OF LANCASTER COUNTY. 33 



later with the Pennsylvania proprietaries, which were not settled for 

 more than one hundred and thirty years. After his death, the patent 

 was, in 1633, confirmed to his son. The extent of the grant will be seen 

 from the following proceedings and description :^ 



"By letters patent of this date, reciting the petition of Cecilius, Lord 

 Baltimore, for a certain country thereinafter described, not then cultivated 

 and planted^ though in some j^arts thereof inhabited hy certain barbarous 

 'people^ having no knowledge of Almighty God, his majesty granted to said 

 Lord Baltimore: 



"All that part of a peninsula lying in the parts of America between 

 the ocean on the east, and the bay of Chesapeake on the west, and divided 

 from the other part thereof by a right line drawn from the promontory 

 or cape of land called Watkins's Point, (situate in the aforesaid bay, near 

 the Eiver of Wigheo) on the west, unto the main ocean on the east ; and 

 between that bound on the south, unto that part of Delaware Bay on the 

 north which lieth under the -iOth degree of north latitude from the equi- 

 noctial, where New England ends ; and all that tract of land between the 

 bounds aforesaid; i. e., passing from the aforesaid bay called Delaware 

 Bay, in a right line by the degree aforesaid, unto the true meridian of 

 the first fountain of the Eiver of Pattoumech, and from thence trending; 

 towards the south unto the further bank of the aforesaid river, and fol- 

 lowing the west and south side thereof, unto a certain place called Cin- 

 quack, situate near the mouth of the said river, where it falls into the 

 Bay of Chesapeake, and from thence by a straight line unto the afore- 

 said promontory and place called Watkins's Point." 



It does not appear that actual steps towards the settling of the banks 

 of the Delaware were taken until 1638, and the authentic notices of trans- 

 actions belonging to the interval which have come down to us, are not 

 of sufficient moment to be chronicled in this place. 



Peter Minnewit, after his return to Holland, went to Sweden and suc- 

 ceeded in reviving the plan of colonizing the Delaware, abandoned by 

 Usselinx, who is supposed to have died at the Hague in 1647. Towards 

 the close of 1637, Minnewit, at the head of an expedition consisting of 

 the ship of war "Key of Calmar" and the transport "Bird Crip," and 

 carrying a clergyman, an engineer, about fifty settlers, with the necessarj^ 

 provisions, merchandise for trade and presents to the Indians, left Gotten- 

 burg, and after calling at Jamestown, in Virginia for wood and water, 

 reached the Delaware about May, 1638. Purchasing the soil on the 

 western shore from the Capes to the falls of Sankikans, opposite to the 

 present city of Trenton, from the Indians, he erected the fort and town 

 of Christina, on the north bank of the Minquaskill. The Eev. Eeorus 

 Torkillus, who accompanied Minnewit, was the first Swedish clergyman 



IE. Hazard's Hist. CoU. I. 337. 

 4 



