USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, comprising a historical sketch of the county > Part 3
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The Huron-Iroquois family of Indian nations were settled on the great water-ways in New York, when the Spanish, English, Dutch and French made their first settlements along the Atlantic seaboard, and by strategy and prow- ess in war, had won mastery and supremacy in the northern part of the great Indian em- pire of the new world, that stretching for nine thousand miles, from pole to pole, rivaled imperial Rome during her golden age, in territory, population and rich mines.
At first the Huron-Iroquois consisted of five nations, the Mohawks, Oneidas, Onondagas, Cayugas and Senecas. In 1712 they were joined by the Tuscaroras from the Carolinas and became the celebrated Six Nations of American history. Feared and dreaded by all other Indian nations, their fearful battle cry was heard from under the frowning walls of Quebec to the swamps of the Carolinas and the canebrakes of Louisiana. They were successful in war with every Indian rival, and among the tribes who sunk beneath the prow- ess of their arms and became their vassals was the Leni Lenape or Delawares.
The Delawares, after being conquered by the Iroquois or Five Nations, continued in pos- session of the soil of southeastern Pennsyl- vania, as tenants at will of their New York masters, yet enjoyed a larger measure of
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
freedom than their brethren in the central and northern parts of the State. They were not allowed to engage in war, were placed on a footing with women, but received a guaran- teed protection as incident to their vassalage, although often subjected to the intrusion of Iroquois parties who came to fish and trade. The Minqnates, a branch of the Iroquois, and who resided on the Conestoga, made the most frequent visits to the banks of the Delaware river, where they were a menace to the Dela- wares, and after 1642, a source of annoyance to the whites.
The Leni Lenape, or Delaware, that resided within the present boundaries of the county, were divided into small tribes, generally occu- pying tributaries of the river. Each of these tribes was often known to the whites by the name of the stream on which it was located. The tribe having its lodges on Crum and Rid- ley creek, in the vicinity of Chester, John Hill Martin says, were the Okchockings, and he refers to a warrant, at Harrisburg, which was issued in 1702, granting them a reservation of five hundred acres of land near Willistown, Chester county.
By 1755 the Delawares had left the county, and the last representative of the tribe in Ches- ter county and southeastern Pennsylvania, "Indian Hannah," died near West Chester, March 20, 1802, at seventy-one years of age.
Although the first settlers came in contact with all of these tribes, traveled over their paths through the forest and were at their vil- lages, yet they failed to either make record or hand down to the present through tradition the names of the tribes and the locations of their trails and villages. The stirring events of rival settlement and opposing claims of ownership between Holland and Sweden ab- sorbed the attention of the early historians of the county, to the utter neglect of its Indian history. Their neglect permitted the fast- fading traditions of tribe and village and of chief and trail to pass from recollection and sink into oblivion.
DUTCH OCCUPATION.
Holland is the most common English name of that country in Continental Europe which is nationally designated as the Kingdom of the Netherlands, and whose spirit of commer- cial enterprise led to the discovery and ex- ploration of the Delaware bay and river.
With the discovery of Delaware bay is asso- ciated the name of one of the world's greatest discoverers - Henry Hudson -who carried the flag of Holland into the new world, where he eventually found that great body of water which bears his name, "at once his monu- ment and his grave."
Henry Hudson, the celebrated English nav- igator, after having made two unsuccessful voyages in the employ of London merchants, in search of a northern passage to the East Indies, entered the service of the Dutch East India Company with the same object in view. He sailed from Amsterdam on April 4, 1609, in a yacht called the " Half Moon " ( " Halve- mann" ), of eighty tons burden. Failing to reach Nova Zembla, on account of fogs and ice, he abandoned his original object and sought to seek a northwest passage to China through the new discovered lands west and southwest of Iceland and Greenland. It is said that Capt. John Smith suggested to Hud- son the idea of a passage extending from the Atlantic coast at some point south of Vir- ginia. However it may be, of truth or fiction, as to Smith's influencing Hudson to visit the North American shore in search of a short water route to China, yet the latter cruised as far south as the mouth of the Chesapeake bay, and then turning northward ran into the mouth of Delaware bay "about noon of Fri- day, August 28, 1609, a warm clear day." Finding numerous shoals, he listened to the advice of his officers to give up the explora- tion of the bay, as they were convinced that "he that will thoroughly explore this great bay must have a small pinnace that must draw four or five feet water, to sound before
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OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
him." By this decision the possibility of Dutch occupation on the banks of the Dela- ware bay and river was postponed for nearly fifteen years, during which period New Ams- terdam was founded and monopolized nearly all emigration from Holland. On the morn- ing of the 29th Hudson put to sea, and seven days later discovered " the Great North River of New Netherland" that to-day bears his honored name.
The next year after Hudson had discovered the Delaware bay, it was entered by Capt. Samuel Argall, who is said to have named it Delaware bay in honor of Thomas West, Lord De La War, then governor of Virginia. In 1610 it is claimed that Lord Delaware visited the bay, and that he died on shipboard off "the Capes," when on a second visit in 1618.
Between the two asserted visits of Lord Delaware, the bay was visited in 1614 by Capt. Cornelius Jacobz Mey, in the Fortune, a vessel owned by the city of Hoorn, which was to have exclusive privileges of trade dur- ing four voyages with any " new courses, ha- vens, countries or places " discovered by Mey. This voyage of Captain Mey seems to have terminated in no wise advantageous to the city of Hoorn, and he left the bay after nam- ing the two capes at its entrance - Cape Cor- nelius and Cape Mey (now May) - after him- self.
After Mey's departure the bay remained un- visited for two years, and then its waters were ruffled by the prow of the Restless, the first vessel built by Europeans in this country. The Restless ( Unrust ) was a small yacht, forty-four and one-half feet long by eleven and one-half feet wide, of sixteen tons burden, built at the mouth of the "Manhattan river" and commanded by Capt. Cornelius Hendrick- son, whose report of his explorations received but little credence in Holland. Some histor- ians accept his report of exploring the Dela- ware river as high as the mouth of the Schuyl- kill as correct, while others pronounce it false and claim the description that he furnished
was obtained from the Indians along the Dela- ware bay. If he actually made the voyage he is entitled to the honor of having first discov- ered the territory of Delaware county.
In the meantime in Holland, where the pol- itical and social condition of the people must be considered in connection with the physical conformation of the country, steps had been taken to establish trading posts in every part of the New Netherlands. To secure this ob- ject the great Dutch West India Company was incorporated in 1621. As the results of the wide reaching policy of this company, many trading posts were established to con- trol the fur trade with the Indians between New France and Virginia. The country on the Delaware received a dne share of atten- tion, and in 1624 the company sent Captain Mey in the ship New Netherland with several persons to establish a fortified trading post on the "South River." He built Ft. Nassau, near the mouth of Timber creek, in Gloucester county, New Jersey. While this post was es- tablished for trade and not as a nucleus of a settlement, yet, according to the deposition of Catelina Tricho, taken in 1684. at New York, there were four women who married at sea and went with their husbands to the Delaware and were with them there until the temporary abandonment of Ft. Nassau.
A year's occupation of Ft. Nassau was ter- minated by an order for its vacation, as the garrison was needed to re-inforce the colony at Manhattan. A temporary need called for a desertion of Ft. Nassau, but the Dutch did not contemplate an abandonment of the coun- try, and now perceived the necessity for estab- lishing settlements in order to hold the fur trade, as the English traders were encroach- ing on their territory both from the north and south to engage in competitive barter with the Indians.
This state of affairs led to the founding of settlements by the Dutch West India Com- pany, who sought to introduce the feudal ten- ure of lands in the New Netherlands, where
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BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
the wealthy immigrant who could in four years plant a colony of fifty souls, was to be- come a Patroon, or absolute owner of a large tract of land. The Patroon could have a river front of sixteen miles and an extension back into the country as far as "the situation of the occupiers will admit." If his lands were on both sides of a river, eight miles front was only to be accorded him, and he was to be supplied with as many blacks as the company could conveniently furnish.
While the policy of making settlements was under discussion in Holland, Samuel Goodyn and Samuel Bloemmaert formed a company for settlement on the Delaware, consisting of themselves and David Preterszen De Vries, Killian Van Rensselaer, Jan De Laet, Matthys Van Keulen. Nicholas Van Sittsright, Harneck Koek, and Heyndrick Hamel. all directors of the West India Company except De Vries. They purchased a tract of land sixteen miles square, extending from Cape Henlopen north- ward toward the mouth of the Delaware river. To this tract of land Capt. Peter Heyes, in the ship Walrus, conveyed a small colony in the winter of 1630 31. The colonists settled on Lewes creek, where they intended to es- tablish a whale and seal-fishery station as well as tobacco and grain plantations. They built a fort, which they called Ft. Oplandt, and named their settlement Swanendale, or Valley of Swans, "because of the great number of those birds in the neighborhood." In 1632 De Vries came with additional emigrants, but found the fort a charred ruin and the bones of the settlers bleaching in the sun. He adroitly induced an Indian to remain over night on his vessel, and from the savage obtained an account of the capture of the fort and the mas- sacre of the settlers. The particulars of the destruction of the colony, as related by the Indian, we give in the language of De Vries, who says: "He the Indian) then showed us the place where our people had set up a column, to which was fastened a piece of tin, whereon the arms of Holland were painted.
One of their chiefs took this off, for the pur- pose of making tobacco-pipes, not knowing that he was doing amiss. Those in command at the house made such an ado about it that the Indians, not knowing how it was, went away and slew the chief who had done it, and brought a token of the dead to the house to those in command, who told them that they wished that they had not done it; that they should have brought him to them, as they wished to have forbidden him not to do the like again. They went away and the friends of the murdered chief incited their friends, as they are a people like the Indians, who are very revengeful, to set about the work of ven- geance. Observing our people out of the house, each one at his work, that there was not more than one inside, who was lying sick, and a large mastiff, who was chained,-had he been loose they would not have dared to approach the house, -and the man (Gillis Hossett , who had command standing near the house, three of the stoutest Indians, who were to do the deed, bringing a lot of bear skins with them to exchange, sought to enter the house. The man in charge went in with them to make the barter, which being done, he went to the loft where the stores lay, and in descending the stairs one of the Indians seized an axe and cleft his head so that he fell down dead. They also relieved the sick man of life, and shot into the dog, who was chained fast and whom they most feared, twenty-five arrows before they could dispatch him. They then proceeded toward the rest of the men, who were at work, and going amongst them with pretensions of friendship, struck them down. Thus was our young col- ony destroyed. causing us serious loss."
On New Year's day. 1633, De Vries con- cluded a treaty of peace with the Indians, whom he was too weak to punish for their destruction of Swanendale, and sailed up the river to Ft. Nassau, where he refused to bar- ter with the Indians for furs, saying he wanted beans. He was told to go to Timmerkill,
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OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
opposite the site of Philadelphia, where he could obtain corn, but before sailing he was secretly warned by an Indian woman, to whom he had given a cloth dress, that if he went he and his men would be attacked and probably murdered like the crew of an English vessel that had gone there a few months prior to that time. De Vries. however, went, and being fore- warned, prevented an attack on his vessel by the Indians, whom he reproached for their in- tended treachery, and after concluding a treaty with them, sailed to Virginia, where he ob- tained sufficient provisions to last him on his voyage to Europe. When De Vries left the capes there was no European on either the Delaware bay or river.
Two years after De Vries left, in 1635, George Holmes, with his hired man, and Thomas Hall and about a dozen other Englishmen left Con- necticut to take possession of Ft. Nassau, but the Dutch being apprised of the movement immediately garrisoned the deserted post, and when the English arrived they were taken prisoners. Thus the projected New England settlement was prevented, and the prisoners were sent to Manhattan, where they were al- lowed to permanently settle.
On February 7, 1635, the Patroon owners of the Swanendale lands re-transferred them to the Dutch West India Company for 15,600 guilders ($6,240). Thus private enterprise on the part of the Dutch ceased on the Delaware, and but little is known as to how Ft. Nassau was garrisoned for the next three years, at the end of which time a contestant for the South River territory appeared in the Swede. The period of Dutch colonization and settlement on the Delaware was at an end, while the second period of Dutch rule there that com- menced seventeen years later was one only of government over a subjugated people of an- other nationality for less than two years.
SWEDISH SETTLEMENT.
After the alleged pre-Columbian discoveries of portions of the North American continent,
came its practical discovery by Columbus, and Spain was the first nation to discover, to con- quer and to colonize any part of this country, but England soon won from her the mastery of the sea, which caused the " sun of Spanish world dominion to set as quickly as it had risen." In the colonization of this country Spain had powerful rivals in England, France and Holland, who claimed large areas of ter- ritory by discovery and settlement; but the last claimant for colonial possessions on the territory of the United States was the bold and warlike Swede of the Scandinavian pen- insula, who based his right of possession of lands discovered by others, alone upon settle- ment and purchase from the Indian.
Swedish settlement in this country was con- fined to the planting of a colony on the Dela- ware on lands claimed by both the Dutch and the English, although the latter had not yet attempted any forcible possession of New Netherlands.
The monarchs of the old world sought to establish grand kingdoms in the new world that should bear names expressive of the per- petuity, progress and power of the parent kingdoms in Europe, and so upon the map of the western and new found world appeared the names of New Spain, New France, New Netherlands and New England. The Swedes were equally ambitious with the Spanish, French, Dutch and English of founding a mighty kingdom in the new discovered lands toward the setting sun, and Gustavus Adol- phus, the greatest of the line of Swedish kings, turned his attention to America, where he hoped to found a New Sweden-an ideal empire in which religions freedom should exist and human servitude should never be intro- duced. It seems that Gustavus Adolphus had selected no particular place along the Atlantic coast as an objective point of settlement, and as late as 1635 the Swedes had considered the coast of Guiana and Brazil as possessing the most favorable attractions.
Gustavus Adolphus, in 1624, invited Wil-
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
liam Usselinex, an ex-director of the Dutch West India Company, who had visited Sweden, to remain in the Swedish kingdom. Usselinex had drafted the plan of the Dutch West India Company, and when he was cast aside by younger rivals he came to Sweden, where he planned a Swedish West India Company, which was to be chartered by Gustavus Adol- phus. This company was to be a commercial organization, whose object to form a colony in " foreign parts " met with the Swedish king's warmest approval. His death at the battle of Lutzen left the project to be carried out by Axel Oxenstierna, the great chancellor of Sweden.
In 1635, Peter Minuit, who had been pre- viously removed as governor of New Nether- lands, entered into a correspondence with the Swedish authorities, and in all probability suggested the South or Delaware river as a favorable region in which to plant a colony. Two years later he went to Sweden, which he left on August 9. 1637. in command of the first Swedish expedition to America. His ships were the " Kalmar Nyckel" and the "Gri- pen" -a man of war, and a sloop, or tender, while his Swedish colonists were styled in a Dutch state paper as being mostly banditti, a statement to be accepted with a considerable degree of allowance. In the latter part of March or the early part of April, 1638, he landed near the present site of Wilmington, Delaware, where, on the Elbe, now Christiana creek, he erected " Fort Kristina, " so named in honor of Queen Christiana, then ruler of Sweden. The fort was stocked with provisions and goods for barter with the Indians, and placed under command of Lieut. Mäns Kling. Minuit, be- fore erecting his fort. had purchased from the Indians a tract of land of several days jour- ney, on the west bank of the Delaware river, which included the present territory of Dela- ware county. Minuit was warned by Kieft, the director-general of New Netherlands, not to occupy the territory, but knowing the weak- ness of the Dutch, he gave no heed to the warn-
ing, and established the first permanent set- tlement on the Delaware. Concerning the fate of Minuit, Smith says that he died at " Ft. Kristina," and Ashmead states that he started to return to Europe, and was lost at sea on the " Flying Deer," a Dutch vessel which he had visited near St. Thomas, in the West India islands.
For two years the infant settlement on the Delaware was left to take care of itself, and then it was reinforced by a second colony of not a very desirable character. In 1639, Cor- nelius Van Vliet, a Dutch captain, was given command of the "Kalmar Nyckel," which had returned to Sweden, and was ordered to seize on married soldiers who had evaded ser- vice or committed some crime and carry them and their families to New Sweden, as all efforts to procure willing emigrants had failed. Van Vliet proved to be inefficient and negli- gent, and, on complaint of the crew, was dis- charged, his place being supplied by Capt. Pouwell Jansen, a Dutchman, who displayed considerable energy. Jansen arrived at " Ft. Kristina" on April 7, 1640, and bore as pas- sengers Lieut. Peter Hollander, who had been appointed governor of New Sweden, and Rev. Reorus Torkillus, the first Swedish clergyman to come to America. This second colony set- tled some four Swedish miles below Christi- ana, and but little is known of affairs on the Delaware for the next three years, except that in 1642 a general sickness prevailed.
In 1641 the " Kalmar Nyckel " and "Chari- tas" brought a third colony to New Sweden of forest-destroying and other crime-com- mitting Finns, and with them Swedish emi- gration in form of colonies to Christiana ceased.
The next and fourth colony was destined to make the first permanent settlement in the State of Pennsylvania, although some claim that the Dutch settled in Montgomery county previous to 1642.
Smith states that the English had attempted a settlement before 1642 at Salem creek, in New
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OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Jersey, and built a trading house on the west bank of the Delaware, opposite Fort Nassau, prior to the coming of the fourth Swedish colony, but that the Swedes and Dutch united and broke up the settlement and burned the trading house.
The fourth colony left Gottenburg on Novem- ber 1, 1642, in the ships " Fama" and "Swan," and under the command of Lieut .- Col. John Printz, who had been commissioned governor of New Sweden, on August 15, 1642, with a yearly salary of twelve hundred dollars in silver and an allowance of four hundred and six dollars for his expenses. Governor Printz arrived at Fort Christiana on February 15, 1643, and in a short time removed the seat of government from Christiana to Tinicum island, within the present boundaries of Delaware county, where he built Fort Gottenburg, and afterwards erected his mansion-house, known as Printz Hall. Around Fort Gottenburg the principal inhabitants had their houses and plantations.
Governor Printz received ample plenary powers from the youthful queen of Sweden, and was to govern New Sweden, to preserve amity and correspondence with foreigners and other natives, and to render justice without distinction. His instructions embraced the care of the colony while at sea, and the gov- ernment of the province after landing. He was to colonize the English, at Ferken's Kill on the east side of the Delaware river, under Swed- ish rule, or remove them. He was to comport himself as was agreeable to the Dutch at Fort Nassau, as they were not attempting to occupy the west side of the Delaware river, but to re- pel force by force if necessary in case of Dutch invasion. He was to protect Jost de Bogard's Dutch settlement, some three miles from Fort Christiana, and see that the Swedes furnish the Indians with things they required at lower prices than those they received from the Dutch or English. He was to promote agriculture, and increase tobacco culture and cattle and sheep raising, and the cultivation of the vine, 3
while salt making and the location of minerals were to be carefully looked after. He was to control judiciously the Indian peltry trade, es- tablish whale fisheries and investigate the sub- ject of raising silk-worms. With such ample powers and so many things to look after, Gov- ernor Printz held an important and responsi- ble position, and his administration was rea- sonably successful considering the condition of the colony and the Dutch and English op- position he had to encounter.
Governor Printz secured the control of the Delaware river, above Tinicum island, by the erection of Fort Gottenburg, and his next move was to render Fort Nassau almost useless to the Dutch by building Fort Elsenburgh at Salem creek, on the east side of the Delaware. His third move was to erect, in 1643, a grist mill on Crum creek, where the holes sunk in the rocks to support the frame work are still to be seen, near the Blue Bell tavern on the Darby road. This mill was a great improvement on the windmill that was used previous to its erection. Printz also examined several water- falls with a view of erecting saw-mills, but gave up the project, as he had no saw blades.
Between 1643 and 1645, some of the Swedes settled at Chester, which they called Upland, and shortly thereafter the Finns must have become residents along the river front at Marcus Hook, which section was marked as " Finland " on the early maps.
The emigrants to New Sweden were of three classes : Freemen, servants for a designated term of service, and vagabonds and malefac- tors, who were sent as slaves to the Delaware and dwelt apart from the rest of the inhabi- tants. In 1647 there were but one hundred and eighty-three whites in the Swedish settle- ments on the Deleware, and six thousand nine hundred and twenty pounds of tobacco was sent in the Golden Shark to Sweden.
Printz was often overbearing and insolent, yet during his administration, which ended in 1653, New Sweden saw its palmy days. When he sailed for Sweden he placed the govern-
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