The Descendants of Jöran Kyn of New Sweden
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NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES 3 3433 0807 625 5 ' i 1 . .a i ',' ' 't "f i j j 1" 1 Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2008 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation V http://www.archive.org/details/descendantsofjOOkeen J 'A €. /:,. o Vt »,tT! ?"- ^^ ''yv- U'l 7- IL R Xj A The Descendants of JORAN KYN of New Sweden By GREGORY B. KEEN, LL.D. Vice President of the Swedish Colonial Society Philadelphia The Swedish Colonial Society 1913 .^^,^^ mu^ printed bv Patterson & White Company 140 North Sixth Street philadelphia. pa. In Memoriatn Patris, Matris et Conjugis Stirpts Pariter Scandinaviensis Foreword This work comprises (with mimerous additions) a series of articles originally printed in The Pennsylvania Maga- zine of History and Biography, volumes II-VII, issued by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania during the years 1878-1883. For the first six generations included in it, it is, genealogically, as complete as the author, with his pres- ent knowledge, can make it. Members of later generations are mentioned in footnotes in such numbers, it is believed, as will enable others to trace their lineage from the first progenitor with little difficulty. It is published not merely as the record of a particular family but also as a striking example of the wide diffusion of the blood of an early Swedish settler on the Delaware through descendants of other surnames and other races residing both in the United States and Europe. No attempt has been made to intro- duce into the text information to be gathered from the recent publication of the Swedish Colonial Society, the most scholarly and comprehensive history of the Swedish settle- ments on the Delaware written by Dr. Amandus Johnson, to which, therefore, the reader is referred for further en- lightenment on that subject. Philadelphia, St. Olafs Day. 1913. G. B. K. THE DESCENDANTS OF JORAN KYN, OF NEW SWEDEN. JoRAN Kyn,* one of the earliest European residents upon the river Delaware, and for more than a quarter of a cen- tury the chief proprietor of land at Upland, New Sweden, afterwards Chester, Pennsylvania, was born in Sweden about A. D. 1620.t He came to America in company with Governor Jolm Printz, in the ship Fama, which "sailed from Stockholm," narrates Magister John Campanius Holm,:|: a fellow-passenger in the same vessel, "on the 16th of August, 1642," and, after stopping at Dahlehamn, Copenhagen, and Helsingor, left Gottenburg Castle for the "Spanish Sea" (as the Atlantic Ocean was at one time called) "on the 1st of November, at noon." The route Itursued by them upon their journey was a long one, adopted, says Acrelius, when "the watery way to the West was not yet well discovered, for fear of the sand banks off Newfoundland." They coasted along Portugal and This (under the form of Kij") is the earliest spelling of the surname met with, and dates from lt;»!3. The older generations of the West New Jersey branches of the family employed the form of Kljhn. Other meth- ods, numbering a dozen. Dutch and English, are mere attempts to render in those languages the sound of the Swedish original. Keen is the first English spelling of the name recorded, occurring as early as ](i«T., and is the mode adopted by the family to-day. It has the merit of representing a close approach to the ancient sound, besides being of cognate derivation, and yielding a translation of the obsolete old Swedish word. This is more nearly reproduced in sound and meaning by the German Kiihn. The Chris- tian name of Jiiran (or Goran) was frerpiently written after the Dutch style of Juriaii: it was sometimes strangely corrupted, but was never prop- erly anglicized as George. in the t Probably not earlier than WIT. or his name should not appear list of "Tydable I'ersons" residing at Tipland in 1077 (which excluded those over sixty years of age), nor later than ]62.'{, considering the date of his eldest gi-andchild's birth. J See Thomas Campanius Holm's Description of New Sweden, translated by Peter S. Du Ponceau. LL.D., and published by the Historical Society of Pennsylvania. Chapter VI., where quite a detailed account of the voyage is given. The Fama was accompanied by another ship named Sranen. the Swan. 8 The Descendants op Joran Kyn. Barbary, and, passing far to the south of the Canary Islands, landed at Antigua, inliabited at that time "by Eng- lishmen and negroes, with some Indians," where they "spent their Christmas holydays, and were well enter- tained," says Campanius, "at the Governor's house." After quitting this seat of "perpetual summer" (as the same gentleman depicts it) they encountered "a severe storm," accompanied at the last "with snow," which "con- tinued above fourteen days," by which they "lost three large anchors, a spritsail, and their mainmast, and the ship was run aground; but on the 15th of February, 1643, by God's grace, came up to Fort Christina, in New Sweden. Virginia," in the precise phrases of the historian, "at two o'clock in the afternoon." Here the first three Swedish expeditions had established their chief settlement under Minnit and Ridder,* and here remained a short time, also, this fourth and greatest of the colonies, enjoying friendly intercourse with fellow-countrymen most glad to welcome them, and happily reposing from the distresses of their long and perilous voyage. The encroachments of the neighbouring Dutch and the recent repairing of their little Fort Nassau determined the new Governor to remove, how- ever, to the more commanding post of Tuta?aenungh or Tini- * Peter Minuit and the first colony sailed from Gotteaiburj; on the sblp- of-war Kahnar yiichel. accompanied by a smaller vessel called Gripen. the Griffin, towards the close of December. 1(B7, and reached the river Delaware in March, or. at the latest, the beginning of April. Ifi.SS. The second colony, under I'eter Hollender Ridder. sailed from Gotteulnirs; in the same Kahnar ^'ycl(l. or Key of Kalmar, leaving the Te.xel on the 7tli of February, 1640, and, after a quick passage for those days, landed at Christina on the 17th of April following. And the third colony sailed from Gottenburg in the same well-tried vessel, accompanied by the ship Cliar- itas. fitted out at Stockholm, and leaving that place for Gottenburg May 3, 1641. Besides these one other expedition bad preceded Governor rrintz in settling on the Delaware, a colony of Dutchmen with Jost van Bogardt. who emigrated under the auspices of the Swedish Crown in the shi|i Freedcnhurp. .arriving in New Sweden on the 2d of Xovember, l(i4(t. and who occupied land three or four .Swedish miles below Christina (State- ments based, in great part, on the authority of MSS. Keeords relating to New Sweden in the Royal .Vrchives at Stockholm. Acrelius. who is. In general, remarkably trustworthy and accurate, confounds the colony of 1041 with Printz's expedition, and makes but cursory mention of that of Ridder.) The Descendants of Joran Kyn. 9 cum, where he erected a "new fort provided with consider- able armament," named by him Nya Gotheborg, and "also caused to be built a mansion, for himself and family, which was very handsome," says Campanius, surrounded by "a fine orchard, a pleasure house, and other conveniences," and called by the proprietor Printzhof* At this place, likewise, according to the same authority, "the principal inhabitants had their dwellings and plantations," and here resided Joran Kyn. In a ''Bulla" dated by Printz at "Kihrstina, June 20, 1644," preserved in the Royal Ar- chives at Stockholm,! he is mentioned (under his appella- tion of 8ndlmiU)j as a soldier in the Governor's life- guard, § and in a "List of Persons living in New Sweden, March 1. 1648," is once more simihirly described. It was not long before the small island in the Delaware, where these early colonists had their first homes in the New World, had ceased to afford sufficient scope for their fast growing- families, and was abandoned by many of them for other * "The dilapidated reinaius of wliat was said to be the chimney of this 'mansion,'" says Dr. George Smith in his excellent History of Delairare County. Pennsylvania, "were standins within the recollection of the author, and up to this time one of the small foreign-made hricks. of a pale yellow colour, of which it was partly constnicted, may be occasionally picked up in the vicinity. Its site was a short distance above the present Tinicum hotel, and on the opposite side of the road." Benjamin Ferris, in his His- tory of the Original Settlrments on the Detan-are, says: "This Hall stood more than KiO years, and was at last burnt down by accident, since the commencement of the present century." t Printed (tosether with Governor Printz's second official report of the condilion of the young Swedish colony, of the same date) at the end of an interesting little sketch of this earliest period of our annals, entitled "Kolonien Nya Sveriges Grnndliiytininy. 1(>37-I(i-12," written by the learned historian Professor C. T. Odhner on the occasion of the Centennial Rshi- bition recently held in Philadelphia, a translation of which is given in The Penna. Magazine of History and liioyraphy, vol. iii. pp. 269-284. and 395-ill. t In the "List" referred to immediately afterwards (writteii in German) the name is given as Sclineeu-eiss. which means the same, of course, sno^r- tvhite. and was applied to him, possibly, in consequence of some i)hysical peculiarity, such as the lightness of his complexion.