USA > Pennsylvania > Delaware County > Biographical and historical cyclopedia of Delaware County, Pennsylvania, comprising a historical sketch of the county > Part 4
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34
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
ment in charge of John Pappegoya, who had married his daughter, Armigart, a prominent character in succeeding years in the history of New Sweden.
Pappegoya held the reins of government but a few months, when he was relieved by John Claude Rysingh, who arrived on the Eagle on May 21, 1654. Vice Governor Rysingh signal- ized the commencement of his administration by an act that violated his instructions and fur- nished a plea for the Dutch invasion of the succeeding year. About 1651 Governor Stuy- vesant, of the New Netherlands, took steps to buy all the Swedish lands on the Delaware of Indian chiefs, who claimed to be the lawful owners, and then proceeded against Printz's remonstrance to erect Fort Cassimer, on the west side of the Delaware bay, near the site of New Castle, Delaware, which rendered the Swedish Fort Elsenburgh useless, and com- manded the river above Fort Christiana. Rys- ingh injudiciously invested Fort Cassimer, and compelled its surrender, on Trinity Sunday. In honor of the day, Rysingh called the cap- tured fort the "Fort of the Holy Trinity."
Rysingh concluded a great treaty with the Indians on June 17, 1654, which was faithfully observed by the Swedes and the savages, and commenced measures for the improvement of the colony that were short-lived on account of his first official act of capturing Fort Cassimer.
The news of the capture of Fort Cassimer aroused great indignation in Holland, where the erection of that fort was not fully approved. Stuyvesant was ordered to recapture the fort and drive all the Swedes from both sides of the river who would not become subjects of the government of the New Netherlands.
On September 9, 1655, Stuyvesant appeared with a fleet of seven vessels carrying six hun- dred men before Fort Cassimer, which was re- duced by the 11th. Fort Christina was next taken, and Fort Gottenburg surrendered after a siege of fourteen days. Rysingh charged the Dutch with unwonted cruelty and the ruthless destruction of valuable property. John Paul
Jacquit was appointed by the Dutch as gov- ernor, and Fort Gottenburg was abandoned. Shorty after Jacquit became governor, the Swedish ship Mercury arrived with one hun- dred and thirty emigrants to whom the Dutch refused permission to either land or to pro- ceed up the Delaware river. Finally the Swedes through the infl ience of Pappegoya ( Governor Printz's son-in-law) induced a number of In- dians to come on board the vessel, and knowing that the Dutch would not fire on the savages, boldly weighed anchor and sailed past the fort, landing at Christiana.
The expenses of the Dutch .expedition to conquer New Sweden had been so heavy to the Dutch West India Company that in the summer of 1656, in order to discharge a part of its debt to the city of Amsterdam it ceded all of its Delaware river territory from Bombay Hook to Christiana creek to the bur- gomaster of that municipality. This ceded ter- ritory was known as the City's colony (New Amstel), while the land north of that creek was designated as the Company's colony.
Georan Van Dyck became sheriff of the Com- pany's colony and failed in several attemps to gather the Swedish settlers into villages. Beek- man, vice-director of the Company's colony also sought to concentrate the Swedes into vil- lages and likewise failed. In 1659 there was estimated to be two hundred families of Swedes and Finns in the Company's colony, aggregat- ing about one thousand of a population. The seat of justice was removed from Gottenburg to Fort Altena, which was six Dutch miles from the Swedes mill on Crum creek, and the Swed- ish magistrates, who had given in their adher- ence to the Dutch, were continued in office. On December 22, 1663, the city of Amsterdam, in full payment of the debt owed to it by the Dutch West India Company, received a deed from the latter for all its remaining territory on the Delaware river. The authority of the city of Amsterdam was of short duration - only nine months ere it was overthrown by a new contestant for power on the banks of
35
OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
the Delaware-the world-conquering English- man.
ENGLISH CONQUEST.
By the right of Cabot's discovery England had always claimed the territory on the Dela- ware, but on account of home dissensions did not attempt an exercise of authority over it by force of arms until 1664. Charles II., of Eng- land, on March 12, 1664, granted the territory of the States of New York and New Jersey to his brother James, Duke of York and of Al- bany, and by a subsequent grant conveyed to him the territory of the State of Delaware, yet he never granted to him the territory of Penn- sylvania, which he held from 1664 to 1682.
The Duke of York immediately fitted out an expedition for the conquest of his new coun- try. It consisted of fonr war vessels and four hundred and fifty men, under the command of Col. Richard Nicolls, and sailed on May 25, 1664, from Portsmouth, England. In the lat- ter part of August this expedition arrived at New Amsterdam, which surrendered on Sep- tember gth, and was named New York, in honor of the Duke of York. The remainder of the Dutch settlements along the Hudson river passed peacefully into the hands of the Eng- lish, and Fort Orange was named Albany, in honor of James' dnkedom of Albany.
The next step of the Duke of York, after se- curing control on the Hudson, was to take pos- session of the Delaware river territory and thus complete the conquest of the New Netherlands. On the 3rd (13th new style ) of September, 1664, Sir Robert Carr, with the frigates Guinea and William and Nicholas, set sail for the Delaware, and after a long and tedious voyage arrived in that stream on the last day of September. Carr passed the fort at New Amstel without an ex- change of shot, and then summoned the Dutch to surrender. The town authorities agreed after three days' negotiations to surrender, but D'Hinoyossa and his soldiers refused, " where- npon," Carr says in his official report : "I landed my soldiers on Sunday morning follow- ing & commanded ye shipps to fall downe
before ye Fort withn muskett shott, w" direc- tions to fire two broadsides apeace upon ye Fort, then my soldiers to fall on. Which done the soldiers neaver stopping untill they stormed y" fort, and soe consequently to plundering ; the seamen noe less given to that sporte, were quickly within & have gotten good store of booty ; so that in such a noise and confusion noe worde of command for sometyme ; but for as many goods as I could preserve, I still keepe intire. The loss on onr part was none; the Dutch had tenn wounded and 3 killed. The fort is not tenable, although 14 gunns, and without a greate charge wch unevitably must be expended, here wilbee noe staying, we not being able to keepe itt." In Colonel Nicoll's report to the secretary of state he says that the storming party was commanded by Lieu- tenant Carr and Ensign Hooke ; and notwith- standing the Dutch fired three volleys at the English, not a man was even wounded in the attack. After the fort was captured, Sir Rob- ert Carr landed from the Guinea and claimed the property in the fort as having been won by the sword and belonging to him and his troops. He did not even stop with that demand, but after selling all the soldiers in the fort as slaves to Virginia, he also did likewise with many citizens of New Amstel ( presumably Dutch ), and distributed most of the negroes belong- ing to the Dutch among his troops, as well as one hundred sheep, sixty cows and oxen and forty horses. To this ruthless despoliation of per- sonal property Carr added the confiscation of much real estate and granted a number of the farms of the Dutch to his officers and the com- manders of his ships. The Swedes seemed to have escaped being plundered by Carr's troops, and the Dutch but received the same measure of treatment that they had meted out to the Swedes in 1655.
Ashmead, in concluding his account of the English conquest of the Delaware river coun- try in 1664, says : "When the standard of Great Britain floated from the flagstaffs over the captured Dutch forts on the Hudson and
36
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
the Delaware, it marked the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon race on the North American con- tinent. As authority was then exercised from Maine to Florida, on the Atlantic coast, by a homogeneous people, it made possible the great nation that was born to the world a century later."
Colonel Nicolls did not approve of Carr's course of action, and served as governor of both New York and the Delaware for nearly three years. Smith says that his administration " was conducted with prudence and judgment ; his efforts being especially directed to the pro- motion of trade." During Nicoll's adminis- tration " beavers continued to be used as cur- rency ; and in the payment for imported goods, the standard value fixed on each beaver, by the governor, was eight guilders, or 13s, 4d."
In May, 1667, Col. Francis Lovelace suc- ceeded Nicolls as governor, and two years later an insurrection broke out, headed by Marcus Jacobson, known as the "Long Finn," and Henry Coleman, also a Finn, and a man of property, who was then residing among the In- dians. No over tacts of treason were commit- ted by these two insurrectionary leaders, who contented themselves with "raising speeches very seditious and false, tending to the dis- turbance of his Majesty's peace and the laws of the government." Several other Finns and the "Little Domine," Rev. Laers, and Mrs. Pappegoya, were implicated in this insurrec- tion. Coleman escaped, but his property was confiscated, and the Long Finn was captured and placed in irons. The Long Finn was tried and sentenced to be publicly and se- verely whipped, branded in the face with the letter R, and sent to "Barbadoes and some other of those remote plantations and sold." In January, 1670, he was put on board the ship Fort Albany, bound for Barbadoes, where, without doubt, he was sold into slavery. 'This insurrection, whose leaders were Finns, prob- ably occurred below Upland, in the district then known by the name of Finland.
After the Finn insurrection affairs pro-
gressed with but little interruption until the summer of 1671, when the Indians committed several atrocious murders. Governor Love- lace took wise but firm measures to check further Indian outrages. In November the Indian sachems and William Tom, clerk of the court on the Delaware, held a council at the house of Peter Rambo, at Upland. The sachems promised to deliver the murderers in six days. One of the guilty Indians escaped, and the other, when taken by the two warriors sent by the sachems to effect his capture, placed his hands over his eyes and said, " Kill me," which was done. The body of the dead Indian was delivered at Wiccaco to the Eng- lish, who sent it to New Castle, where it was hung in chains.
The English rule on the Delaware was tem- porarily interrupted by the war between Eng- land and France against the United Belgic Pro- vinces, which lasted from 1672 till February 9, 1674. During the second year of this war, on July 30, 1673, New York and its dependencies on the Delaware surrendered to the Dutch fleet under Admiral Evertsen. Peter Alrichs was appointed commander on the Delaware, with instructions not to confiscate the prop- erty of any one who would take the oath of allegiance to the Dutch government. At the same time three courts of justice were estab- lished by the Dutch on the Delaware - one at New Amstel (New Castle), one at the Hoern Kill, and one at Upland, whose jurisdiction extended provisionally from the "east and west banks of Kristina Kill upwards unto the head of the river." The reestablishment of Dutch authority on the Delaware was com- plete, but in less than a year, by the treaty of peace made on February 9, 1674, between England and the Netherlands, the latter agreed to give up New York and Delaware to the Duke of York ..
On October 1, 1674, English authority was reestablished in New York, and Capt. Edmund Carr was sent to New Castle as commander on the Delaware. On September 25, 1676, the
37
OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Duke of York's laws were promulgated on the Delaware, and a court was appointed at Up- land. On March 25th of the preceding year (1675), Robert Wade, the first member of the Society of Friends to reside within the present boundaries of Delaware county, purchased an estate at Upland. Three years prior to this, in 1672, George Fox, the founder of the So- ciety of Friends, passed through the county in returning from a religious visit to New England. Thus was founded on the territory of Delaware, by Robert Wade, the Society of Friends, which was soon to play an important part in the planting of the English race on the Delaware and the founding of the great " Key- stone State."
ERECTION OF UPLAND COUNTY.
The district and afterwards county of Up- land, by one account, derived its name from Upland, its seat of justice, named from being situated on high or up land; while another account states that the word Upland is de- rived from the Sweedish word upsala, and was so named by some of the Swedes, who came between 1638 and 1642 from the Swedish province of Upsala, whose capital city of Upsala, in the midst of a vast and fertile plain, is the seat `of the oldest university of Sweden, and during the middle ages was an ecclesiastical capital of Scandinavia and north- ern Europe.
Upland was settled at some time between 1642 and 1645, as Andreas Hudde, then the Dutch commissary on the Delaware, speaks of houses not far from Tinnekonk (Tinicum). Martin says among the original Swedish owners of land at Upland were: Dr. Laurentius Carolus, . Neals Matson, Leals Lawson, James Sandi- lands, Just Danielsen, Jurien Keen, Hans Juriensen, Israel Helms, and the Swedish church.
The first seat of government in Delaware county was at Tinicum, where justice was dis- pensed by Governor Printz from 1642 to 1654. The next year the Dutch conquered the prov- 3 a
ince and removed the seat of government to Fort Cassimer. The Dutch established a court at Fort Altena about 1658. On September 12, 1673, there was established by the Dutch Council at New York, "One court of justice for the inhabitants of Upland, to which pro- visionally shall resort the inhabitants both on the east and west banks of Kristiana Kill and upwards unto the head of the river." This is the description of the limits of the extent of the Upland district. In 1676 Governor An- dross appointed three courts on the Delaware, one of which was to be at Upland. This court met on November 14, 1676, and its first act was to order that Mr. Tom, the former clerk, should deliver unto the present clerk, Eph. Herman, the records of the former court. Mr. Tom had kept these records in bad shape and they were returned to him to straighten, which he had not done at the time of his death, and since which time they have never been found.
On November 12, 1678, we have the first official mention of the county of Upland.
At a meeting of Mr. John Moll, president of New Castle court, with the justices of the Up- land court, held at Upland on that day, a divis- ion was confirmed and extended ; the county of Upland was “ to begin from ye north syde ofOele fransens Creeke otherways Called Steen Kill, Lying in the boght above ye verdrietige hoeck, and from the said Creek ouer to ye singletree point on the East syde of this River." In one direction, Upland county extended as far as settlements had been made ; and although the authority of the Duke of York to govern New Jersey had been resisted by Fenwick and others, it had been maintained on the ground that the sovereignty of the country did not pass to Carteret and Berkeley, the purchasers of the soil.
At the November court of this year the jus- tices decided to levy a poll-tax of twenty-six gilders upon each tydable (taxable) person, which included every male inhabitant in the county between the ages of sixteen and sixty
38
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
years, except the justices, who were by the duke's laws exempt from the payment of taxes, except for the support of the church. This levy was to be collected by the high sheriff be- fore the 25th of the following March, and in- stead of money he was authorized to receive " wheat at fyve, Rey and barley att four Gil- ders ? scipple, Indian Corne at three gilders ? scipple, Tobbacco at 8 styvers } pound, porke at Eight and bacon at 16 styvers ? fb: or Elce In wampum or skins att pryce Cour- rant: The Court further ordering and Im- powring the high Sherrife, Cap" EdmondCant- well, to Receive and Collect the same sume of 26 gilders from Every Tydable in the annexed List."
"A List OF THE TYDABLE PRSONS.
ATT TAOKANINK (TACONY).
oele neelson & 2 sons 3
hans moens I
Erick Poulsen . I
Christiaen Tomasse I
Casper fisck
I
Peter Jookum & serv' 2
hans Jurian
I
michill fredericks. I
Justa Daniells & servant. 2 Jonas Juriaensen. I
Hend : Jacobs upon ye Is!ª I
Erick Cock & servant. 2
moens Cock I
Peter nealson. I
gunnar Rambo. I
Lace Cock & servant 2
michill nealson. I
andris Swen & father 2
oele Swenson his servant I Swen Swensen & son 2
John Stille I
Swen Lom I
oele Stille I
andries Benckes I
Jan Mattson.
I
Carried forward. 33
Brought forward. . 33
dunck Williams
I
Tho : Jacobs. I
Jan Claassen & 2 sons. 3
mathias Claassen. I
franck walcker. I
Will Thomasse I
Peter matson . I
Jan Boelsen T
Jan Schoeten . I
Jan Justa and 2 sons 3
Jonas nealson & son. 2
Peter andries & son 2
Lace Dalbo I
Rynier Peterssen.
I
oele dalboo. I
andries Boen
I
Swen Boen I
Pelle Rambo Junior. I
andries Rambo. I
Richard Duckett. T
Mr. Jones ye hatter
I
Soseph Peters
I
Jan Cock. I
Peter Cock, Junior I
harmen Ennis
I
arian andries at Peter Ramboos I
ATT CARKOENS HOEK.
andries homman & son
2
Pelle Erickson I
Benck Saling I
andries Saling I
Laers Boer.
I
hans Peters.
I
Pelle Puttke. I
harmen Jansen.
I
hendrick holman
I
CALKOENS HOEK.
mort mortenson Junior I
Bertell Laersen I
moens Staeckett I
hans Jurian.
I
hendrik Tade.
I
Carried forward. 80
39
OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
Brought forward. 80
andries bertelson. I Jan Bertelson. I
Jan Corneliss" & son . 2
mort. mortense, Senior I
Lace mortense. I
neels matson I
anthony matson. I
hendrick Jacobs I
Jacob hendricx 1
UPLAND.
Claes Schram. I
Robberd Waede
I
Jan hendricx. I
Rich : Bobbinghton. I
James Sanderling & slaue. 2
John Test & servant 2
Jurian kien
I
Rich : noble.
I
Neels Laerson & son 2
henry hastings I
Will : woodman & servant 2
John hayles. I
mich : Yzard.
I
MARR : KILL (MARCUS HOOK).
Jan Jansen. I will : orian . I
Daniell Linsey. I
morten Knoetsen. I
Knoet mortensen. 1
albert hendricx I
Oele Coeckoe.
I
Carell Jansen . I
oele Raessen . I
Thom : Denny I
John Browne I Rich : fredericx 1
hans Oelsen .
I
Tho : harwood I
Jurian hertsveder I
I
Rodger Pedrick.
I
Cristaen Claassen I
Jacob Clocker
I
-
Carried forward. I26
Brought forward. .126
EASTERN SHOURE.
oele Dircks. I
will Bromfield I
Juns Justafs. I
Lace Colman
I
hans hofman an his 2 sons 3
Peter freeman
I
moens Junsen
I
I
I36
136 Tydables in Upland Jurisdiction."
Upon a close calculation, by the number of tythables, the whole population did not exceed six hundred, of whom about two hundred and fifty resided in what is now Delaware county.
In 1680 the seat of justice was removed from Upland to the town of Kingsesse, which, accord- ing to Smith, was in the late township of Kings- essing, in the county of Philadelphia, while Edward Armstrong locates it in the immediate vicinity of the Swedish mill that was erected by Governor Printz, near the Blue Bell tavern, on the Darby road. There seemed to have been no opposition on the part of the settlers at Upland to the removal of the county seat to Kingsessing, where it only remained until the succeeding year, when Penn bought the Del- aware river country and the court for the county was again convened at Upland.
After having briefly passed over the eras of discovery, pioneer settlements and rival con- quests, it may be of some interest to present a list of the rulers on the Delaware from the first settlement in 1624 to the purchase of Penn in 1681.
GOVERNORS AND DIRECTORS OF NEW NETHERLANDS AND ON
THE DELAWARE.
Term of office
Cornelius Jacobsen Mey, Director 1624-1625
William Van Hulst, Director 1625-1626
Peter Minuit, Governor 1626-1633
David Pieterzen De Vries, Governor . 1632-1633
Wouter Van Twiller, Governor 1633-1638
Sir William Kieft, Governor 1638-1647
Poull Corvorn
Peter Stuyvesant, Governor 1647-1664
Andries Inckhoorrn
40
BIOGRAPHY AND HISTORY
GOVERNORS OF THE SWEDES.
Peter Minuit 1638-1641
Peter Hollendaer 1641-1643
John Prinz 1643-1653
John Pappegoya 1653-1654
John Claude Rysingh. 1654-1655
DOMINION OF THE DUTCH.
Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of New Netherlands and of the settlements on the Delaware. 1655-1664
Andreas Hudde, Commissary 1655-1657
John Paul Jacquet, Director 1655-1657
COLONY OF THE COMPANY.
Goeran Van Dyck 1657-1658
William Beekman 1658-1663
COLONY UNITED.
Alexander D'Hinoyossa . 1663-1664
DOMINION OF THE DUKE OF YORK.
Colonel Richard Nichols, Governor 1664-1667
Robert Carr, Deputy Governor. 1664-1667
Robert Needham, (Commander on the Dela-
ware) 1664-1668
Colonel Francis Lovelace 1667-1673
Captain John Carr, (Commander on the Dela-
ware) 1668-1673
DOMINION OF THE DUTCH.
Anthony Colve, Governor of the Netherlands .. 1673-1674 Peter Alrichs, Deputy Governor of the Colonies on the west side of the Delaware 1673-1674
DOMINION OF THE ENGLISH.
Sir Edmund Andross. 1674-1681
[The commanders on the Delaware during this period were Captains Edmund Cantwell, John Collier, Chris- topher Billop and Anthony Brockholst ]
Of these different rulers, Stuyvesant, Printz, Rysingh and Andross were the most noted.
Peter Stuyvesant was a son of a clergyman in Friesland, and lost a leg in the attack on the Portuguese island of St. Martin, where he won praise for courage and received censure for misjudgment. " He was autocratic in manner, decided in speech and prompt in ac- tion." He was a strict churchman, and true to the interests of his company and the New Netherlands as he understood them. He stood for the company against all rivals, either home or foreign. His forced surrender to the Eng- lish galled his proud spirit, but it was una-
voidable. He made his home in New York after 1664, and died at eighty years of age.
John Printz was a man of good education, rose rapidly in military rank in the Prussian and German war, and after disgracefully sur- rendering the fortress of Chemnitz in 1640, was tried and broken of his rank in the army. He was appointed governor of New Sweden, August 16, 1642, and after his return to Europe was made a general, and in 1658 became gov- ernor of the district of Jonkoping. He died in 1663, leaving no male issue. His daughter, Armigart, married John Pappegoya. Smith says of Governor Printz that he "posessed many qualifications that fitted him for the position he occupied. His plans were laid with good judgment, and were executed with energy. He managed the trade of the river with the natives so as to monopolize nearly the whole; and while the jealousy of the Dutch on this account was excessive, he suc- ceeded during his whole administration in avoiding an open rupture with that govern- ment. But he was imperious and haughty, and sometimes gave offense, especially in personal interviews, when a milder course would have better befitted the occasion."
John Claude Rysingh came into prominence only by the accident of becoming acting gov- ernor, and in that capacity committing the blunder that swept New Sweden out of exist- ence as an independent province of the new world. He received a grant of land in Upland and passed out of notice in the future of the province.
The representative of the British govern- ment to receive from the Dutch the provinces of New York and Delaware was Major Ed- mund Andross, of Prince Rupert's dragoons, who had been distinguished in the wars in Holland. He was made governor of the Duke of York's territories in North America. An- dross was afterward knighted, and while known in colonial history as a tyrant, yet did much to give a solid form of government to the counties on the Delaware.
41
OF DELAWARE COUNTY.
CHAPTER IV.
PENN'S PURCHASE-VOYAGE OF THE WEL-
COME - UPLAND NAMED CHESTER - COUNTY OF CHESTER-PROVINCIAL CAP- ITAL-FIRST ASSEMBLY-WELSH TRACT -SWEDES IN 1693-CIRCULAR BOUNDARY LINE.
PENN'S PURCHASE.
In the English settlements and conquests of the Atlantic seaboard, southern colonization was commenced by the Cavaliers at Jamestown. Northern occupation dates to the landing of the Roundheads or Puritans, on Plymouth Rock, and central settlement was inaugurated by the Dutch at New York, as the outgrowth of commercial enterprise, by the Catholic, in Maryland, in behalf of religious toleration, and by Penn, the Quaker, on the Delaware, in the interests of universal liberty.
A few Quakers were settled at Upland and Marcus Hook before Penn sent his first ship to the Delaware, and among theni were : Rob- ert Wade, Roger Pedrick, Morgan Drewet, WVm. Woodmanson, Michael Izzard, Thomas Revel, Henry Hastings, William Oxley, James Browne, Henry Reynolds and Thomas Nossiter.
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