New Sweden

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This article was designed to provide background on the New Seden Colony of Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania from its founding in 1638 to after its elimination by the Dutch in 1654. The article was written specifically to support articles about descendants of the Settlers of New Sweden, including in particular the inter-related Brimberry, Gustaffson, and Anderson families.



Influenced by the success of the English and Dutch colonies, the New Sweden Company was formed by a group of Dutch, German, and Swedish investors who persuaded Queen Christina to allow the company to establish a colony under the Swedish crown. Under this arrangement, the investors paid for the ships, supplies and other expenses while the Swedish crown provided royal sanction and a few soldiers to help defend its claim. In late 1637, the New Sweden Company's first expedition sailed from Gothenborg in the Kalmar Nyckel (the tall-ship pictured above) and a smaller sloop, the Fogel Grip. An exact replica of the sea-going tall-ship was built several years ago by the Kalmar Nyckel Foundation.

The two ships reached Delaware Bay about March 29, 1638 after a brief stop-over at Jamestown, Virginia where records show that English officials reminded the Swedish company that the English crown claimed the area to the north (territory also claimed by the Dutch).

Undetered, the New Sweden expedition entered unchartered Delaware Bay under the command of Peter Minuit. A German, Peter Minuit, had been the governor of the Dutch colony, New Netherland, from 1626 to 1631. Minuit, who joined the New Sweden Company after a dispute with his previous employers, is best remembered by his purchase of Manhattan Island from Native Americans for trinkets and beads.

The expedition built a fort on a tributary of Delaware Bay at Swedish Landing at the site of present-day Wilmington, Delaware. They named the fort Christina in honor of Sweden's twelve-year-old queen. New Sweden was the first permanent European settlement in the Delaware Valley and the colony continued to grow over the next 17 years until it was seized under the force of arms by the Dutch in 1655, who in turn, later lost New Netherlands to the English.  Between 1638-1655, twelve additional Swedish expeditions sailed to New Sweden. Altogether, eleven vessels and about 600 Swedes and Finns, including many Brimberry ancestors, reached New Sweden which spread along both banks of the Delaware River into present-day Delaware, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland.

For more information about the history of the Swedes on the Delaware and individual Swedish colonial ancestors of Matthias Brimberry and Mary Anderson identified elsewhere in this document, please visit Swedish Colonial Society and navigate to forefather family profiles. The narrator, who is a life member of the Swedish Colonial Society, joined the society on Måns Andersson, who as stated in the introduction to this family history, arrived with his wife and daughter, both named Brita, in 1640 on the second voyage of the Kalmar Nyckel.

It should also be noted that while the number declined significantly after the Dutch take-over, more Swedes continued to arrive and settle among their Swedish brethren along the Delaware into the early 1700's, including Matthias Brymberry's father, Christiern Brunberg, and Mary Anderson's maternal grandparent's Anders and Elizabeth Loinan. Brunberg and the Loinans appear to have arrived at or about the same time, possibly during a change of ministers at Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Church in Wilmington about 1711. Upon their arrival, Brunberg, who was not yet married, and the Loinans (later Lynam), regularly attended services at Old Swedes.

This and other information contained in this brief background history of the Swedes on the Delaware has been gleaned from many sources cited in the bibliography appended to this narrative. This writer is deeply indebted to the authors of these works as well as the Swedish Colonial Society, the Holy Trinity (Old Swedes) Foundation, and the Historical Society of Delaware for preserving the history of the Swedes on the Delaware. However, all of us are especially indebted to Dr. Peter Stebbins Craig for researching, publishing and making readily available biographical information about many colonial Swedes, including important material cited in this document---without which the colonial roots of the Brimberry family would be incomplete. A retired attorney, Dr. Craig is the official historian for the Swedish Colonial Society, a post he has gained through year's of careful, painstaking scholarly research of records in Sweden as well as the United States. His seminal work, The 1693 Census of the Swedes on the Delaware, should be a part of every member of the Brimberry family's personal library.