Alright, let's try this again... I need to remember to not type posts on a phone while simultaniously amusing a toddler...
Anyway, my in-laws live down in Delaware. Because I teach New Sweden to my 5th graders (the textbook gives it a sentence and a half, but I stretch into a whole period), I wanted to get some pictures. We stopped to check out the New Castle section of First State National Monument, which mentioned that Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherlands fame had helped lay out one of the squares, which was later owned by William Penn. A few days later, we drove past New Sweden Park in Wilmington (locked), the Old Swedes Church in town (also locked) and took a look at the Kalmar Nykel replica (partially covered in tarps for the winter). I need to start finding better seasons to do this stuff in.
Inspired, I finally stopped making excuses and stopped off to see Old Swedes Church in Swedesboro. There are some markers noting the visit of princesses and Kings of Sweden, an old cabin, a marker where the original Lutheran Church was (which I found all the more interesting being a Lutheran. Also, each side used the building at some point during the War for Independence I believe), and, of course, a ton of old gravestones to putter around and check out. I find it interesting that the congregation went Episcipalian so soon after the struggle with Great Britain, rather than switching from Swedish Lutheran to German Lutheran (or pretty much anything that wasn't Church of England).
Futher inspired, I finally read my copy of "The Swedes and Finns of New Jersey", put out by the Works Progress Adminsitration in the late 1930s. I thought I knew more than your average Joe does about New Sweden, but the book lays out a facinating twenty year battle or so between Sweden, the Netherlands, and England over the Delaware River. New Sweden was never very big, but I was suprised to learn how prosperous it was, that it escaped the "starving periods" of Jamestown and Plymouth (that's what you get for sending farmers and timber thieves instead of city folk like the English did), and that, via Fort Elsborg, that Sweden actually controlled the Delaware effectively for almost a decade. They had struggles with indifference from the home country, the death of Peter Minuite after he came on the first shipload, but they really made a go of it. William Penn certainly respected these early Swedish communities, and they were quite well established by the time he showed up to stake his claims to West Jersey, Pennslyvania, and Delaware. I shouldn't be suprised by this anymore, but I was shocked at just how interesting and dramatic the short history of this area was.
The rest of the book goes into post-New Sweden settlements in New Jersey, which I found less dramatic that the first bit, but still well worth reading.
I'm curious if anyone else had read this one or has any thoughts on it. Is there a marker of any sort where Fort Elsborg or Fort Nassau used to be? Any other significant Swedish connected places that I should go exploring in South Jersey?
Or I'm just hoping Jerseyman finds this one and has something to add to it
Anyway, my in-laws live down in Delaware. Because I teach New Sweden to my 5th graders (the textbook gives it a sentence and a half, but I stretch into a whole period), I wanted to get some pictures. We stopped to check out the New Castle section of First State National Monument, which mentioned that Peter Stuyvesant of New Netherlands fame had helped lay out one of the squares, which was later owned by William Penn. A few days later, we drove past New Sweden Park in Wilmington (locked), the Old Swedes Church in town (also locked) and took a look at the Kalmar Nykel replica (partially covered in tarps for the winter). I need to start finding better seasons to do this stuff in.
Inspired, I finally stopped making excuses and stopped off to see Old Swedes Church in Swedesboro. There are some markers noting the visit of princesses and Kings of Sweden, an old cabin, a marker where the original Lutheran Church was (which I found all the more interesting being a Lutheran. Also, each side used the building at some point during the War for Independence I believe), and, of course, a ton of old gravestones to putter around and check out. I find it interesting that the congregation went Episcipalian so soon after the struggle with Great Britain, rather than switching from Swedish Lutheran to German Lutheran (or pretty much anything that wasn't Church of England).
Futher inspired, I finally read my copy of "The Swedes and Finns of New Jersey", put out by the Works Progress Adminsitration in the late 1930s. I thought I knew more than your average Joe does about New Sweden, but the book lays out a facinating twenty year battle or so between Sweden, the Netherlands, and England over the Delaware River. New Sweden was never very big, but I was suprised to learn how prosperous it was, that it escaped the "starving periods" of Jamestown and Plymouth (that's what you get for sending farmers and timber thieves instead of city folk like the English did), and that, via Fort Elsborg, that Sweden actually controlled the Delaware effectively for almost a decade. They had struggles with indifference from the home country, the death of Peter Minuite after he came on the first shipload, but they really made a go of it. William Penn certainly respected these early Swedish communities, and they were quite well established by the time he showed up to stake his claims to West Jersey, Pennslyvania, and Delaware. I shouldn't be suprised by this anymore, but I was shocked at just how interesting and dramatic the short history of this area was.
The rest of the book goes into post-New Sweden settlements in New Jersey, which I found less dramatic that the first bit, but still well worth reading.
I'm curious if anyone else had read this one or has any thoughts on it. Is there a marker of any sort where Fort Elsborg or Fort Nassau used to be? Any other significant Swedish connected places that I should go exploring in South Jersey?
Or I'm just hoping Jerseyman finds this one and has something to add to it
