Finns Point

Template:Short description Template:Infobox landformFinns 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.<ref name=GNIS>Template:Cite gnis</ref> 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,<ref name=":0">Template:Cite web</ref> is an exclave of Delaware, cut off from the rest of the state by Delaware Bay.<ref>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."</ref> The area, the westernmost point in New Jersey, is about Template:Convert 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.<ref name=":0" />

17th century

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.<ref>Placenames of Salem County, NJ, West Jersey History Project / Salem County Historical Society, 1964. Accessed September 21, 2015.</ref>

Tradition holds that a settlement was first planted by Finns as part of the colony of New Sweden in 1638.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> among them, the family of Anders Sinicka, whose surname has many variations.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> <ref>Template:Cite web</ref> <ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref> This is recalled in the name of the road running along the shore south of the Port of Salem, Sinnicksons Landing Road.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 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.<ref>Template:Citation</ref><ref>Template:Cite bookTemplate:Dead link</ref><ref>Template:Citation</ref>

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.<ref name="Vuorinen2012">Template:Cite journal</ref>

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.<ref name="Clement1875">Template:Cite book</ref>

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.”<ref>Van der Donck, Adriaen. Description of New Netherland, 1675. New York Historical Society Archives.</ref>

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.<ref>Sheridan, Janet L., The Colonial Timber Frame Houses of Fenwick’s Colony, University of Michigan, 2007, p. 182.</ref>

Military facilities

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

• Twelve-Mile Circle
• Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge

External links

• Finnish place name origins Template:Webarchive
• Channel 6 Action News (Philadelphia) Special Report on Finns Point Template:Webarchive
• Finns Point National Cemetery
• Fort Mott
• Finnish American History (in Finnish)