Page:History of Goodhue County, Minnesota.djvu/409

 HISTORY OF GOODHUE COUNTY 341 Swedish king had intended the colony to be an asylum for the oppressed of all nations, a free state where all would have equal rights and where slavery should never exist. Trade between the white man and red men was fair and square; they always kept their word with the Indian and never cheated him. When "William Penn arrived on this continent in 1662 it was the Swedish settlers and their children who received him and made him wel- come to the new world. They were Penn's interpreters with the Indians. Penn did precisely as the Swedes had done, bought land of the Indians at a fair price, treated them kindly and kept faith. The Swedes had become so prosperous through their industry that in 1698 they w r ere able to erect a church of stone, and the city of Wilmington has now grown up around its walls. This church, known as the "Old Swedes' Church," still stands, after nearly 200 years, a fitting monument to the New Sweden of Gustavus Adolphus. Swedish immigration was not large throughout the colonial period. Only about ninety-four people arrived from Sweden in the ten years, 1820-30. • Since then it has rapidly increased, but it is only in the past fifty years that the influx of Swedish settle- ment has been great. The first governor of New Sweden was Johan Printz of Vester Gotland, who was appointed August 15, 1642, when he was knighted. He died in 1683. The men of Swedish stock who rendered service in the Rev- olutionary and Civil wars are numbered by the thousands. Among them are Admiral Dahlgren, General Robert Anderson, General Nelson, who was shot in Kentucky, General Stohlbrand, General Vegesach, Colonel Hans Mattson, and Colonel Elfiring. Then, too, there is John Erickson, the great inventor who planned and built the "Monitor," which saved the country from great peril. He was born in Sweden, son of a Swedish miner, and lived in a miner's hut in the backwoods of Sweden. The first Swede to come to Minnesota was Jacob Falstrom, who came to the state before 1819. The first Swedish settlement in the state was commenced at Marine, Washington county, in 1850, by Oscar Roos and two other Swedes. The first Swede in Goodhue county was Nils Magnus Nilsson, known as Nels Nelson and as Dr. Sweney's Nels. He was brought from St. Paul by William Freeborn and here spent the remainder of his life. He served in the Civil War and spent his declining days in a cabin on the island opposite Red W T ing's levee. In this cabin he was found dead, and all the old settlers turned out to his funeral. The influx of Swedish immigration to Goodhue county was started bv Colonel Hans Mattson. but was also greatly assisted