Swedish Pioneers
Union Township, Berks County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
First European settlers in present Berks County on land granted by William Penn, 1704-5. The home of Mounce and Ingeborg Jones, built 1716 and the oldest house in the county, stands at the opposite end of the river bridge.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the first years of the 1700s, Swedish settlers took up land granted by William Penn and became the first Europeans to live in what is now Berks County. The stone home of Mounce and Ingeborg Jones, raised in 1716, still stands by the river bridge as the oldest house in the county. These pioneers were heirs to the earlier colony of New Sweden, carrying its people and building traditions up the Schuylkill into fresh country.
Why it matters
The Swedish presence reminds us that Pennsylvania's frontier was settled by a mix of European peoples well before the region became famous for its German and English communities.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
At the dawn of the 1700s, the land that would become Berks County was still frontier — forested country along the Schuylkill River, beyond the edge of established settlement. Europeans looking to farm here were pioneers in the plainest sense, building homes where there had been none.
William Penn's colony encouraged this kind of settlement, granting land to newcomers willing to put down roots. As the inscription records, the first European settlers in present Berks County took up land granted by Penn in 1704 and 1705, pushing into fresh country up the river valley.
These particular pioneers were Swedish, heirs to an older chapter of colonial history. Decades earlier, a colony called New Sweden had taken hold along the Delaware, and its people and traditions did not vanish when the colony changed hands — they spread inland, carried by families like the ones this marker honors.
People & events
The marker names Mounce and Ingeborg Jones, whose home was built in 1716 and stands, as the inscription notes, at the opposite end of the river bridge — the oldest house in the county. A stone house raised on the frontier three centuries ago, still standing, is a rare and tangible link to those first settlers.
The Joneses were among the first Europeans to make a life in this part of Pennsylvania, on land granted under Penn's authority. Their house was not just shelter but a statement of permanence: these settlers meant to stay, to farm, and to build something lasting on ground that had been wilderness to them.
They carried with them the inheritance of New Sweden — its people and its building traditions — planting that older colonial culture in new soil along the Schuylkill. In their home, the story of Sweden's brief American colony reaches forward into the settlement of the Pennsylvania interior.
Its place in the American story
Pennsylvania is famous for its German and English communities, but its founding mix was broader than that, and the Swedish pioneers are the proof. Long before the region became known for those larger groups, Swedish settlers were already at work on its frontier.
Their presence connects Pennsylvania to New Sweden, an early European foothold on the Delaware that predated much of the settlement around it. The people of that colony did not disappear; they moved, married, and carried their heritage into new districts, weaving an extra strand into the American tapestry.
The broader lesson is that the American frontier was settled by a patchwork of peoples, often layered one atop another over decades. A single county's beginnings can hold Swedish pioneers, English proprietary law, and the promise of open land all at once — the kind of blend that shaped the country as a whole.
If you visit
The star here is the house. Look across to the far end of the river bridge, where the 1716 stone home of Mounce and Ingeborg Jones still stands as the oldest in the county. Old stonework like this rewards a slow look — the thickness of the walls, the placement by the water, the sense of a home built to endure.
Standing by the bridge, imagine the setting three centuries ago: forest, river, and a handful of newcomers making the first European farms in a place that had none. The water that shaped their choices still runs past the spot today.
This is a fine stop for travelers curious about the deeper, less familiar roots of Pennsylvania settlement. Pair the marker with a look at the historic house across the bridge, and let it remind you that the frontier's first families came from more corners of Europe than the well-known story usually tells.
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
- · Mounce Jones
- · Ingeborg Jones
- · William Penn
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Anthony Sadowski
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