Finns Point

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Finns Point
Promonotory
View north along the land border of New Jersey and Delaware on Finns Point
View north along the land border of New Jersey and Delaware on Finns Point
Finns Point is located in Salem County, New Jersey
Finns Point
Finns Point
Finns Point is located in Delaware
Finns Point
Finns Point
Finns Point is located in New Jersey
Finns Point
Finns Point
Finns Point is located in the United States
Finns Point
Finns Point
Coordinates: 39°36′21″N 75°33′38″W / 39.60583°N 75.56056°W / 39.60583; -75.56056

Finns Point is a small promontory in Pennsville Township, Salem County, New Jersey, and New Castle County, Delaware, located at the southwest corner of the cape of Penns Neck, on the east bank of the Delaware River near its mouth on Delaware Bay.[1] Due to the wording of the original charter defining the boundaries of New Jersey and Delaware, part of the promontory is actually enclosed within the state of Delaware's border, due to tidal flow and the manner in which the borders between New Jersey and Delaware were first laid out. Therefore, this portion of Finns Point, also called The Baja,[2] is an exclave of Delaware, cut off from the rest of the state by Delaware Bay.[3] The area, the westernmost point in New Jersey, is about 10 miles (16 km) south of the city of Wilmington, and directly across the Delaware River from the New Castle area, and the Delaware River entrance to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal. Pea Patch Island, part of the state of Delaware, sits in the channel of the river facing the promontory.

The area in Delaware was previously protected as Killcohook National Wildlife Refuge but is now a confined disposal facility used by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.[2]

17th century

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At the time of European colonization in the 17th century the Delaware River was known as the South River and the Salem River was known as Varkens Kill, or Hogg Creek.[4]

Tradition holds that a settlement was first planted by Finns as part of the colony of New Sweden in 1638.[5][6][7] among them, the family of Anders Sinicka, whose surname has many variations.[8] [9] [10][11] This is recalled in the name of the road running along the shore south of the Port of Salem, Sinnicksons Landing Road.[12] which bears the name of the a prominent Salem County family, including Thomas Sinnickson and his descendants.

In 1641, a group of 60 settlers (20 families) from the New Haven Colony (in today's Connecticut) purchased land along the kill. In 1643, the Governor of New Sweden built Fort Nya Elfsborg, just east of present-day Salem, New Jersey, and allowed the Varkens Kill settlement to remain if they swore allegiance to Sweden.[13][14][15]

After the English seized control of the south bank of the Delaware in 1664, the peninsula that would become Finn’s Point remained part of West Jersey. The area continued to attract settlers of diverse European origins, including Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish families who had remained from the New Sweden period. Local records indicate that the descendants of early Finns, such as the Anders Sinicka family, were active in shipping, small-scale farming, and river trade along the Delaware, helping to connect West Jersey settlements to Philadelphia and other coastal ports.[16]

In the late 1660s and 1670s, the Quaker John Fenwick oversaw the formal settlement and land grants in the Salem area, including parcels on the Finn’s Point peninsula. Fenwick encouraged continued Finnish settlement, citing their expertise in timber, boatbuilding, and river navigation.[17]

By the 1680s, Finn’s Point had developed a modest riverfront cluster of homes and wharves. Dutch cartographer Adriaen van der Donck visited the region in the mid-1670s while documenting the Delaware River valley for trade purposes, noting in his sketches the “Finnish cottages by the South River, their sails and shallops ready for commerce.”[18]

The region also became a locus for cultural exchange. Swedish Lutheran ministers occasionally traveled south from Fort Nya Elfsborg to minister to the Finnish families, while Quaker meetings in Salem frequently included Finnish settlers, fostering early interethnic collaboration that would characterize the community for decades.[19]

Military facilities

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The promontory is the location of Finns Point National Cemetery, a military cemetery used in the American Civil War for Union and Confederate soldiers who died while at Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island. It was also the location of Fort Mott, constructed after the Civil War and used up through World War I to protect the E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Company facilities upriver at Carneys Point Township, New Jersey, as well as the port of Philadelphia. The fort is now part of Fort Mott State Park.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ "Finns Point". Geographic Names Information System. United States Geological Survey, United States Department of the Interior.
  2. ^ a b "The Baja: Why a strange piece of land near Pennsville belongs to Delaware instead of New Jersey". The News Journal. Retrieved 2023-05-19.
  3. ^ Schoonejongen, John. "How Delaware got on Jersey’s side of the river", Asbury Park Press, September 10, 2010. Accessed September 21, 2015. "Killcohook, in Pennsville Township, is another. Not only is it a 'confined disposal facility' for dredging materials, Killcohook is also the name of a nearby wildlife refuge. It borders another wildlife refuge, Supawna, as well as the Finns Point National Cemetery, the Finns Point Lighthouse and Fort Mott State Park."
  4. ^ Placenames of Salem County, NJ, West Jersey History Project / Salem County Historical Society, 1964. Accessed September 21, 2015.
  5. ^ "Seventeenth Century Salem County, New Jersey – 1600 through 1699" (PDF). Salem County Office of Archives and Records Management. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2012-07-28. Retrieved 2012-07-31.
  6. ^ Math Teacher (December 10, 2010). "First Colony of Settlers of Finnish Blood - Pennsville, NJ". Waymarking. Retrieved 2013-07-28. FINNS POINT Near Here 300 Years Ago and Later Lived the First Colony Of Settlers of Finnish Blood Upon This Continent **To Their Memory and To The Love of Freedom And Justice that They Handed Down to Their Descendants This Tablet is Erected June 30, 1938
  7. ^ "Fins Point". Finnish Place Names - New Jersey. Genealogia. Archived from the original on 2006-01-27. Retrieved 2013-07-28.
  8. ^ "Old Chest". Rootsweb. Retrieved 2013-07-28.
  9. ^ Dunlap, A.R.; E. J. Moyne. "The Finnish Language on the Delaware". Genealogia. Archived from the original on 2007-09-30. Retrieved 2013-07-28. Sinick Brour is called a Finn in a land record in Vol. XV (p. 61) of the Penn MSS (Historical Society of Pennsylvania). On the Finnish origin of the Sinnexson, or Sennecson, family see The journal and Biography of Nicholas Collin, tr. Amandus Johnson (Philadelphia, 1936), p. 227
  10. ^ Vuorinen, Ask (December 27, 2012). "The Delaware Finns". Retrieved 2013-07-27. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  11. ^ McMahon, William, South Jersey Towns (PDF), Rutgers University Press
  12. ^ "Google Maps".
  13. ^ Chandler, Alfred N. (2000) [1945], Land Title Origins: A Tale of Force and Fraud, Beard Books, p. 242, ISBN 1-893122-89-1
  14. ^ Sheridan, Janet L. (2007). "Their houses are some Built of timber": The colonial timber frame houses of Fenwick's Colony, New Jersey. University of Michigan Ann Arbor. p. 182. ISBN 9780549186526. Retrieved 2013-07-24.[permanent dead link]
  15. ^ Howe, Henry; Barber, John W. (1844), Salem, NJ, New York: S. Tuttle
  16. ^ Vuorinen, Ask (December 27, 2012). "The Delaware Finns". Genealogia: 1–12.
  17. ^ Clement, John (1875). A Sketch of the Life and Character of John Fenwick. Philadelphia: Friends Historical Association.
  18. ^ Van der Donck, Adriaen. Description of New Netherland, 1675. New York Historical Society Archives.
  19. ^ Sheridan, Janet L., The Colonial Timber Frame Houses of Fenwick’s Colony, University of Michigan, 2007, p. 182.
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