HistoricSiteMarkers
Colonial America

Governor Printz Park

Tinicum Township, Delaware County, Pennsylvania

Marker Inscription

Site of the first permanent settlement in present Pennsylvania in 1643, and of the Swedish Capitol, the Printzhof. Administered by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission.

Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission

The Story

On this low island in the Delaware, Swedish colonists founded New Sweden's foothold in 1643, the first permanent European settlement in what is now Pennsylvania. Here stood the Printzhof, the fortified residence and capitol of Governor Johan Printz, the imposing leader who governed the tiny colony. Though New Sweden was short-lived, this ground marks where organized European settlement in Pennsylvania began, decades before William Penn's arrival.

Why it matters

Governor Printz Park preserves the birthplace of European Pennsylvania and a reminder that the Swedes, not the English, planted its first lasting colony along the Delaware.

The story behind this marker

AI context

The era

To stand on this low, marshy ground beside the Delaware River is to stand at a beginning that most people never learn in school. Long before William Penn arrived to give his name to the colony, this river valley was contested territory, prized by European powers for its access to the fur trade and its command of a great waterway into the continent's interior.

In the early 1640s, Sweden was one of the strongest military powers in Europe, riding high on its role in the Thirty Years' War. Like England, France, and the Netherlands, it wanted a foothold in the New World, and the Delaware Valley — with its rich waterways and Native trading networks — looked like the place to plant it. The colony they founded here in 1643 was tiny, remote, and perpetually short of people and supplies.

What is now quiet parkland in Tinicum Township was, for a brief window in the seventeenth century, the administrative heart of a European experiment on the edge of a vast and unfamiliar land.

People & events

The colony of New Sweden had already established itself along the Delaware before its most forceful leader arrived, but it was under Governor Johan Printz that the settlement here took on the shape of a capital. Printz was a physically imposing man and a former soldier, and he governed the little colony with a soldier's firmness.

He made his seat here at the Printzhof — a fortified residence that served as both his home and the center of government for the whole colony. From this point he oversaw trade with Native peoples, tried to keep rival Dutch and English claims at bay, and struggled constantly with the difficulty of holding a distant outpost together with too few colonists and too little support from home.

The settlement founded here in 1643 was the first permanent one in what would become Pennsylvania. That single word — permanent — is what sets it apart from the fishing camps and trading stops that came and went. People built here, governed here, and stayed.

Its place in the American story

The story of early America is usually told as an English story: Jamestown, Plymouth, the thirteen colonies. But the ground here is a reminder that the map of colonial North America was drawn by many hands. Swedes, Finns, and Dutch all left their marks on the Delaware Valley before the English claim hardened into permanence.

New Sweden did not last long as a Swedish possession, but its people, their farmsteads, and their customs did not simply vanish. The Scandinavian settlers of the Delaware are often credited with helping introduce building traditions — the notched-log construction that later generations would associate with the American frontier — into the culture that grew up around them.

When you place this 1643 founding next to the more famous colonial beginnings, you get a truer picture: a continent where several European nations were all reaching for the same rivers at the same time, and where the first lasting settlement in a future state could speak Swedish.

If you visit

Come here expecting a quiet, unassuming place rather than a grand monument. The setting is low and close to the water, and part of the reward is simply standing where the Delaware still flows past ground that has been continuously significant since 1643.

Look for the way the land itself tells the story — the flat, river-edge terrain that made this a natural spot for a landing and a fortified seat. Let your imagination rebuild the Printzhof and the little cluster of colonial life that once concentrated here, then compare it to the sweep of the modern river and its surroundings.

It makes a rewarding stop for anyone chasing the deeper, older layers of American history. This is not a place that shouts; it rewards visitors who like to stand still, read the marker, and realize they are at the very start of the Pennsylvania story.

Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.

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Related people

  • · Johan Printz

Related events

  • · Founding of New Sweden

Themes & tags

ImmigrationLandmark

Nearby & related markers

Lazaretto Quarantine Station

Tinicum Township, PA · est. 2008

Established in 1799 after a devastating yellow fever epidemic, the Lazaretto stood as Philadelphia's line of defense against imported disease. For nearly a century, ships bound for the port stopped here first so that cargo could be inspected or fumigated and passengers examined; the sick were hospitalized and held until they recovered — or died. For countless arriving immigrants, this quarantine station was their very first taste of America.

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Tinicum

Tinicum Township, PA · est. 1947

In 1643 Colonel Johan Printz, the imposing governor of New Sweden, established his seat at Tinicum, founding what is recognized as the first permanent European settlement in present-day Pennsylvania. For a dozen years the Swedish colony held this ground along the Delaware, until the wider contest for the river swept it away — first to the Dutch in 1655, then to the English in 1664. Tinicum's brief Swedish chapter left a lasting mark on the region's earliest colonial identity.

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Morton Homestead

Prospect Park, PA · est. 1966

This riverside homestead was begun around 1654 by Morton Mortonson, part of the Swedish and Finnish settlement of New Sweden along the Delaware, and it is among the oldest European-built structures in the region. The family line ran forward to John Morton, the Pennsylvania delegate who cast a decisive vote and signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776.

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New Sweden

Eddystone, PA · est. 1988

Decades before William Penn arrived, Sweden planted a colony along the Delaware. Founded in 1638 at the site of present Wilmington, New Sweden moved its capital in 1643 to Tinicum Island, where Governor Johan Printz took charge. The Dutch seized the colony in 1655, but the Swedish and Finnish families who had settled here stayed on, becoming part of the region's foundation.

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