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.
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Related people
- · Mounce Jones
- · Ingeborg Jones
- · William Penn
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Anthony Sadowski
Amity Township, PA · est. 1966
Anthony Sadowski, a Polish pioneer, settled along the Schuylkill River in this region in 1712, making his living as a trader among the Native peoples of the area. His command of frontier diplomacy led the Provincial Government to employ him as a messenger and interpreter during negotiations with Indian tribes in 1728, and he was buried here in 1736 in the graveyard of St. Gabriel's Church.
William Penn - First Visit to America - PLAQUE
Amity Township, PA · est. 1926
William Penn, the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, made his first visit to his new proprietary colony between 1682 and 1684, the formative years when Philadelphia was laid out and the colony's character set. This marker records how far north he ventured up the Schuylkill River, reaching near the mouth of Monocacy Creek. It is a small window onto how a proprietor learned the shape and reach of the land he governed.
Fisher House
Oley Township, PA · est. 1948
Henry Fisher raised this home in 1801, when the young republic was still borrowing its architectural vocabulary from across the Atlantic. Its late Georgian lines — symmetry, restraint, and fine proportion — echoed the fashionable styles of the British Isles as adapted by the prosperous farmers and craftsmen of eastern and southern Pennsylvania. Houses like this one gave the settled countryside of Berks County its distinctive and enduring character.
De Benneville House
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