Ammasland
The Manor of Mount Joy was authorized in 1683, by warrant to Letitia Penn. It contained 7,800 acres, and extended from the Welsh tract, in Chester County, to the river Schuylkill, opposite the present borough of Norristown.1
The earliest Swedish settlements were on the Delaware river, near New Castle, in 1638. They called their territory New Sweden. About 1684 some Swedes secured land along the Schuylkill River. The Swedes’ tract came into their possession in 1712. It embraced the territory between Bridgeport and the Lower Merion line and was called “Ammasland.” Among those who settled here were Mats Holstein, Gunner Rambo, Peter Rambo and Peter Yocum. Descendants of these remain in this locality.2
The earliest we know of the name of Holstein is in the list of Swedish settlers in 1693, where Mats Holstein is mentioned as having a family of four persons. There is a family tradition that he came over with Governor Minuit, in 1637, and that he is the ancestor of all those bearing the name and of Swedish descent to be found in Pennsylvania. Mats, or rather Mathias, Holstein, son of the aforesaid; in the year 1712, with Brita, his wife, moved up along the Schuylkill and took up his abode in “Ammasland,” now called Upper Merion. Besides the native Indians, he found a few Welshmen scattered through the country, and who had preceded him. He purchased a tract containing one thousand acres of land, which lay directly opposite where Norristown now stands. It had a riverfront of about-a mile, and from thence extending back into the country some two miles, embracing all the territory upon which the Borough of Bridgeport is now laid out, the Shainline farms, Peter Supplee’s, and all the land from Red Hill to the river. Swedes Ford was also on this, and which name we know it bore before the year 1723. In the year 1714, he built a stone house on his place, about one and a-half miles from the river, where he lived with his family. His children, grand-children, great-grand-children and great-great-grandchildren have been born in that house, and its walls still stand, though they have been built upon and added to several times since. The aforesaid had a son, Mathias, who was born in 1717, and married Magdalena, daughter of Marcus Hulings, of Morlatton, a Swedish
settlement on the Schuylkill, four miles above the present borough of Pottstown.3
1 Egle, William Henry. An illustrated history of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Harrisburg, De W. C. Goodrich & co, 1876. Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/01010385/>.
2 Heysham, Theodore. Norristown -1912: a brief history of the Borough of Norristown, memorializing its one hundredth anniversary, together with maps showing the complete evolution of the borough and views of the town in the dress of its first centennial, groups of citizens, distinguished guests, and scenes from the first historical pageant. [Norristown: Norristown Herald Printers, 1913] Pdf. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/14000040/>.
3 Buck, William J, and Joseph Meredith Toner Collection. History of Montgomery County within the Schuylkill Valley: containing sketches of all the townships, boroughs, and villages in said limits, from the earliest period to the present time; with an account of the Indians, the Swedes, and other early settlers, and the local events of the revolution; besides notices of the progress in population, improvements, and manufactures. [Norristown, Pa.: Printed by E. L. Acker, 1859] Image. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, <www.loc.gov/item/01010512/>.
