Here [5] is the Granary jacked- up and ready to be moved.

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Flora Hamilton
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1 On Saturday, November 9, 2013, I read a paper at the annual conference of the Council for Northeast Historical Archaeology (CNEHA) at the University of Delaware in Newark. This was also the conference celebrating the 375 th anniversary of the New Sweden colony on the Delaware River. The conference had a material culture focus. Its title was Encountering Others in the Atlantic World: Perspectives from the Material World. My title was Preserving and Interpreting the Swedish Granary in Greenwich, New Jersey: A Progress Report. It s accompanied by a Powerpoint slide show and it reads as follows: My name is Joe Mathews. I work as part of the small staff at the Lummis Library of the Cumberland County Historical Society (hereafter the Society or if you don t mind an acronym, CCHS ) in Greenwich NJ, and yes, we pronounce it Green- wich. CCHS is largely a volunteer organization, with 3 part- time employees like me. I do a variety of tasks there (arranging archives, assisting researchers, and so on), but lately I have been very focused on the goals of preserving and interpreting the Swedish Granary. The Swedish Granary (which some of you have already visited, as it s usually listed among New Sweden sites in the Delaware Valley to be visited by New Sweden devotees), is an historic building that was entrusted to the Society s care in the mid- 1970s. [By the way, both pronunciations Granary & Grainary are correct.] The Granary is, we believe- - going on the judgments of experts in the field a Swedish- built 17 th - century log building whose possible purpose was the processing and storage of grain. It stood on a farm in Hopewell Township, about 4 miles from the place it stands now. It stands now on grounds owned by the Society, in the picturesque and historic town of Greenwich, about 7 miles away from Bridgeton, the seat of Cumberland County. Lately we believe we have been making better progress toward the building s preservation, though we also know we have a way to go. I m here today to inform you of the progress we have made and where we need to go. 1

2 I would like briefly to relate the Granary s history with the Society, but first here are some images that will give you a better idea of the Granary itself: First, here s a map of southern NJ. [Powerpoint slide #1] The present location of the Granary is marked. The original location is where the Y in Granary is written, along an almost 90- degree bend of the winding Cohansey River, in an area traditionally known as Dutch Neck where farmers often had Germanic family names. The current owner s name is Fralinger (supposedly formerly Freedinger), and the farm was once owned by a Thalwitzer. [Confusingly enough, there are no fewer than 3 Greenwiches in NJ, and 2 Hopewells!] Here [2] is the building on its original site. Note the wide opening and note also that the interior log wall has been removed, presumably to create more space, but also contributing to the appearance of sagging in the exterior wall. Nevertheless, as of the 1970s, the structure was still sound enough to be at least standing if (judging by the high weeds) not in use as an agricultural building, though I ve been told that it was. Here [3, 4] is the Granary from the back. Wagon sheds had been attached to it, possibly in the mid- 19 th century. They were taken down when the Granary was moved. They no doubt helped preserve the log portion of the entire structure. Here [5] is the Granary jacked- up and ready to be moved. Here [6] it is on the house- mover s truck. Here [7-14] is a series of photos of it on Society grounds, during & shortly after restoration. On the 20 th of November 1976, there was a dedication ceremony: here are several photos of that occasion [15-20]. And here are several photos [21-25] of the Granary today: this should give you an idea of the handsome setting it enjoys among the verdant fields of Greenwich. Note that the large opening has been modified to accommodate what originally had been 2 openings, and a new interior wall. However, most of the building is original. Of the 65 logs comprising the building, 59 are original. It should be mentioned that Greenwich is a very picturesque town with handsome old houses set amidst expansive farms fields and roads. It and Salem were the two towns founded by the 2

3 early Quaker colonizer, John Fenwick. Greenwich is known for its favorite son, Philip Vickers Fithian, the 18 th century diarist, tutor in the plantation south, Presbyterian minister and Revolutionary War chaplain who died in camp at the age of 29. Greenwich is probably better known for its Tea Burning, the last of the tea- related protests before the war itself. The Society was founded in 1908 specifically to commemorate the Tea Burning. I was surprised to learn that in the 1960s Greenwich was intended to have been the site of the nuclear plant which was instead built in Hancock s Bridge outside of Salem. At that time a grass roots movement rose up to fend off what would have been a threat to its historic fabric. Also at that time, an historic district was created. In any case, I can recommend Joseph S. Sickler s 1950 book of photos and text, Tea Burning Town, as a good introduction to Greenwich. How did CCHS acquire the log shed that would become the Swedish Granary? It was former Cumberland County freeholder, farmer, and marina owner Joseph Hancock [26-27] of Greenwich who brought about the move of the Granary to Greenwich and the beginning of its preservation. I have consulted our small collection of Mr. Hancock s papers relating to his work on behalf of the Granary in order to write this paper. As related in an article Mr. Hancock wrote for the Cumberland Patriot, CCHS s newsletter, it was in the 1960s that Elmer Gandy, apparently recognizing the age of the log shed on his farm, brought it to Hancock s attention and offered it to the county or to CCHS. I m not sure at this point who first thought the building historic & worthy of preservation: whoever that was, deserves great credit. Hancock couldn t act then because of other business, but then in 1972 he secured the intention to donate from the building s next owner, Robert E. Fralinger, Jr. The then mayor of Greenwich and restorer of old homes, John Harker, called in restoration architects G. Edwin Brumbaugh and Albert F. Ruthrauff of Gwynedd Valley PA who in September 1973 wrote a Report upon Log Structure near Greenwich, N.J. in which they said, after a careful examination, that it was most likely a stable or small barn structure and that it is a rather well- preserved and very early Swedish log structure, and [it] is certainly worth preserving. Their opinion in such matters was authoritative. Among Brumbaugh s many restoration projects throughout a long and productive life are the Daniel Boone Homestead in Berks County, the Ephrata Cloister in Lancaster County, and the Gloria Dei Church in Philadelphia. Ruthrauff is known for his work with the Edward Morgan Log House in Montgomery County. Their report also admits that the building contains many mysteries. It surely does: we are no closer today than then to knowing definitively who the builder was and when it was built, though we will strive to learn. Hancock began the necessary work of securing moving and restoration permits. There were complications of course, having to do with historic district regulations, but he saw these issues 3

4 through, and, in November 1975, the Granary was moved and subsequently restored. The funds (just under $7000) were provided by the County Board of Freeholders. Joe Hancock explains this use of public funds in a letter: In the Freeholders opinion, sharing the physical evidences of our various antecedents gives a continuance to our peculiar type of democracy! Not a bad expression of the uses of multi- culturalism. Lorraine Williams Waldron, then Curator in the Bureau of Archaeology and Ethnology of the New Jersey State Museum, corresponded briefly with Hancock about doing an archaeological survey at the original site, but this unfortunately was not done. More on archaeology later. Also in 1975, Hancock through the American Swedish Historical Museum became acquainted with Carl and Alice Lindborg, artists and educators deeply involved in Swedish American affairs. Lindborg, having consulted Amandus Johnson s remarks on Swedish storehouses in The Swedish Settlements on the Delaware wrote to Hancock in a letter filled with capital letters (which I will express by speaking a bit louder): With this rather conclusive evidence, your log structure becomes the SOLE SURVIVING EXAMPLE OF THIS TYPE OF BUILDING from the EARLIEST ERA of the EUROPEAN SETTLEMENTS OF OUR REGION and is therefore ABSOLUTELY UNIQUE. There is no surviving specimen in Pennsylvania or Delaware and therefore your building is a most significant historical complement to our two cabins along the Darby Creek, dating, as all of them do, FROM THE 1650 S. Lindborg had previously taken the Hancocks to the two Swedish cabins on Darby Creek alas, there is now just the one, the so- called Lower Swedish Cabin in Drexel Hill. Thus the belief that the Granary dates from the 17 th century rests upon the authority of Lindborg and Brumbaugh/Ruthrauff. Essentially, this belief has persisted to the present time. As Watson & Henry preservation architects write in 2012: Regardless of the unanswered questions, enough has been determined about the Swedish Granary to establish its uniqueness in American vernacular architecture: it is possibly the oldest surviving log building, and the oldest surviving agricultural building, in the country ( Preservation Plan iv). After the move and renovation, there was a dedication ceremony on November 20, In attendance were the Swedish consuls Nauckhoff and Hogeland. Hancock, being a Quaker, invoked a moment of silence in reverent memory of the old Swedish settlers!, after which 4

5 Ragnhild Holm, Swedish wife of Carl Holm (both local residents), intoned a short prayer in Swedish. I ve already shown several photos of that event. CCHS would open the Granary on special occasions Christmas in Greenwich, the Craft Fair, and so on- - throughout the year as it does still. Docents like Ragnhild Holm and her husband Carl were in charge of entertaining visitors to the Granary at those times. Ragn (as she was called) was born in Sweden, attended Bryn Athyn College, and was well known to the American Swedish community [28]. But as of the early 2000s, that generation of stewards Sally Watson, CCHS president, the Holms, Joe Hancock- - had passed away. Around 2008 and 2009 two promising things happened. One was the taking of 10 tree ring samples from a selection of the Granary s logs by dendrochronologists from Columbia University more on that in a bit. The other was the great interest shown by architectural historian Joan Berkey in the Granary. Berkey had already written her 2008 book, Early Architecture of Cape May County New Jersey: The Heavy Timber Frame Legacy, and had come to Cumberland County to begin a similar project. She was surprised when she first learned of the Granary and encountered it for the first time. She immediately recognized its uniqueness and its need for a more systematic preservation regime. In 2011 she offered to apply for a matching grant from the 1772 Foundation to pay for half of a new Preservation Plan to be written by the well- recognized restoration architectural firm, Watson & Henry of Bridgeton. Her application was successful and Penelope Watson & Michael Henry went to work on their plan, submitting a final draft in September Its role is absolutely central to the Granary s preservation. Penny Watson is the daughter of Sally and Newlin Watson, both former presidents of CCHS. In September 2012, Penny Watson and Michael Henry led a day- long collaborative workshop at the library, introducing CCHS staff to their Preservation Plan and encouraging discussions on various topics. They particularly wanted to explain why they had rejected the idea, favored by more than a few at CCHS, that the Granary should be enclosed within or under a protective structure. Their reasons were several and convincing: photos showed that the building was relatively unchanged since the 1970s and was therefore holding up much better than many believed; such a shelter could damage the building through moisture retention; the presentation of the artifact would be compromised; and so on. They explained what preservation activities they did recommend, all carefully sequenced: better site grading, replacement logs or parts of logs where warranted, replacement floors, restored roof, a new 5

6 foundation that would raise the Granary up from the ground (away from the family of 15 groundhogs that had to be evicted recently, for example), and regularly scheduled maintenance and inspection. The Plan is thorough, professional, and as I said fundamental to our progress in preserving the Granary. It provides in four brief but substantive chapters and an extensive series of appendices a background and historical analysis of the Granary, a chronology of its construction phases including the 1975 restoration, an analysis of existing conditions, and finally recommendations, including projected costs of over $200,000, no small sum for CCHS to raise. One of the Plan s recommendations reads: CCHS will conserve the Swedish Granary, while continuing to interpret it to the public and use it for educational purposes. An ongoing effort will be made to further explore the general history of the Swedish and Finnish settlement in the Delaware Valley, and the particular history of the granary, where possible (page 27). A lot of what I ve done since that workshop has been that recommended work of interpretation and historical exploration. I have the benefit of having before my mind the narrow focus of a single humble building that is nevertheless a potent portal on all of the themes of the new world, including the roots of colonists in the old world. Our library already had books by Amandus Johnson, Peter Stebbins Craig, Peter Kalm, and others. I started acquiring more scholarly books and reading widely in themes related to the Granary. I ll mention a few of those themes: the Forest Finns, the Delaware Valley as the core area of the log building in North America (the subject of the 1989 book American Backwoods Frontier by Terry Jordan & Matti Kaups), the American log cabin as cultural icon representing the history of pioneering in the USA, Swedes and Finns in New Jersey specifically, the fur trade, the Lenape/Delaware Indians, the Susquehannocks, the 5 nations of the Iroquois and the Covenant League, New Netherland, Sweden s Age of Greatness, the Swedish Lutheran church and its ministers, Peter Kalm and other New Sweden notables, and so on. But I was brought up short from a seemingly infinite reading program by that most humbling of activities, the writing of grant applications. The idea of fund- raising $200,000 intensified our awareness that despite expert authentications we had no definite date for the building. We might well be nursing a legend, as current CCHS president Jonathan Wood has aptly said. But, on the other hand, if, as architectural historian Joan Berkey has said, our authentications were justified, the building had the potential to be not only eligible for state and national historic registers, but also to be designated as a National Historic Landmark, a status that would facilitate the raising of money for preservation. So with Berkey s guidance & encouragement, I applied to the New Jersey Historical Commission for a 2014 grant to carry out two objectives. The first and more expensive objective is the 6

7 attempt to create a tree ring database for the kind of wood of which the granary is made, the coastal swamp- & marsh- loving species, the Atlantic White Cedar. This entails the taking of a number of core samples from both living and historic sources, sufficient we sincerely hope, though it is not guaranteed- - to date the granary. The New Sweden scholar Richard Hulan had sent me an article describing Jack Heikkenen s [29, 30] dendrochronological efforts at Colonial Williamsburg which led to considerable revisions in their interpretations. Heikkenen interestingly was Finnish, but he is unfortunately deceased. Our dendro will be carried out by William Callahan and Edward Cook, director of the Lamont- Doherty Tree Ring Lab of Columbia University. I mentioned earlier that these two in 2008 had already taken 10 samples from the Granary against the development of an AWC database. Cook has said that it will be helpful and probably necessary to find at least one 400- year- old Atlantic White Cedar tree, a fast- growing species. It has been a fascinating experience for me to begin to coordinate search parties for remote and well- hidden ancient trees! Or at least to imagine myself doing so, for we ll learn of our application s fate in late December or early January. Nevertheless, incredibly, there is hope that we ll find trees old enough. [31-35]. So that is the first part of the project. The second part is the writing of an essay by me that will draw on, organize thematically, and cite the reading I ve already done and will be doing in the coming year. Lately I have been thinking of it as a kind of New Sweden reader. I plan to provide as comprehensive an historical and cultural context for the Granary s interpretation as possible. This should help with our site interpretation as well. I plan also to visit a representative number of New Sweden historical sites throughout the Delaware Valley and beyond in order to network with them and to compare notes about interpretation, preservation, and publicity. I feel that as stewards of the Granary it is the Society s responsibility to actively embrace its New Sweden heritage. I would have liked to include an archaeological component in this grant application, but, given the grant limit and our priorities, that wasn t possible at this time. Nevertheless, we recognize that it may well be through archaeological research that we date the Granary, so accordingly we have asked Professor of Anthropology and Early American Culture at the University of Delaware, Lu Ann De Cunzo, the co- chair of this conference and, as it happens, a long- time resident of Greenwich, whether she would be willing to work toward carrying out an archaeological survey of the Granary s original site. She has agreed to do so and may ask for the collaboration of Magdalena Naum, Professor of Archaeology and Ancient History at Lund University in Sweden- - an exciting prospect for us at CCHS. To conclude, I want to show [36] the original site of the Granary: it s now a peach orchard, as you can see. Back in 1973, G. Edwin Brumbaugh, having surveyed this site, wrote that the Granary that stood upon it conceals many mysteries. By the time we re through, it will have 7

8 led us through such beautiful fields as this and through South Jersey marshes & swamps in search of giant Atlantic White Cedar trees that were alive when it was built. We intend to inquire into these mysteries and solve them if we can. What an exciting mission the Swedish Granary has sent us on! December/January 2013/2014 Joseph Mathews, CCHS Archivist ( 8

JOHAN PRINTZ GOVERNOR OF NEW SWEDEN

JOHAN PRINTZ GOVERNOR OF NEW SWEDEN 1643-1653 Swedish Settlements on the Delaware, 1638-1664, 223 "THE SWEDISH SETTLEMENTS ON THE DELA- WAEE, 1638-1664." BY AMANDUS JOHNSON, PH.D. BY GREGORY B. KEEN, LL.D.