Mr. Campanius was induced to learn their language, that he might the more effectually bring them acquainted with these great truths. He translated the catechism into their language; and, if he did not convert many of them to the Christian faith, they at least acquired so much
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knowledge of it, as to be led to see and admire its great beauty and excellency.
The above facts suggest the remark, that the Swedes may claim the honour of having been the first mis- sionaries among the Indians, at least in Pennsylvania ; and that, perhaps, the very first work translated into the Indian language in America, was the translation of Luther's Catechism, by Campanius. -
Notwithstanding Governor Rising's disposition to live upon good terms with his Dutch neighbours, the Swedes were soured by the encroachments they had made upon their territory, in building a fort at Sand- huken, or Newcastle; and finding remonstrance use- less, soon came to the determination to drive the Dutch back to the eastern side of the river. They accordingly, in the year 1654, took Fort Casimir by storm, and expelled the Dutch; after which, the for- tifications were greatly strengthened and improved by the engineer, P. Lindstrom, and it was named Trefall- digheet, or Trinity Fort.
The Dutch had too good an opinion of their own numbers and prowess, not to feel disposed to retaliate on the Swedes the injury they had received in the loss of their fort. Yet they went to work with caution, resolving, when they gave the blow, to make it the more felt from its being sudden and unexpected. There seems to have been a want of good faith, or at least the practice of some deception on the part of the
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Dutch, as we are told by Campanius that "the differ- ences appeared to have been amicably settled in the year 1654, between the Swedish governor John Ris- ing, and the Dutch governor Peter Stuyvesant." This amicable settlement seems to have been only a cloak to preparations for more effectual hostility ; for "the next year, on the 30th of August, the Dutch sailed from Manhattan, or New Amsterdam, (now New York,) with seven ships, and six or seven hundred men, under the command of the said Stuyvesant; and fell unawares on the Swedish settlements." Assailed under such circumstances, and by such a force, re- sistance was of little avail. One Swedish fort after another fell into the hands of the invaders, who "laid waste the houses and plantations, killing the cattle, and plundering the inhabitants of every thing they could lay their hands on." The officers and principal people were made prisoners, and carried to New Amsterdam, while the Dutch retained possession of the country.
That the Swedes were in a state so unprepared for the attack made upon them by the Dutch, was owing to the mother country being but little able to assist them, on account of the expensive wars in which she was engaged at home. The Dutch were fully aware that all the reliance of the Swedes was on their own resources ; and while they looked to this for an easy conquest of their territory, no doubt calculated also
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that here they would find subsequent impunity. In justification of the hostility he had committed, Stuy- vesant pretended that what he had done was in the name of the West India Company of Amsterdam, and that he had not conquered a territory of the Swedish crown, but that of a company. Yet he very well knew that these people were living under the laws of Swe- den, and under the guardianship of the Swedish crown; and that, consequently, any insult or injury offered them, was an offence against the government under whose protection they were placed.
In 1656, or about a year after the conquest by the Dutch, a Swedish ship, called Mercurius, arrived in the river. This the Dutch wished to prevent going up; but the Indians, who loved the Swedes, interfered in their behalf, and in defiance of the others, con- veyed the ship by their fort. " Among the passengers in this vessel," says Mr. Rudman, "was Andrew Bengston, sen .* yet living, who, this 6th day of April, 1703, gives me this verbal account." As it was not in the power of the mother country, on account of the wars in which she was engaged, to prevent the conquest of New Sweden by the Dutch, so, for the same reason, was she unable to carry into effect her disposition to recover what she had thus lost. It was not long, however, before the face of things here was
* His descendants (the Bankson family) are still living in Philadelphia.
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entirely changed; and they who had dispossessed the Swedes, by the exercise of a high-handed authority, were themselves dispossessed by the English, who claimed the right of first discovery to most of the North American continent. It was in 1664 that a British force arrived from England, and, attacking the Dutch in their strong hold at New York, soon put an end to their authority, bringing them and the Swedes under allegiance to the British crown.
The manner in which Pennsylvania became settled by the English is well known. The large territory comprehended under this name, was granted by Charles II. to William Penn, in compensation of a large sum owed by the government to his father, Admiral Penn. Penn came over in 1682, and founded the city of Philadelphia. The Swedes, who were owners of the soil; opposed the undertaking, but by kind promises and other means were, after a while, induced to agree to it. "The city," Mr. Rudman says, "had a poor beginning, but attained admirable improvement in twenty years."* Penn offered the Swedes a portion of land, where they might live together, and enjoy their own customs; but they pre- ferred remaining as they were, which their descend- ants, in Rudman's time, seem bitterly to have re- gretted.
* About the time of Mr. Rudman's arrival, in 1697, Phil- adelphia and New York were spoken of as clever little towns.
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About this time an impostor, who bore the name of Koenigsmark, arrived among the Swedes, and having gained many adherents, especially among the Finns, raised a sedition, though with what object does not appear. This man was apprehended, branded, and exiled. His followers were fined, and some lost their land. The disturbances occasioned in this manner seem to have lessened the good opinion Penn had formed of the Swedes. He continued, however, his good offices towards them ; and having before this re- turned to England, sent them books and catechisms, and a folio Bible for their church.
In a letter written by William Penn to England the year after his arrival, he thus speaks of the first settlers of the country: "The first planters in these parts were the Dutch, and soon after them the Swedes and Finns. The Dutch applied themselves to traffic, the Swedes and Finns to husbandry. The Dutch have a meeting place for religious worship at Newcastle, and the Swedes one at Christina, one at Tinicum, and one at Wicaco, within half a mile of this town. The Swedes inhabit the freshes of the river Delaware. There is no need of giving any description of them, who are better known in England than here; but they are a plain, strong, industrious people, yet have made no great progress in the culture or propagation of fruit-trees, as if they desired rather to have enough than plenty or traffic. But I presume the Indians
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made them the more careless, by furnishing them with the means of profit, to wit, skins and furs for rum, and such strong liquors. They kindly received me, as well as the English, who were few before the people concerned with me came among them. I must needs commend their respect to authority, and kind be- haviour to the English. They do not degenerate from the old friendship between both kingdoms. As they are a people proper and strong of body, so have they fine children, and almost every house full ; rare to find one of them without three or four boys, and as many girls; some six, seven, and eight sons. And I must do them the justice to say, I see few young men more sober and industrious." *
It was a feature deserving of notice in the character of the early Swedes inhabiting this country, as will more fully appear in the sequel of these annals, that in the attention they paid to other concerns and inter- ests, they never appear to have lost sight of those relating to God, and the worship due to him. As a religious people they are presented to us in a most favourable light, and may well be held up as an example for the imitation of their numerous descend- ants still occupying the soil so long ago inhabited by their ancestors. In coming to this new country, they did not forget that their residence in it was to be but for a season, and there was another, and a
* Clarkson's Life of W. Penn, vol. i, p. 309.
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heavenly country, for which it was their duty to make preparation. They accordingly brought with them the ministers of religion, to instruct them and their children in the knowledge of things divine. In the time of Menewe there was a clergyman here of the name of Reorus Torkillus, who came, perhaps with the first colony, as he died in 1643, aged thirty-five years. The Rev. Jno. Campanius, as we have seen, came over in 1642. He returned to Sweden in 1648, became rector of a considerable parish, and lived to the age of eighty-two years. Laurence Lock and Israel Holg came while Printz was governor. A chaplain came with Rising, and went home after the conquest by the Dutch. A clergyman also arrived in the same ship with Mr. Bengtson in 1656, but did not remain long. Lock continued in the country, having charge of the church at Tinicum and Christina, and died in the year 1688. From him many families de- scended, and several are yet living in West Jersey, near the Delaware. They were among the best mem- bers of Racoon church.
As long as the Swedes were in possession of author- ity here, and lived under their own laws, there appears to have been frequent intercourse between them and the mother country ; at least frequent for that time, when a voyage across the Atlantic was considered as formidable an undertaking as one to China is at the present day. But when their colonial character ceased,
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and the Dutch, and afterwards the English, became masters of the soil, the intercourse between them and their friends at home was, in a short time, entirely dropped, and they were left to get along in the best way they could. In matters relating to their temporal concerns, they stood in need of little assistance. But for a supply of clergymen they were entirely de- pendent on the mother country; and soon felt how much they were likely to suffer, in this respect, from the interruption that had taken place to the inter- course between them and their native land. For many years the Rev. Mr. Lock was the only clergyman they had. As already remarked, he preached in the lower parishes. The upper inhabitants had, by order of government, erected a block-house at Wicaco, for defence against the Indians. As the distance to Tini- cum rendered attendance at public worship there very inconvenient, this block-house was converted into a church. To get a place of worship was easier than to find a clergyman to occupy it. They applied, for this purpose, to the Rev. Jacob Fabritius, of New York, who accepted a call to Wicaco, where he preached his first sermon on Trinity Sunday,* in the year 1677.
* Mr. Fabritius preached in the Dutch language, which the Swedes, from the intercourse they had had with that people, and the close affinity between the two languages, well under- stood.
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Mr. Fabritius preached for the Swedes for a period of fourteen years, though for nine years of that time he was entirely blind. Being at last disabled from further services through the infirmities of old age, the people were under serious apprehensions lest they should be left without a minister. To prevent so great an evil, they had, while Mr. F. was yet able to officiate, twice written to Sweden, representing their want of a pastor. These letters, it appears, were never received. Discouraged by this failure, they applied to the Lutheran Consistory at Amsterdam, to procure for them a minister, by ordaining and send- ing them some Swedish student of theology who might be in that city ; or, if no such person could be obtained, to correspond in their behalf with some ecclesiastical body in Sweden. This letter was written in 1691 .*
The reason of this application of the Swedes to Holland rather than to England was, their ignorance of the English language, and the little intercourse they had had with the latter nation; as well as the greater probability, as they thought, of getting a Swedish minister through the former channel than the latter. Here again, however, they were destined to meet with disappointment. No preacher came, and the prospect became very dark and gloomy. The Rev. Mr. Lock had died in 1688, and Mr. Fabritius four or five years afterwards, so that they were now
* See Appendix Page 114.
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entirely without a clergyman. In this extremity they resolved still to keep their churches open, and ap- pointed two worthy and pious men to perform for them the office of Lay readers ; who, besides the prayers and psalms, read homilies or sermons. The person who officiated in this capacity at Wicaco was Mr. Andrew Benktsen or Bankson; and at Christina they had Mr. Charles Christopher Springer .*
We here arrive at a most interesting part of our narrative. The reader has observed with what a holy and praise-worthy zeal the attention of the first set- tlers on this soil was directed to the introduction and continuance among them of the blessings of a preached Gospel; he has seen that, after succeeding in this for a period of rather more than fifty years, they found all their efforts to have the vacant congre- gations supplied with other clergymen, to administer to them and their children the ordinances of the church, ending in utter disappointment, and a dark
* This Mr. Springer wrote the letter to Thelin, presently to come under our notice. He was a native Swede, and had come to America by a remarkable providence. He was in the family of the Swedish ambassador in London. Going home one ere- ning in a post-chaise, he was seized, and carried on board of a merchant vessel, in the Thames, bound to Virginia. He was there sold as a servant for five years. When free, he went to the Swedes, and by his capacity and virtue acquired such influence as to be appointed justice of the peace, in the district of Christina. He was afterwards, for many years, a useful member of that church.
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cloud resting on the future. Now who that has observed the usual dealings of God's providence in behalf of his people, where they have been thrown into difficulties such as the present, is not led to expect his interposition in behalf of these pious Swedes, thus striving to secure to themselves and their posterity the privileges and blessings of the ministry of his church ? It is when human aid fails, that divine assistance is not only most needed, but is most looked for, and in its exercise is most apt to strike the eye of the observer. We know there are some disposed to deny this doctrine of a superintending providence, and to laugh at the idea of God interposing in the affairs of men. But what will not man deny when acting under the impulses of "an evil heart of un- belief?" It is true, God acts through the instru- mentality of human means; as when he made use of the brethren of Joseph for the accomplishment of those wonderful designs of his providence brought about by the residence of the latter in Egypt. But his controlling influence is not the less seen and felt in the world because he makes use of subordinate agents for the accomplishment of his purposes. Let the means be what they may, we are sure of the truth of the doctrine; as every one must be sure of it who receives the scriptural declaration that "God ruleth in the armies of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth."
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With regard to the Swedes, in the crisis of their affairs at which we have arrived, while all was dark before them, He, "without whom not even a sparrow falleth to the ground," was preparing the way for the supply of their spiritual wants, and in a short time afforded them the deliverance they had been seek- ing. About the time of which we are writing, a per- son of the name of Andrew Printz, a nephew, as he said, of Governor Printz, had come over in an English vessel to the Delaware, and being himself a Swede, had become acquainted with his countrymen here, by whom he had been cordially received. Meeting, on his return to Sweden, with John Thelin, postmaster at Gothenburg, he mentioned to that gentleman his hav- ing met, across the Atlantic, with some of their coun- trymen, whose condition he represented as very com- fortable in things temporal, but very forlorn and destitute in a spiritual point of view. This pious man was at once interested in their behalf, and he resolved to lay their case before the king, Charles XI. This led to the following letter, which was addressed by Mr. Thelin to the Swedes on the Delaware:
" Hon. Friends and Countrymen,
"The occasion that leads me to write to you is, that when last year I was at Stockholm I met with one Andrew Printz, who, I found, had been in an English vessel to the West Indies. Upon my questioning him
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whether he had a prosperous voyage, he told me he had found there a good land, and had also met with some old Swedes in good prosperity, who had greatly rejoiced to see one from their native country, and had inquired who was now the reigning king of Sweden : and that you, good friends, had confidence in his majesty that if he were made acquainted with your want of ministers and godly books, he would provide for your necessities. When he had related such things to me, I took greatly, as did others, your condition to heart; and having good friends at his majesty's court, I related these things to an honourable lord, who again mentioned them to his majesty. Whereupon his majesty took therein a special and particular in- terest, and resolved that he would send unto you not only ministers, but also all sorts of godly books; and would willingly have used for an agent in accomplish- ing these purposes the same man who had related these things. But the Lord knoweth what became of that man; for he could not be seen or heard of afterwards. Therefore I now do take that boldness upon me, being acquainted with an elderly woman here, who says she has a brother living among you, Peter Gun- narson Rambo, through whom this letter may be re- ceived, that I may know from you the truth of what has been related, and in what way such ministers may be sent to you ; desiring that you would let it be dis- tinctly known of what it is you are in need.
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"The aforesaid person has told me, that you live comfortably, and in a loving manner one with another, and that you use the old Swedish way in everything, which it has much pleased his majesty to hear. And, surely, the great and special care which his majesty taketh for you should rejoice our hearts; who being in close friendship and alliance with his most excellent majesty of England, your desires may be the more readily carried into effect. Indeed, this work doth certainly come and spring from the Almighty God, in whose hands are the hearts of kings, so that you may speedily send your answer, that it may be for your soul's health and happiness. And we desire to know the number of ministers and books which you desire to have; and also how many you are in number, and how many churches you have.
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