USA > Pennsylvania > Pennsylvania, colonial and federal : a history, 1608-1903, Volume One > Part 7
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from Christina, he decided to make the seat of his authority at Jacques Island, the place called by the Indians Tenacong, and since Tinicum. Not, however, on the island in the stream, our "Little Tinicum," but on the larger one which is now practically part of the mainland. Here he built at once a "fort," so called, of "heavy green logs," laid "the one on the other," and mounted on it four brass cannon. This he called Nye (new) Gottenburg. He made thus the first settlement by white men in Pennsylvania. Besides this, he sent Kling to make a settlement on the Schuylkill. "Log houses, strengthened by small stones" were built there, and a tobacco plantation begun. The Dutch, it is said, had broken up, in 1642, the English post there, a force sent across from Fort Nassau under Jan Jansen Van Ilpendam, the Commissary, having ejected the Englishmen. Later, Kling built on the east bank of the Schuylkill, near its mouth, probably on what was afterward called Province Island, a small fort which was called New Kors- holm. Of this fort Printz says in his report, sent home in Feb- ruary, 1647, that it "is pretty nearly ready."
These operations of Kling, the plantation and the fort, form the first well-authenticated occupancy of white men of the site of the city of Philadelphia. Their beginnings date certainly from the spring of 1644; probably from 1643.
Printz, however, was not content with the forts already de- scribed. A third, called Elfsborg, was built, in 1643, at Varken's kill (Salem) on the east side of the Delaware, near the post which the English colonists from New Haven had established. These adventurers had not prospered. Sickness had sorely beset them. The Dutch harassed them. The fur-trade to be secured in that locality was small. And besides, the mosquitoes tormented them. By the end of 1643, their colony was practically broken up and abandoned. "Slowly, through the winter and spring of 1643-44, the major part of them straggled back to New Haven."
At Tinicum the Swedish settlements now centered. The fort at Christina was small, and its situation gave it no command of
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The Swedish Settlement
the Delaware. That at Tinicum-New Gottenburg-on the con- trary, dominated the river, and nearly destroyed the importance of the Dutch Fort Nassau. In the three or four years following Printz's arrival Tinicum gradually assumed the character of a hamlet. The island was confirmed to him as his personal estate by the Swedish Council at Stockholm, acting in the Queen's name, November 6, 1643, and he built later, probably in 1646, a mansion- house for his own residence, calling the place Printzhof. A church was also built, which Campanius dedicated September 4, 1646. This was the first house of Christian worship within the limits of Pennsylvania. Attached to it was a burial ground, where many of the earlier settlers were interred.
The situation on the Delaware, in the autumn of 1643, is described for us by our old friend De Vries. It had been ten years since he left the river, in the spring of 1633. He had been mainly at Manhattan, meanwhile, and now, being on a trading voyage to Virginia, his ship came up the Delaware. He says in his journal :
"The 13th (October), sailed by Reed Island, and came to the Verckens-kil, where there was a fort constructed by the Swedes, with three angles, from which they fired for us to strike our flag. The skipper asked me if he should strike it. I answered him, 'If I were in a ship belonging to myself, I would not strike because I had been a patroon of New Netherland, and the Swedes were a people who came into our river; but you come here by contrary winds and for the purposes of trade, and it is therefore proper that you should strike.' Then the skipper struck his flag, and there came a small skiff from the Swedish fort, with some Swedes in it, who inquired of the skipper with what he was laden. He told them with Madeira wine. We asked them whether the governor was in the fort. They answered, No; that he was at the third fort up the river, to which we sailed, and arrived at about four o'clock in the afternoon, and went to the governor, who welcomed us. He was named Captain Prins, and a man of brave size, who weighed over four hundred pounds. He asked the skipper if he
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had ever been in this river before, who said he had not. How then had he come in when it was so full of shoals? He pointed to me, that I had brought him in. Then the governor's koopman, who knew me, and who had been at Fort Amsterdam, said that I
IN THOT
JGUSTINE
A
Augustine Herman
A native of Bohemia; received a grant of 20,000 acres of land at head of Chesapeake bay from Lord Baltimore, in 1660. A surveyor of note. After a painting by West
was a patroon of Swanendael at the entrance of the Bay, destroyed by the Indians in the year 1630, when no Swedes were known upon this river. He (the governor) then had a silver mug brought, with which he treated the skipper with beer, and a large glass of Rhenish wine, which was given to me. The skipper traded some wines and sweetmeats with him for peltries, beaver- skins, and stayed here five days from contrary winds. I went once to Fort Nassau, which lies a mile higher up, in which the -
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The Swedish Settlement
people of the West India Company were. I remained there half a day, and took my leave of them, and returned at evening to the Governor of the Swedes.
"The 19th, I went with the governor to the Minckquas-kil, where their first fort was, and where there were some houses. In this little fort there were some iron guns. I stayed here at night with the governor, who treated me well. In the morning, the ship was lying before the Minckquas-kil. I took my leave of the
Days
Signature of David Lloyd, speaker of the Assembly, 1694
governor, who accompanied me on board. We fired a salute for him, and thus parted from him; weighed anchor, and got under sail, and came to the first fort, which was not entirely finished; it was made after the English plan, with three angles close by the river. There were lying there six or eight brass-pieces, twelve- pounders. The skipper exchanged here some of his wines for beaver skins.
"The 20th of October, took our departure from the last fort, or first in sailing up the river, called Elsenburg. The second fort of the Swedes is named Fort Christina; the third, New Gotten- burg."
Printz remained governor of New Sweden for more than ten years. He came, as we have seen, in the spring of 1643; he went back to Sweden in the autumn of 1653. His rule thus covered much more than half of the life of the Swedish colony. The events of his time are of interest to this history, in that they show
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the beginnings of Pennsylvania. In this decade the bare shelters of the first comers became tolerable cabins; the slender stock of horses and cattle increased ; the crops grew in amount and im- portance; families became "settled," and began to feel that this was indeed their home. There was thus a slow but definite evolu- tion of permanent occupancy.
Agriculture had been one of Printz's chief objects, as was natural and reasonable. He could hear of no gold or silver mines, nor of salt deposits, and he thought the culture of silk doubtful, but he planted corn extensively, and after a failure the first year did well with it. Tobacco plantations were begun. Hay was cut from the meadow lands. Rye for bread and for seed was pro- cured at Manhattan, in 1643, and a few cattle. In the autumn of that year rye was sown, and next spring barley ; the crop grew so well "it was delightful to behold."
The year 1643, however, was on the whole a hard one. The little colony was sorely stricken by disease. No less than nineteen of the male population, a large proportion indeed, died that year. "They had hard work and but little to eat," Printz said. Among the dead was the Rev. Reorus Torkillus, the minister at Christina, who died in February, a few weeks before Printz's arrival. Ac- cording to Campanius he had married since coming to the Dela- ware, and left a widow and child.
In March, 1644, the Fame, one of the two ships which had come with Printz, arrived a second time. She brought, unfor- tunately, but few colonists. One of them (he had been here earlier, and now returned) was Johan Papegoia, who soon mar- ried the governor's daughter, Armgard. The Fame sailed for Sweden in June, taking a cargo of 2,142 beaver skins, and 105 hogsheads of tobacco. Printz sent by her a report of the col- ony's condition; it had, he said, 90 men, "besides women and children."
Indian troubles threatened this year. The shocking and un- pardonable cruelties of Kieft, the governor at Manhattan, in which
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hundreds of the natives, up and down the Hudson, and on Long Island, of all ages and both sexes, were slain, disturbed the Indians far and near. All along the Atlantic coast word spread among them of the cruelty of the new-comers. In the spring two white soldiers and a laborer were killed on the Delaware, below Christina, and later a Swedish woman and her husband-he English-were killed between Tinicum and Upland. We may note this latter event as the first white blood shed in Pennsylvania by the Indians. Printz assembled his people for defense at Up- land (Chester). The Indian chiefs of the region came in, dis- owning the act, and desiring peace. The usual treaty was made, presents were distributed, and friendly relations were restored.
There was now a long period without a ship from Sweden. From the Fame's departure, in June, 1644, until October, 1646, none came. It was a trying time. The stock of goods for trade was exhausted, and no beaver or other skins could be secured from the Indians. At the beginning of winter, 1645, a disaster occurred. On the 25th of November, late at night, the fort at Tinicum was set on fire by a soldier, and was totally destroyed. "Not the least thing" was saved, "except the dairy." "The people escaped," Printz wrote, "naked and destitute. The winter immediately set in, bitterly cold; the river and all the creeks froze up," so that no supplies could be had until the middle of March, and Printz adds, "if some rye and corn had not been unthreshed, I myself and all the people with me on the island would have starved to death."
The want of goods for trading not only was unfavorable as to profits for the Swedes; it diminished the respect of the Indians for them. To this period may be assigned the Indian council de- scribed by Campanius, in which Mattahoorn presided, and the slaughter of the Swedish settlers was considered. The sachem is said to have presented the question: "The Swedes dwell here upon our land. But they have no goods to sell us. We can find nothing in their stores that we want. They have no cloth, red, blue, or brown. They have no kettles, no brass, no lead, no guns,
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no powder. The English and Dutch have all sorts of mer- chandise. Shall we go out and kill all the Swedes, or shall we allow them to stay ?" The decision of the council was that the
Swedes should not be molested. They should be, instead, "good friends." One warrior declared, "We have no complaint to make of them. Presently, they will bring here a large ship filled with all sorts of good things."
This expectation was fulfilled when at last, October 1, 1646, the ship Golden Shark arrived. She had had a long and stormy voyage, with much sickness on board. She brought few colo- nists, but her cargo was a good one. No time was lost in notify- ing the Indians. Huyghen, the commissary, with Van Dyck, a sergeant, and eight soldiers, was dispatched by Printz "to the country of the Minquas." This was "five German miles" dis- tant. "All sorts of presents" were given the Minquas, and a promise secured from them that they would trade "as before," Huyghen additionally assuring them "a higher price than the Hollanders."
The Golden Shark needed repairs, and work on her could not be completed until December. Then winter set in suddenly, and she was frozen up. She could not get away until February 20, 1647, when she sailed with a cargo which included IOI casks of tobacco, over a fourth of which had been raised by the Swedes -the remainder secured in trade. Printz sent back by her a long report. Since 1643, he said, the health of the people had been good; "only two men and two small children" had died. "The whole number of men, women, boys, girls, and children now living here is 183 souls." He had built a church at New Gottenburg-that dedicated by Campanius in 1646-"adorning and decorating it according to our Swedish fashion, so far as our limited means and resources would allow." He had also built a storehouse there. To break up the trade of the Dutch west of the Delaware, he had built "a fine house called Wasa," inland from Fort Korsholm, "by the road of the Minquas." It was
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SOME
ACCOUNT
OF THE PROVINCE ( F
PENNSILVANIA IN
AMERICA: Lately Granted under the Great Seal OF
ENGLAND
William Penn, &c.
Together with Priviledges and Powers necef- fary to the well-governing thereot.
Made publick for the Information of fuch as are or may be difpofed to Tranfport themfelves or Servants into thofe Parts.
LONDON: Printed, and Sold by Benjamin Clark Bookfeller in George-Yard Lombard-Street, 1681.
Title page of English book used to influence immigration to Pennsylvania
The Swedish Settlement
"so strong that four or five men, well provided with guns, balls and powder," could defend it, and he had settled there "seven freemen, sturdy fellows." A quarter of a mile (Swedish : over one and a half English), beyond Wasa he had built another strong house, and settled five freemen there, calling the place Molndal. Here he had set up a water mill, "which runs the whole year, to the great advantage of the country ; particularly as the windmill formerly here, before I came, would not work, and was good for nothing."
These two places are worth particular identification. Wasa is supposed to have been the place known as "Kingsesse" (the township afterward Kingsessing, now in West Philadelphia), on Karakung (Carkoen's), or Cobb's Creek. At Kingsesse, as we shall see, the last sitting of the Duke of York's "Court" occurred, in June, 1681, when the proprietorship of Pennsylvania was sur- rendered to the representative of William Penn. Molndal is better identified. It was long known as "the Swedes' mill." It stood on Cobb's creek, near the place where the old Darby road crosses the stream. It was the first water-mill erected in Penn- sylvania-the first probably in a much wider region.
Some other items in Printz's report may detain us. He says there were two head of cattle here when he came, and that he brought three with him; these had increased to ten, and fourteen oxen and a cow had been purchased. And as "the freemen" needed more cattle for cultivating the land, he intended in May to buy some in Virginia. Mechanics of various sorts were needed, but above all "a good number of unmarried women for our unmarried freemen and others." The Magister, Campanius, wished to return home; at least two clergymen should be sent out. The goods needed for trade, both with the Indians and the other colonies, he enumerated : "clothing, shoes, linen cloth, thread, silk, fine and coarse cloth, divers drugs and colors for dyeing, but- tons, Dutch ribbons, hats, belts, swords, tanned leather, etc." Such goods "are very vendible here and in Virginia and New
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England," he said, "and can be sold at a profit of one hundred per cent." A trusty man should be appointed to procure "zewandt" in New England, for this was the Indians' money, and trade could not be carried on without it.
While Printz had been managing affairs for the Swedes fairly well, the situation at Manhattan had gone from bad to worse.
CHEST
VOR
ENN . PRO
GOVE
Original Seal of Chester County
Kieft's abominable wars with the Indians had continued until the Dutch were exhausted. "During five years"-to the summer of 1645-"New Netherland had known hardly five months of peace. Manhattan was nearly depopulated. In two years six- teen hundred savages had been killed; at Manhattan, and in its neighborhood, scarcely one hundred men, besides traders, could be found." Money there was none; the new church stood un- finished; church, school, and poor funds had been used for the war. All this was the result of Kieft's policy of "extermina- tion," which DeVries had in vain protested against as both cruel and fatuous. It followed, of course, that the Dutch hold on the
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The Swedish Settlement
Delaware, never firm from the beginning, should be even more feeble during these evil years at Manhattan.
But in the autumn of 1645, the Indian troubles being com- posed, Kieft had sent over to Fort Nassau a new Commissary, Andreas Hudde, a more energetic and apparently a more honest man than his predecessor, Jan Jansen. The pressure of Dutch competition for the trade with the Indians west of the river be- gan to be felt again. In June, 1646, a sloop came from Manhat- tan with goods, and Hudde sent her into the Schuylkill, "to wait for the Minquas." The Swedes, however, promptly ordered her to leave, and her captain, Juriaen Blancke, fearing the loss of vessel and cargo, departed. In September, Kieft ordered Hudde to get an Indian title to land on the west bank. This he pro- ceeded to do, and set up there the "arms" of the Dutch West India Company, whereupon Huyghen, for the Swedes, took them down.
Still another change in the Dutch administration affected the face of affairs on the Delaware. The Golden Shark, with Printz's report of February, 1647, had little more than reached Sweden, when there arrived a new Dutch Governor, in succession to Kieft. This was Peter Stuyvesant. He reached Manhattan May II, 1647. It was to be his work to receive the submission of New Sweden, and to make the surrender of New Netherland.
We shall hasten, now, with the events on the Delaware. A ship from Sweden, the Swan, came out in September, 1647. Papegoia, who had gone back on the Golden Shark, returned to Tinicum in her. He brought to Printz an order to remain as governor, instead of the release he had asked. New grants of land were made him-one of them, known as Printzdorp, on the Delaware, south of Upland. The ship brought few colonists ; only one, the Rev. Lars Carlsson Lock, is known to us. The Swan sailed for Stockholm in May ( 16th), 1648, and Magister Campanius, who had now spent more than five years at Tinicum, went in her.
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Feeling that the key to the Indian trade was on the Schuyl- kill, Printz prepared in the winter of 1647-8 to place more build- ings there, but Hudde, forestalling him, erected on the east bank of that stream, at Passyunk, not far from the supposed site of the Swedes' Korsholm, a strong place which he called Fort Bevers- rede. Thereupon, Kling, for the Swedes, "opposed the work," and cut down the trees about the new fort. Stuyvesant now sent agents from Manhattan to buy the land of the Indians once more. They held a council with Mattahoorn and other chiefs at Passyunk, who "confirmed" the alleged sale of the lands there to Arendt Corssen, in 1633. Printz paid no regard to this ; houses which two Dutchmen had begun to build on the tract were torn down, by his order, and in September ( 1648), he had a house built so close to Fort Beversrede, on the river side, as to render it practically useless for Indian trading.
Printz was thus "locking horns" with Stuyvesant. The strug- gle was unequal. The Swedish colony, though it had prospered, had grown but slowly. The colony at Manhattan, relieved from the strain of war, had begun to increase rapidly. In Europe the Thirty Years' war was over, and Holland's concern for the friendship of Sweden was abated. The imperious Stuyvesant was soon to make his power felt on the Delaware.
And at this juncture a dire misfortune befel the Swedes. To their earnest petition for more colonists, more arms, more sup- plies of a substantial kind, the government at Stockholm had at last endeavored to make an energetic response. A ship, the Cat, was fitted out ; she took on board a commander, Hans Amundson Besk, with his wife and five children; sixty-three other immi- grants, including a clergyman, a clerk, a "barber-surgeon," and some mechanics and soldiers ; her cargo included eighteen cannon, of various sizes, and other weapons, and abundant ammunition, with rigging for a new ship intended to be built on the Dela- ware. It was the "eighth" of the Swedish "expeditions," one of the most important, and alas, the most disastrous ! Its calami-
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Penn's Treaty with the Indians
After a painting by West
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The Swedish Settlement
ties made the fall of New Sweden sure; its safe arrival at Tinicum might have averted that event.
In brief, the Cat, sailing from Gottenburg on the 3d of July (1649), was wrecked on an island near Porto Rico, on the 26th of August. The Spaniards pillaged the ship, and took the peo- ple to Porto Rico. A few remained there permanently ; others got back, in one way and another, to Sweden ; eighteen, still hop- ing to reach the Delaware, secured at length a small vessel, and venturously sailed from Porto Rico in May, 1651, but were cap- tured by a hostile ship, and taken to the island of Santa Cruz, where all died but five. The commander, Amundson, with his family, being sent by the Governor of Porto Rico to Spain, got back at last to Sweden, to relate the dismal tale.
Printz had been looking for a ship, when word of this disaster reached him. There had been no arrival since the Swan depart- ed in May, 1648. It was now midsummer, 1650. The bad news came to Manhattan; Governor Stuyvesant wrote of it to Hudde, at Fort Nassau, sending the letter by Augustine Herman, who was coming to the Delaware, and who, as a famous figure later in the history of Maryland, lord of "Bohemia Manor" on Chesapeake bay, is entitled to this special mention. Printz wrote at once to Sweden, sending his letter by a Dutch vessel. He spoke sadly of the loss of the Cat. Most of the settlers, he said, were "alive and well." They were generally supplied with oxen and cattle; the crops this year, 1650, had been very good, and the free farmers would have a hundred tons of grain to sell. His successor, whom he begged should be sent, would find things in good order. He had held "the best places," in spite of all oppo- sition, though he had lost the Indian trade for want of goods.
Fresh collisions of Dutch and Swedes at Fort Beversrede brought matters to a crisis in the spring of 1651. In May, Stuy- vesant sent from Manhattan an armed ship, which anchored in the Delaware below Christina. Printz finally drove her away- according to the Swedish account-but her captain's report to
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Manhattan brought Stuyvesant himself, overland, with a consid- erable suite, and a number of soldiers. An Indian council was held at Fort Nassau, and lands were once more obligingly sold by the sachems to the Dutch. (It was here that Mattahoorn ex- plained the sale he had made at Christina to Minuit in 1638.) Stuyvesant summoned Printz to show by what authority he claimed the position he held on the river, and the latter made the best reply he could, saying, inter alia, that the official documents were at Stockholm.
Stuyvesant then took a bold step. Abandoning Fort Nassau, as "too far up and too far out of the way," he built a new fort, on the west side, at "Sand Hook," now New Castle, Delaware, which he called Fort Casimir, and made it the seat of the Dutch on the river. The Swedish fort at Christina was thus in turn rendered practically useless. Printz protested, but his forces were inferior. According to the Swedish reports, which appear exaggerated, Stuyvesant had eleven ships to support him, four of them "well furnished" for fight. It is certain that the cost of this expedition and the erection of Fort Casimir was severely felt at Manhattan, and the treasury there was drained by it.
The situation was now strained, indeed, with both Dutch and Swedes struggling on the west bank of the river; rival posts on the Schuylkill, and hostile forts at Christina and Casimir. The appearance of peaceful relations, however, was maintained; Stuy- vesant returned to Manhattan after interviews with Printz, in which they promised mutually to "keep neighborly friendship," etc. Printz wrote at once to Sweden, describing the events of the summer. He had again held conferences with the Indians, and had rebought lands on both sides of the river. He had aban- doned the fort at Varken's Kill, Elfsborg, and maintained now only New Gottenburg, Korsholm, and Christina; these he had strengthened and repaired. The harvests had again been good, there were "delicious crops of several kinds of fruit;" the great needs were more people, "both soldiers and farmers," and these,
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