A Little Church History of a Middle Colony: Early Influences

Though Delaware is small, its church history is rich. Today, Stephen Nichols explores how this middle colony was shaped by William Penn’s vision of religious freedom, Anglican and Swedish influences, and enduring places of worship that still tell the story of faith in early America.

Welcome back to another episode of 5 Minutes in Church History. On this episode, we'll be spending some time looking at church history in one of the middle colonies. It's one of the colonies that doesn't get a lot of attention, and it is time to correct that. It is the Colony of Delaware, and the first date in church history is 1682. This is the year that William Penn wrote his Frame of Government. But before we get into it, a little background. From 1614 through the 1660s, the Dutch controlled much of what we would call the middle colonies. Now, there was also some independence for a Swedish colony in there, and we'll get to that in a little bit. But then in the 1660s, the English took it over from the Dutch, and William Penn, first was in New Jersey and a proprietor, and then he took his own colony, Penn's Woods of Pennsylvania. And Pennsylvania at that time included the lower counties along the Delaware River. And in 1704, those counties became the Colony of Delaware.

But back to 1682, Penn brought some significant political reforms to his colony. He had a bicameral house. There would be a governor with a provincial council on the one hand, and then a general assembly elected from freed men on the other, but what was unique about Penn's colony was religious freedom. In his Frame of Government, he wrote that “all persons living in this province who confess and acknowledge the One Almighty and Eternal God to be the Creator, Upholder, and Ruler of the world, and then hold themselves obliged in conscience to live peaceably and justly in civil society, shall in no ways be molested or prejudiced for their religious persuasion or practice in matters of faith and worship, nor shall they be compelled at any time to frequent or maintain any religious worship place or ministry whatever.” This was unique among the Puritan New England colonies, the Anglican controlled southern colonies. And so the middle colonies would have this flavor of religious freedom. And so Delaware, once it became independent in 1704, had that too.

Secondly, for a little church history in the State of Delaware or the Colony of Delaware, we have Immanuel Church on the Green in Newcastle. This was started by Anglican missionaries, and they built a church that became a rather prominent church in the 1700s, and also during the Revolutionary War era. During revolutionary times, it was typical for Anglicans to trend more loyalist, and that was true of the congregation there at Immanuel Church except for one standout, and that would be George Read who would go on to be a signer of the Declaration of Independence.

Well, our third moment takes us back to that time when Delaware was actually Swedish, and this is the building of Old Swedes Church in 1698. Now, I had mentioned that these colonies were Dutch and then taken over by the English, but they allowed the New Sweden Company in 1638 to found what was called the New Sweden Colony. It was along those lower Delaware River regions. And then in 1655, the Dutch, after some skirmishes with the Swedes, put an end to their independence and took it back over. That only lasted for about five or so years, and then the English came in, but the Swedes still populated that area. And in 1698, they built Old Swedes Church. The building is still standing, and it has been in continuous use for church services since the time it was built in 1698. Old Swedes Church, of course, was originally Lutheran, then in the 1850s, it became Episcopalian.

Well, those are three things about church history in the Middle Colony of Delaware, and when we come back next week, we will finish off our list of five things. So that's the Middle Colony of Delaware. And I'm Steve Nichols and thanks for listening to 5 Minutes in Church History.