Quere, Whence did the Swedes here settled get their several sorts of corn, and likewise their fruit-trees and kitchen-herbs? The old man told me that he had frequently heard, when he was young, that the Swedes had brought all kinds of corn, and fruits, and herbs, or seeds of them, with them. For, as far as he could recollect, the Swedes here were plentifully provided with wheat, rye, barley, and oats. The Swedes, at that time, brewed all their beer of malt made of barley, and likewise made good strong beer. They had already got distilling vessels, and made good brandy. Every one among them had not a distilling vessel, but when they intended to distil, they lent their apparatus to one another. At first they were forced to buy maize of the Indians, both for sowing and eating. But after continuing for some years in this country, they extended their maize-plantations so much that the Indians were obliged some time after to buy maize of the Swedes. The old man likewise assured me, that the [[112]]Indians formerly, and about the time of the first settling of the Swedes, were more industrious and laborious in every branch of business, than they are now. Whilst he was young, the Swedes had a great quantity of very good white cabbage. Winter cabbage, or Cale, which was left on the ground during winter, was likewise abundant. They were likewise well provided with turnips. In winter they kept them in holes under ground. But the old man did not like that method; for when they had lain too long in these holes, in winter, they became spungy. He preferred that method of keeping them which is now commonly adopted, and which consists in the following particulars. After the turnips have been taken out of the ground in autumn, and exposed to the air for a while, they are put in a heap upon the field, covered with straw at the top, and on the sides, and with earth over the straw. By this means they stand the winter very well here, and do not become spungy. The Indians were very fond of turneps, and called them sometimes Hopniss, sometimes Katniss. The Swedes likewise cultivated carrots, in the old man’s younger years. Among the fruit-trees were Apple-trees. [[113]]They were not numerous, and only some of the Swedes had little orchards of them, whilst others had not a single tree. None of the Swedes made cyder, for it is come into use but lately. The Swedes brewed strong beer and small beer, and it was their common liquor. But at present there are very few who brew beer, for they commonly prepare cyder. Cherry-trees were abundant when Nils Gustafson was yet a boy. Peach-trees were at that time more numerous than at present, and the Swedes brewed beer of the fruit. The old man could not tell from whence the Swedes first of all got the peach-trees.
During the younger years of this old man the Indians were every where spread in the country; they lived among the Swedes, and were scattered every where. The old man mentioned Swedes who had been killed by the Indians; and he mentioned two of his countrymen who had been scalped by them. They stole children from the Swedes, and carried them off, and they were never heard of again. Once they came and killed some Swedes, and took the upper part of their sculls with them; on that occasion they scalped a little girl, and would have killed her, if they had not perceived a boat full of Swedes, making towards them, [[114]]which obliged them to fly; the girl was afterwards healed, but never got any hair on her head again; she was married, had many children, and lived to a considerable age. At another time, the Indians attempted to kill the mother of this old man, but she vigorously resisted them, and in the mean while a number of Swedes came up, who frightened the Indians, and made them run away. Nobody could ever find out to what nation of Indians these owe their origin; for in general they lived very peaceably with the Swedes.
The Indians had their little plantations of maize in many places; before the Swedes came into this country, the Indians had no other than their hatchets made of stone; in order to make maize plantations they cut out the trees and prepared the ground in the manner I have before mentioned[19]. They planted but little maize, for they lived chiefly upon hunting; and throughout the greatest part of summer, their Hopniss or the roots of the Glycine Apios, their Katniss, or the roots of the Sagittaria Sagittifolia, their Taw-ho or the roots of the Arum Virginicum, their Taw-kee or Orontium aquaticum, and whortle-berries, were their chief food. They had [[115]]no horses or other cattle which could be subservient to them in their agriculture, and therefore did all the work with their own hands. After they had reaped the maize, they kept it in holes under ground, during winter; they dug these holes seldom deeper than a fathom, and often not so deep; at the bottom and on the sides they put broad pieces of bark. The Andropogon bicorne, a grass which grows in great plenty here, and which the English call Indian Grass, and the Swedes Wilskt Grass[20], supplies the want of bark; the ears of maize are then thrown into the hole and covered to a considerable thickness with the same grass; and the whole is again covered by a sufficient quantity of earth: the maize kept extremely well in those holes, and each Indian had several such subterraneous stores, where his corn lay safe, though he travelled far from it. After the Swedes had settled here and planted apple-trees and peach-trees, the Indians, and especially their women, sometimes stole the fruit in great quantity; but when the Swedes caught them, they gave them a severe drubbing, took the fruit from them, and often their clothes too. In the same manner it [[116]]happened sometimes that as the Swedes had a great encrease of hogs, and they ran about in the woods, the Indians killed some of them privately and feasted upon them: but there were likewise some Indians who bought hogs of the Swedes and fed them; they taught them to run after them like dogs, and whenever they removed from one place to another, their hogs always followed them. Some of those Indians got such numbers of these animals, that they afterwards gave them to the Swedes for a mere trifle. When the Swedes arrived in America, the Indians had no domestic animals, except a species of little dogs. The Indians were extremely fond of milk, and ate it with pleasure when the Swedes gave it them. They likewise prepared a kind of liquor like milk in the following manner: they gathered a great number of hiccory nuts and walnuts from the black walnut-trees, dried and crushed them; then they took out the kernels, pounded them so fine as flour, and mixed this flour with water, which took a milky hue from them, and was as sweet as milk. They had tobacco-pipes of clay, manufactured by themselves, at the time that the Swedes arrived here; they did not always smoke true tobacco, but made use of another plant instead of it, which [[117]]was unknown to the old Swedes, but of which he assured me that it was not the common mullein, or Verbascum Thapsus, which is generally called Indian Tobacco here[21].
As to their religion, the old man thought it very trifling, and even believed that they had none at all; when they heard loud claps of thunder, they said that the evil spirit was angry; some of them said that they believed in a God, who lives in heaven. The old Swede once walked with an Indian, and they met with a red-spotted snake on the road: the old man therefore went to seek a stick in order to kill the snake; but the Indian begged he would not touch it, because he adored it: perhaps the Swede would not have killed it, but on hearing that it was the Indian’s deity, he took a stick and killed it, in the presence of the Indian, saying: Because thou believest in it, I think myself obliged to kill it. Sometimes the Indians came into the Swedish churches, looked at them, heard them, and went away again, after a while. One day as this old Swede was at church, and did not sing, because he had no Psalm-book by him, one of the Indians, who was [[118]]well acquainted with him, tapped him on the shoulder, and said: Why dost thou not sing with the others, Tantanta! Tantanta! Tantanta? On another occasion, as a sermon was preached in the Swedish church, at Raccoon, an Indian came in, looked about him; and, after hearkening a while to the preacher, he said: Here is a great deal of prattle and nonsense, but neither brandy nor cyder; and went out again. For it is to be observed, that when an Indian makes a speech to his companions, in order to encourage them to war, or to any thing else, they all drink immoderately on those occasions.
At the time when the Swedes arrived, they bought land at a very inconsiderable price. For a piece of baize, or a pot full of brandy, or the like, they could get a piece of ground, which at present would be worth more than four hundred pounds, Pensylvania currency. When they sold a piece of land, they commonly signed an agreement; and though they could neither read nor write, yet they scribbled their marks, or signatures, at the bottom of it. The father of old Nils Gustafson bought a piece of ground from the Indians in New Jersey. As soon as the agreement was drawn up, and the Indians should sign it, one of [[119]]them, whose name signified a beaver, drew a beaver, another of them drew a bow and arrow, and a third a mountain, instead of their names. Their canoes they made of thick trees; which they hollowed out by fire, and made them smooth again with their hatchets, as has been before mentioned.
The following account the old man gave me, in answer to my questions with regard to the weather and its changes: It was his opinion, that the weather had always been pretty uniform ever since his childhood; that there happen as great storms at present as formerly; that the summers now are sometimes hotter, sometimes colder, than they were at that time; that the winters were often as cold and as long as formerly; and that still there often falls as great a quantity of snow as in former times. However, he thought that no cold winter came up to that which happened in the year 1697; and which is often mentioned in the almanacks of this country; and I have mentioned it in the preceding volume. For in that winter the river Delaware was so strongly covered with ice, that the old man brought many waggons full of hay over it, near Christina; and that it was passable in sledges even lower. No cattle, as far as he [[120]]could recollect, were starved to death in cold winters; except, in later years, such cattle as were lean, and had no stables to retire into. It commonly does not rain, neither more nor less, in summer than it did formerly; excepting that, during the last years, the summers have been more dry. Nor could the old Swede find a diminution of water in brooks, rivers, and swamps. He allowed, as a very common and certain fact, that wherever you dig wells, you meet with oyster-shells in the ground.
The old Gustafson was of opinion, that intermitting fevers were as frequent and violent formerly as they are now; but that they seemed more uncommon, because there were fewer people at that time here. When he got this fever, he was not yet full grown. He got it in summer, and had it till the ensuing spring, which is almost a year; but it did not hinder him from doing his work, either within or out of doors. Pleurisy likewise attacked one or two of the Swedes formerly; but it was not near so common as it is now. The people in general were very healthy at that time.
Some years ago, the old Swede’s eyes were so much weakened that he was forced to make use of a pair of spectacles. He then got a fever; which was so violent, [[121]]that it was feared he would not recover. However, he became quite well again, and at the same time got new strength in his eyes; so that he has been able to read without spectacles since that time.
The houses which the Swedes built when they first settled here, were very bad. The whole house consisted of one little room, the door of which was so low, that one was obliged to stoop in order to get in. As they had brought no glass with them, they were obliged to be content with little holes, before which a moveable board was fastened. They found no moss, or at least none which could have been serviceable in stopping up holes or cracks in the walls. They were therefore forced to close them, both without and within, with clay. The chimnies were made in a corner, either of grey sand, a stone, or (in places where no stone was to be got) of mere clay, which they laid very thick in one corner of the house. The ovens for baking were likewise in the rooms. Formerly the Swedes had proper stables for the cattle; but after the English came hither, and made no peculiar buildings for their cattle, the Swedes likewise left off making stables.
Before the English came to settle here, the Swedes could not get as many cloaths as [[122]]they wanted; and were therefore obliged to make shift as well as they could. The men wore waistcoats and breeches of skins. Hats were not in fashion; and they made little caps, provided with flaps before. They had worsted stockings. Their shoes were of their own making. Some of them had learnt to prepare leather, and to make common shoes, with heels; but those who were not shoemakers by profession, took the length of their feet, and sewed the leather together accordingly; taking a piece for the sole, one for the hind-quarters, and one more for the upper-leather. At that time, they likewise sowed flax here, and wove linen cloth. Hemp was not to be got; and they made use of flaxen ropes and fishing tackle. The women were dressed in jackets and petticoats of skins. Their beds, excepting the sheets, were skins of several animals; such as bears, wolves, &c.