The Township Of Tinicum.

has any knowledge about such things."¹ The report was however current that gold existed in large quantities on the eastern shores of the Delaware in the neighborhood of Trenton. Peter Lindstrom, the Swedish engineer, records that an Indian coming to Tinicum, seeing a gold ring on the hand of Governor Printz's wife, "inquired of her why she wore such a trifle upon her finger?" The Governor hearing this asked the American whether he could procure such stuff for him? If he could, he would give him a great deal that was good in return. Whereupon the American answered, "I know where there is a mountain full of this!" On this the Governor took an armful of red and blue cloth, also lead, powder, looking glasses, needles, etc., and showing them to him, said, "See here what I will give you if you will bring me a piece of that in proof of what you have said; but I will send two of my people along with you." To this he would not agree. He said, "I will first go and bring you the proof; if that satisfies you, then there is time enough for you to send some one with me." Promising the proof, he thereupon received some pay. A few days thereafter he returned with a piece as large as two fists, which the aforesaid Governor tested, and found that it abounded in good gold, and obtained a considerable quantity from it, from which he afterwards had gold rings and bracelets made. He therefore promised the American a much greater reward if he would show our people, whom he would send with him, where that mountain was situated, which he also promised to do; but said that he had not leisure for it at that time, but would come back again after some days, and then he again received some presents. After the American came to his countrymen and began to boast before them, they compelled him to tell for what he had received his gifts; and when they came to know it they put him to death so that that place might not become known to us, supposing that it might bring some mischief upon them.''² Acrelius believed that this statement was absolutely fictitious, and the representation was made "to bring to the light unknown regions for the purpose of enticing people over the great sea, and to secure settlers."³

Arnold De Lagrange, as late as 1680, reported that there was an iron-mine on Tinicum, but a visitor there at that date says "that as to there being a mine of iron ore upon it I have not seen any upon that island or elsewhere and if it were so, it is of no great importance for such mines are so common in this country that little account is made of them."⁴

⁴ Memoirs of Long Island Historical Society, vol. i. p. 177.

At Tinicum the first vessel coustructed by Europeans within the present State of Pennsylvania was built, and in his report for 1647, Governor Printz says, "I have caused the barge to be fully constructed, so that the hull is ready and floating on the water; but the completion of the work must be postponed until the arrival of a more skilled carpenter, the young men here declaring they do not know enough to finish it."⁵ That this vessel was completed we learn from an order issued by Stuyvesant after the capture of New Sweden by the Dutch, dated March 26, 1657, in which he states, respecting the pleasure-boat of the late Governor Printz, which "he is informed" is decaying and nearly rotten where she then laid, that if Peter Meyer would satisfy the attorneys of the late Governor Printz, and discharge Stuyvesant from responsibility under the terms of the Swedish capitulation, he (Meyer) might be permitted to make use of the boat for transporting letters.⁶

In the little log sanctuary at Tinicum, until May, 1648, officiated Rev. John Campanius, who earnestly strove to instruct the Indians in the tenets of his church. To aid him in the endeavor to Christianize the savages he applied himself to the study of their language, and mastered it sufficiently to translate the Lutheran Catechism into the dialect of the Lenni Lenape family of the great Algonquin tribe. He was the first person to translate a book into the Indian tongue, and although his work was not published until 1696, when it was printed by the royal command at Stockholm, still he antedated a few years Eliot's labors to impart instruction to the Indians by translating the Bible into the Mohegan dialect, although the latter's work was put to press thirty years before that of Campanius. The reverend pastor was relieved at the date mentioned by Rev. Lears Carlsson Lock, who appears to have had, after 1656, the exclusive care for twenty-two years of religious affairs in the colony. The Swedes in those early days, we are told by the late Joseph J. Lewis, in his "History of Chester County,"⁷ used to attend church at Tinicum, "to which they came in canoes from New Castle and other places along the Delaware, both above and below the island."

On the return of Governor Printz to Sweden, his daughter, Armegat, yet remained at and occupied Printzhof at Tinicum, and after the conquest by the Dutch of New Sweden, notwithstanding the recommendation of Stuyvesant to the directors, in 1656, to occupy the fort at that place and garrison it, it seems not to have been done, for in 1680 it was a ruin, and at that date is mentioned as "the remains of the large blockhouse."⁸ Armegat Printz, for she seems to have clung to her maiden name, was very haughty in her bearing and oppressive toward the poor in her pride of station. Inasmuch as the estate on which the little

⁸ Memoirs of Long Island Historical Society, vol. i. p. 178.