Page:Historic towns of the middle states (IA historictownsofm02powe).pdf/382

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the Dutch to any territorial or other rights upon the west side of the Delaware.

Prinz built at Tinicum, or Tenacong as the Indians called it, near the present city of Chester, Pennsylvania, a fort to threaten the Dutch Fort Nassau, above; and likewise at the mouth of Salem Creek, on the Jersey shore, where the English had a small settlement, he built Fort Elfsborg, or Elsinborough. Both were promptly armed and garrisoned. He built still another fort, this time on the Schuylkill, within gunshot of its mouth, and in 1646 he ordered a Dutch trading-vessel from that river. Furthermore, he caused to be torn down with despiteful words the arms of the Dutch, set up in sign of possession upon the present site of Philadelphia, and when reminded of the Dutch West India Company's prior claim, he profanely answered that although Satan was the earliest possessor of hell, doubtless he sometimes welcomed new comers.

But a day of reckoning was speedily to come, for Peter Stuyvesant, Governor of the New Netherlands, moved by the amazing activity of Prinz, bought from the Indians all the west side of the Delaware from Minquas