Clas (Johansson) Jansson belongs to a New Sweden family. Join: New Sweden Project Discuss: New_Sweden

Biography

Clas (Johansson) Jansson migrated from Sweden to New Sweden in 1637 aboard the Kalmar Nyckel.

Clas Jansson was a passenger on the first voyage of the Kalmar Nyckel and arrived at the colony named New Sweden in 1637–1638. The New Colony records recorded him as the first settler at the site later called "Mill Dorp," known as "Claes' land," but he had died by the time the English gained control of the Delaware colony in 1664.^[1][2]

Immigrating to America

Kalmer Nyckel (in Swedish), Calmer Sleutel (in Dutch), and Key of Kalmar (in English) left Gothenburg in the beginning of November and sailed from the Texel on December 29, 1637. Captain Jan Hendrixsz van der Water was the master of the ship. He arrived in New Amsterdam on March 16, 1638. The destination was South River, New Sweden.

We know the names and something about many of the people who voyaged with Peter Minuit aboard the Kalmar Nyckel on the 1638 expedition that established the first permanent settlement in the Delaware Valley. No complete muster book from the original voyage survives, but some of the papers and logs belonging to Peter Minuit exist, ones that were carried back to Sweden by First Mate Michel Symonssen following Minuit’s death in the hurricane on that fateful 5th day of August, 1638.^[3]

Estimates suggest that 20 to 30 sailors manned the Kalmar Nyckel when she sailed for America in 1638 and that she carried about 24 soldiers. Most of the sailors were Dutch, and most of the soldiers were Swedish or Finnish. Names alone cannot be used to determine nationality because many people bearing Dutch names were Scandinavian and vice versa. Inconsistent and careless spelling by both Dutch and Swedes compounds the confusion.^[3]

The guidebook of Kalmar Nyckel listed him:

Settling in New Sweden

Clas or Klas Jansson (also recorded as Jansen, Johansson, and Hansson) went to New Sweden with Minuit in 1637–1638 and remained in the colony continuously, 1638 through 1655.^[4][5]

His name does not appear on the 1644 roll list because that list included only soldiers and servants of the company; Clas was a freeman on March 1, 1648.

On July 27, 1653, he was one of 22 settlers who signed a petition to Governor Johan Printz complaining about his autocratic rule. This was not a trivial matter and the apparent leader, Anders Jönsson, paid for his boldness with his life, executed by firing squad for “treachery” on August 1, 1653. Nevertheless, Claes Johansson escaped punishment and the tyrannical Printz packed up and returned to Sweden. In 1654, he was one of the "Old Freemen," who signed the oath of allegiance to new governor, Johan Risingh.^[1][6]

The Dutch invaded the New Sweden colony and confiscated his land in 1655, but Johan Risingh, governor of the Sweden Nation, made an inventory of property in 1667 (Handel och sjofart ["Trade and Shipping"] 194, Riksarkivet) and identified the land on the Christina River opposite Fort Christina (the location of former Mill Dorp) as "Claes' land." This must be a reference to Clas Jansson, as he was the only freeman named Clas in the colony in Risingh's time. According to Kalm, the progenitor of the Philadelphia area Johnsons came from Västergötland, Sweden.^[1][7][8]

Family

Clas Jansson was the father of Peter and John Classon, who were living at Mill Torp in 1669-71, and most likely of Christiern Classon, who was living in Tacony by 1677. There is one record of Claes having a daughter but no name is indicated. The male descendants of Peter and Christiern Classon adopted the surnames Classon and Clewson, while the descendants of John Classon became known as Johnsons. The surname Johnson became most common in Pennsylvania and the surname Classon was more common in Delaware and Maryland. The eldest son, Peter Classon, remained at Mill Torp. He was given the first English patent for his lands 26 November 1669. John Classon, the middle son, first moved to Passyunk and eventually to Neshaminy Creek in Bensalem. The youngest son, Christiern Classon, was settled in Tacony by 1677.

Research Notes

The article, "Claes Johansson, The Original Forefather," in Swedish Colonial News, Vol. 5, No. 3, Fall 2014, discuss his ethnicity:

Swedish or Dutch? Although the Kalmar Nyckel sailed under the Swedish flag, the commander of the expedition (Peter Minuit), the captain of the ship (Jan Hendricksen van der Water), and the crew were actually Dutch, as were at least some of the passengers. One expert (Sten Carlsson) believed that Johansson might have been one of those Dutchmen, although another (Peter Kalm) claimed that he was a Swede from Västergötland. There is a straightforward argument in favor of his being Swedish: He arrived as a passenger on the Kalmar Nyckel, settled in New Sweden, and was fully assimilated into the colony. Since there is no hard evidence to the contrary, that simple explanation seems adequate to imply Swedish ancestry.

However, there is some circumstantial evidence that might support Carlsson’s view. In 1637, while Peter Minuit was in the Netherlands planning the first Swedish expedition to the Delaware, he ran into an old acquaintance from his days with the Dutch West Indies Company, Kiliaen van Rensselaer, a wealthy Dutch diamond merchant. Van Rensselaer asked Minuit to provide passage on the Kalmar Nyckel to America for six young Dutchmen whom he had recruited as laborers for his plantation, Rensselaerwyck, which was located on the Hudson River at present-day Albany, New York. Van Rensselaer actually had no idea where in North America Minuit was planning to sail, and Minuit was not too forthcoming as he wished to keep his plans a secret. The agreement was that Minuit would find transportation for the six Dutchmen to New Amsterdam as soon as they made land. One of these young men was a 17-year-old tailor named Claes Jansen. Van Rensselaer later refers to this same young man as Claes Jansen van Nieuwkerck (there was also a Claes Jansen van Naerden employed at Rensselaerwyck) and describes him as a tobacco farmer.

It seems entirely possible that this Claes Jansen, upon his arrival in America, chose to remain at Fort Christina, where his neighbors sometimes referred to him by the Swedish form of his name, Claes Johansson. Certainly, the Swedish records identified him by the surname Jansen or Janson more often than as Johansson. If we entertain the possibility that Claes Johansson and Claes Jansen were one and the same, it might help to explain why he was the only one of the passengers on the Kalmar Nyckel in 1638 who remained permanently in New Sweden. Virtually all of the others were sailors, soldiers, farmers, and laborers recruited by the New Sweden Company. It is possible that the six Dutchmen were the only passengers not employed by the company. All the others were hired for the purpose of building Fort Christina and establishing the Swedish presence on the Delaware. They never intended to be settlers in New Sweden and were anxious to return to Sweden when their assignment was finished. If the other five Dutchmen had left for Rensselaerwyck, that would have left Claes Jansen as the only passenger on the Kalmar Nyckel, who had viewed himself as a permanent settler from the very beginning and had no reason to return to Sweden.

Arguing against the suggestion that the Swedish Claes Johansson and the Dutch Claes Jansen were the same person is the fact that A. J. F. van Lear, editor of the Van Rensselaer Bowier Manuscripts, lists all the residents of Rensselaerwyck arranged by the year of their arrival. In March of 1638, he lists five of the young Dutchmen who came over on the Calmer Sleutel (the Dutch form of Kalmar Nyckel), including a "Claes Jansz, from Nykerck," who was surely the Claes Jansen in question. However, it is important to note that this index was compiled in 1908, almost three centuries after the fact. One wonders if van Lear had proof that Claes Jansen actually arrived at Rensselaerwyck or if he was assuming he had arrived based on the earlier letters indicating that he was supposed to arrive. It is interesting to note that van Lear was able to provide important post-arrival information about the other five, including what work they did, what their wages were, what farm they worked on, their employers, positions they held, and for one of the men, even to whom he was married. However, for Claes Jansz, he provides no information at all; other than that, he was a 17-year-old tailor from Nykerck, which was already known before he ever left for America. Since so much is known about the others at Rensselaerwyck but nothing is known about Claes Jansen, it raises the possibility that he never actually arrived at Rensselaerwyck. Could it be that he decided to stay in New Sweden? It’s a question with no concrete answer at this time.

DNA

Perhaps the riddle of his homeland could be solved if only one of his proven male descendants were to submit Y-DNA for testing. The DNA might conclusively prove him to be Dutch or Swedish. If several descendants were to correlate their results, other genealogical findings could prove extremely interesting to the participants. FamilyTreeDNA offers, on their website, a "Family Finder" test that allows male and female descendants to find possible cousins through autosomal DNA correlations.

Sources

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1 1.2} Craig, Peter Stebbins. The 1693 Census of the Swedes on the Delaware: Family Histories of the Swedish Lutheran Church Members Residing in Pennsylvania, Delaware, West New Jersey & Cecil County, Md., 1638-1693. Winter Park, FL: SAG Publications, 1993. "Chapter 2: The Wicaco Congregation." Page 55. New Castle, Delaware Community History and Archaeology Program. (https://www.nc-chap.org), 2009. Web. Accessed 15 Feb. 2017, http://ncchap.startlogic.com/cranehook/pdfs/wicaco1693.pdf.
2. ↑ Craig, Peter S. 1671 Census of the Delaware. Philadelphia: Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, 1999, p. 47.
3. ↑ ^{3.0 3.1 3.2} Heed, Samuel, Esq., Lauren Morgans, and Alistair Gillanders, Esq., comps. Kalmar Nyckel – A Guide to the Ship and Her History. Wilmington, DE: Kalmar Nyckel Foundation, 2009. Kalmarnyckel.org. Kalmar Nyckel Foundation, 2009. Web. 19 Feb. 2017, p. 24, https://irp.cdn-website.com/51847ccb/files/uploaded/knf_guidebook.pdf.
4. ↑ Johnson, 463, 547, 699, 700, 710.
5. ↑ Huygen, 1.
6. ↑ Yocum, 269–70, n. 5, 19
7. ↑ Kalm, 225.
8. ↑ Benson, 730.

See also:

• Futhey, J. Smith, and Gilbert Cope. History of Chester County, Pennsylvania, with Genealogical and Biographical Sketches, (Philadelphia: Louis H. Everts, 1881), p. 11.

• Kalmar Nyckel (Geni.com)

• Kalmar Nyckel Guidebook (pdf)

• Kalmar Nyckel (Immigrant Ships Transcribers Guild)