sign in sign up
<<
Home , Kalmar Nyckel, New Sweden

Meeting New

A Norwegian exploring the Forest Finn heritage

BY JAN MYHRVOLD

The annual History Wednesday Oct. 31 (ASHM) farther south in Philadel- Conference took place in Philadel- Because of “Hurricane Sandy,” phia, and at the museum I saw for phia on Nov. 3, 2012, with the theme Maud’s original flight was cancelled the first time trees that had blown “The of Europe, New and she was transferred to a flight down. Curator Carrie Hogan was our Sweden, and North America.” In on the 31st. After arrival, she spent contact, and she gave us a lot of in- connection with this, Dr. Maud Wedin a day in and could clearly formation. We bought a number of of Falun, Sweden, and I, Jan Myhr- see the damage done by “Sandy.” The books in the museum shop, and had vold from Gerdrum, Norway, were first thing she noticed was that the planty of time to visit the great invited to be lecturers. train from the airport to downtown exhibtions about the Swedish immi- As both Maud and I are especially did not run because there was no gration to the U.S. The ASHM has, interested in the Forest Finns, we electricity. as the name suggests, its focus on all also managed to set aside a few days epochs of the immigrating , after the conference, getting ac- not just New Sweden as I assumed quainted with New Sweden, and Thursday Nov. 1 at first. Later in the day we visited most important, visiting places with Maud took a bus to as the Liberty Bell and Independence connections to the Forest Finns. the trains still did not run from New Hall, where the U.S. Declaration of New Sweden is the name of the York. I arrived at Newark in the Independence was signed by John Swedish colony that was started in afternoon, and by then the trains ran Morton. For lunch we had a Phila- 1638 along the River in the to Philadelphia. I did not notice much delphia Cheese Steak sandwich, and future states of , Dela- damage from the storm of three days then we did not eat anything more ware and . The first For- earlier. that day. est Finns were deported there as they had farmed with the then prohibited Friday Nov. 2 Saturday Nov. 3 method of ”Slash and burn” agri- After breakfast we visited the Ame- This was another day with an early culture (svedjebränning) in Sweden. rican Swedish Historical Museum start. We went back to the museum The choice between a gruesome punishment and deportation to the “West Indies” was not difficult. The colonists of New Sweden sent mes- sages to the “old country” about the fertile soil, and soon more shiploads of people came. Still, after the Dutch had taken over New Sweden in 1655, and the English had taken over in 1664, the immigration continued for some years. It is estimated that about 600 individuals immigrated. Even after the government became Eng- lish, New Sweden was allowed to gov- ern itself for some time with Swedish clergymen and Swedish law. The did not leave New Sweden until 1789. The American Swedish Historical Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

1 and had breakfast there. Kim-Eric what exotic instance, when Finnish Williams introduced Maud, who surnames in an American church started with her lecture on “The Evo- record, written in Swedish, are lution of Forest Finn Culture in Fin- photographed by a Norwegian. land and Scandinavia in In the cemetery outside we found the 16th and 17th Centuries.” Next the family grave of Erik Pålsson was Ronald Hendrickson with his Mullica. On the border of the ceme- lecture on “On this shore a home tery we saw our first , “The established ... ’: An Introduction to Shorn Log Cabin.” It had been moved the Forest Finns in America.” My own to Swedesboro, and was supposedly lecture came next, its title was “Per- built at Racoon Creek by Morton spectives on Family Names and Mig- Mortonson, the paternal grandfather ration before 1821: Studies on the of John Morton. As we had already Forest Finn Ethnicity in Dalarna and heard about the “Morton Farmstead” the Swedish-Norwegian Border and the ”Morton Morton House,” that Area.” we planned to visit, we had the After lunch the archeology profes- humorous idea of naming this place sor Lu Ann De Cunzo lectured on “the Morton Morton Morton House.” “The ‘Cultures of Agriculture’ Our schedule was strict so there in 17th-Century New Sweden.” At Old Swede’s Church, Swedesboro, New was unfortunately not time to take Jersey. the end of the day we got a practical more photos of the church records. lecture by Frank Eld, who has roads. Due to this mishap we found Instead we were able to visit a house studied the Finnish timber techni- Racoon Creek, which was one of the that is said to be the oldest wooden ques in North America. His talk was settlers’ areas on the New Jersey side house in America, “The Nothnagle titled “Finnish Vernacular Log Struc- of the . Log Cabin” in Gibbstown. New Jer- tures in New Sweden and North We had brunch at a small restau- sey. The owners, Harry and Doris America.” rant in Swedesboro, which turned out Rink, who live next door, were very The about 140 participants of the to be the culinary highpoint of the happy to show us around. The house conference were very interested, and trip. Alfred Nicolosi had offered to was built 1638-1645, according to the were an inspiring group to talk to. take us around to several points of information sign, but research shows interest. The first was the Trinty that it probably dates to no earlier Sunday Nov.4 Church, also called Old Swedes’ than 1670. Swedesboro, which was built in 1703. Today we picked up our rental car. Nicolosi had chosen a very ambi- Here they kept a copy of the old tious program for us, and we soon Even though it had a GPS, it did not church register, starting in 1713, take many minutes before we were continued our trip towards Delaware where I found on page three several and the Winterthur Museum. This lost. After a few days we understood Finnish surnames. It was a some- the American system of signs and museum is the repository for the collections of Henry Francis du Pont, and has more than 90,000 artifacts that were used in the U.S. between 1630 and 1860. Our guided tour lasted 90 minutes, but we only saw a small part of the collections. We must return another time. We were un- fortunately not allowed to take photos.

Monday Nov. 5 We had been invited to see the reconstructed ship . We arrived in good time so we could first visit the Holy Trinity (Old Swedes’) Church in Wilmington, Delaware, which is situated just a stone’s throw from the Kalmar Nyckel shipyard. Nearby is the Hend- rickson House, which has been

2 moved here from Crum Creek, some to the shore. kilometers farther north. After a good lunch at “Joe’s Crab At the church we also met again Shack” we went on to “Finland,” an with Earl Seppala, whom we had met area where many Forest Finns sett- at the conference two days back. led in the . Today there is a big Seppala is one of the big enthusiasts, monument, made by Väinö Altonen, a retired Engineer and retired U.S. in the memory of those immigrants. Army Colonel, who is a member of Without help we would never have 11 volunteer societies and on the found this place as there are no signs boards of eight of them. He is very that point to it. active with the Kalmar Nyckel A little farther north, by Darby Foundation. Creek, is the “Lower Swedish Cabin,” Now we moved to the shipyard, which we visited after the Finn Mo- where the ship Kalmar Nyckel was nument. We had hoped to finally see built and launched in 1997. Sam a log cabin that was built after the Heed, who is Director of Education Forest Finn model, but it was built and Senior Historian of the Founda- along the same lines as the other tion, met us and took us on a privi- ones we had seen in the U.S. The logs leged tour of the ship. were not squarely cut, as in other The original Kalmar Nyckel was buildings, and the corners were not one of the ships that kept the con- sawed off, but there was a gap be- nection between the Motherland and The Kalmar Nyckel replica. tween the horisontal logs where clay New Sweden. The new Kalmar Centre's VP and Education Director. or cement had been used to seal the Nyckel is known as the Tall Ship of There are replicas of items from the walls. Delaware and is used by the state of old days you may handle. The Cen- Delaware for outreach and edu- tre is only about 100 sq. feet, but is Tuesday Nov. 6 cational purposes. She usually is out well worth a visit. Today was the U.S. Presidential sailing during the summer. Just behind the shipyard we found Election, so we had no special pro- Also in the shipyard is the New “.” Today there is gram, but used the day to travel aro- Sweden Centre, which welcomes nothing to see from the fort, but a und southerna New Jersey to find visitors and school groups to explore wide avenue leads to a big monument more old buildings and explore new the lives of the Swedish and Finnish where it is supposed to have stood. sites. settlers in a set of exhibits, “Experi- The place was chosen originally We started by going to the “Swe- ence New Sweden,” designed by the because the stable bedrock made it a dish Granary” in Greenwich, by the well-known Aleasa Hogate, the safe place to descend from the ships Maurice River, at the southernmost point of New Jersey. We had seen pictures of that house and now we hoped to find that it had been built in the Nordic manner. At a distance it looked so, but this building was also built without the sealed log walls.

The Swedish Granary. The next stop was the open air museum ”New Sweden Colonial Farmstead” in Bridgeton City Park The Finnish Settlers Monument, by Väinö Aaltonen, first inaugurated at the 300th (NJ), which was built for the 350th jubilee in 1938. It is located in Chester, Pennsylvania. anniversary celebration of New Swe- From left: Alfred Nicolosi, Maud Wedin, and Jan Myhrvold. Photo by Earl Seppala. 3 den in 1988. Today volunteers are fighting the bureaucracy, which has allowed the buildings to fall into dis- repair. It is unbelievable how neg- lected the buildings have become in 24 years. The bottom logs have been destroyed in some buildings. Even if there is low precipitation in the area, the humidity seems to be high. If this state of disrepair were typical of American policy, it would not be possible to preserve buildings even from the 1800s. Now it was finally time to visit an archive, and we went to Salem Coun- ty Historical Society, which has archives and a library. Much of New Sweden on the east side of the Dela- ware River belongs to Salem County. We stayed there until they closed and The Morton Morton house, Norwood, Delaware Co., Pennsylvania. then we tried the Salem County courthouse, where the court records Wednesday Nov. 7 he was sometimes a hard master, he are kept, but it was closed due to the This time the weather had become was also very important for the election. much colder, and there was snow in development of the colony. Next we went to see a Swedish log the air in the evening.We met Ron Not too far away is the ”Morton cabin, close to Salem, the “Hancock Henrickson at Tinicum Island in Phi- Homestead” which consists of a two- House,” where the fireplace was not ladelphia at Governor Printz Park, story main building, with two big of a Swedish type. Then we went back where there is a statue of Governor rooms downstairs, and two rooms to Mullica Hill, where we managed Johan Printz, who was the governor upstairs. The fireplaces are placed in to take photos of Erik Mullica’s house of New Sweden 1643-1653. Even if the middle of the house, and have no before it became too dark. signs of being of either Swedish or Finnish type. This might be because John Morton’s father died early and his mother remarried an English- man. On the way to the next interesting site we also visited the grave of John Morton at the Old Swedish Burial Ground, Chester, Pennsylvania. The next place was the “Morton Morton House” in the Norwood area of southwest Philadelphia, which was built around 1750 by Morton Morton, a cousin of John Morton’s. After some trouble we found the Gloria Dei church in Philadelphia, and luckily enough it was open, so we could go inside from the heavy rain. Then it was time to visit another archives. Maud had made an ap- pointment with with Kim-Eric Wil- House built by Eric Mullica Jr in 1704. Eric’s father Eric Pålsson Mullica, born 1636 liams, the Historian of the Swedish in Delsbo, (Häls.) arrived with his parents, Pål Jönsson and his wife Margret, on the Colonial Society and an Archivist at Eagle (Örnen) in 1654. Eric Mullica Sr. was married to Ingeri Olsdotter, from the Lutheran Archives Center, lo- Värmland, and they had 8 children. Of these sons Eric Jr and brothers John and cated at the Lutheran Seminary in William bought a plot of land in 1704 at what is now called Mullica Hill, Gloucester Philadelphia. The records of the Swe- Co, New Jersey. Source: Peter S. Craig: The 1693 Census on the Swedes on the dish Colonial Society are housed Delaware (1993), and Wikipedia (Eric Pålsson Mullica). there, as is the Craig Collection. Dr. 4 Thursday Nov. 8: Going home day Before we left for Newark Airport we had to make a detour and see how the Amish people live. We were told to drive directly west towards Lan- caster. The first sign of being in the right area was when we saw a road sign with a horse and carriage. Not long after that we saw the first Amish driving just such a carriage, which was just as in the movies. We were told that they did not use either cars or tractors, but that they do use tractors, but not of the newest kind. A car is OK to be transported in, but they do not seem to own or drive them themselves. We have to come back and visit New Sweden again, as there are so many more places to visit and things to research. We wish to say “Tack!” to Alfred Maud Wedin and Kim-Eric Williams. Nicolosi, Ron Hendrickson, Earl Seppala, Aleasa Hogate, Sam Heed, Peter Stebbins Craig, FASG, re- explained that shortly the Society Kim-Eric Williams, and the staff of searched the Swedish and Finnish will have finished digitizing the bulk the ASHM for their generosity and population of New Sweden for many of the Craig Collection; and will be hospitality! years of his life, and was the one who making it available online to Society “knew everything” about them. members. Sadly, Dr. Craig died in 2009 but As soon as I was back at the hotel generously willed all his research I joined the Colonial Society, at $30/ Author Jan Myhrvold can be materials to the Society. Dr. Williams year. reached at

First published in English in Swedish American Genealogist 2012/4 http://www.etgenealogy.se/sag.htm

5