Crane Hook on the Delaware - NC CHAP

32 NEW SWEDEN COLONISTS UNDER THE DUTCH NEW SWEDEN COLONISTS UNDER THE DUTCH 33
they were dependent for the offices of their church upon the only
Lutheran pastor, Reverend Laurentius Carolus Lokenius, and their
only church was at Tinicum Island. Glimpses of the religious life
of the Lutherans are few throughout the period of Dutch control.
Lokenius preached at least once in the then forbidden territory
south of the Christina. This service, held at the end of 1658, or
early in 1659, brought upon the unhappy Director Alrichs the
following reproof from the commissioners of the City's Colony in
Holland :
The bold undertaking of the Swedish Parson to preach in the Colony
there without permission, does not greatly please us. And as we will
assuredly, that, as yet, no other religion but the Reformed can nor
will be tolerated there, so you must, by proper means, put an end
to and prevent such presumption on the part of other sectaries.32
The preaching could hardly have been in the town of New
Amstel where the Reverend Everardus Welius held services in
the Dutch Reformed church on the Strand, but near enough for
the Dutch, Swedish, and Finnish Lutherans there, to attend. Perhaps
never in their lives had these Lutherans needed the solace of
public worship as they did during the terrible winter of 1658-59,
when neighbors, friends, and members of their families were dying
of virulent disease and many who remained alive were weak from
illness and from scanty rations. Lokenius must have been going
about among the suffering families giving such comfort as he
could while trying to keep them in the Lutheran fold. For in their
distress, the Lutherans in the New Amstel area, who were able
to attend church3) would be drawn to the Dutch services upon the
ringing of the bell on Sundays and weekdays. The Dutch reformed
pastor who had arrived on the ship De Waegh in August
1657 and was the friend-in-need to Director Alrichs, suffered with
Alrichs the same illness in the fall of 1659 and died December 9,
that year, followed in death by Alrichs on December 30.~~ From
that month for many years the Dutch Reformed had no minister
of their faith. Regular services of prayer, sermon-reading, and
psalm-singing by lay-readers and comforters-of-the-sick continued
32 Ibld.. 11. 61.
33 Ihld. XII. 374; Del~u.~rte HIIUI-J, V. 283-84, the little Dutch church on
the Strand >vni Andries Hudde's house sold by hiru to Director Alrichs in 1657 and
remodeled.
34 Doc~~ttieurr, 11, (14. 116 (also 77, 106, 180-81); XII, 786-87, 306, 287
(.11\o 212. 228. 237-40).
until in 1679 the Reverend Peter Teschenmaker became the Re-
formed pastor at New Ca~tle.~'
Near the time of Pastor Welius' arrival at New Amstel two
notably high-ranking Dutch Reformed clergymen at New Amster-
dam, Rev. Johannes Megapolenesis and Samuel Drissius, in a
letter to the Classis of Amsterdam, August 5, 1657, describing the
state of education and religion in New Netherland give an inci-
dental paragraph to the drinking habits of Domine Lokenius on
the Delaware:
This Lutheran preacher (Lokenius) is a man of impious and scan-
dalous habits, a wild, drunken, un~nannerly clown, more inclined to
look into the wine can than into the Bible. He would prefer drink-
ing brandy two hours to preaching one; and when the sap is in the
wood his hands itch and he wants to fight wholnsoever he meets.
The Commandant at Fort Casimir, Jean Paulus Jacquet, brother-in-
law of Domine Casparus Carpentier, told us, that during last spring
this preacher was tip ling with a smith, and while yet over their
brandy they came to i! sticuffs, and beat each others heads black and
blue; yea, that the smith tore all the clothing from the preacher's
body, so that this godly minister escaped in primitive nakedness, and
although so poorly clothed, yet sought quarrels with others. Sed Hoi
Prlrergicos (but this incidentally) .3"
The two right-living and able Dutch Reformed clergymen can
be excused for telling the incident described by Jacquet, but their
statement about the inclinations and preferences of Lokenius could
be slander, for the whole of contemporary evidence, except theirs,
indicates the Lutheran pastor's seal for preaching, and faithful
performance of the offices of the church.
Alcoholic beverages were a part of the reg~11ar daily fare in
the period among clergymen as well as lay people and social drinking
in homes and taverns on the Delaware was an accepted custom.
Mild intoxication among soldiers and laborers and even officers
while frowned upon was doubtless tolerated under the successive
governmental regimes, but i~ntler each drunkenness in public was
regarded as a reproach to [he good name of the colony and might
be punished by fines and restricted privileges."
35 [bid.. 310. 404. 410; .Er~~l~~~~.r~~ir.~l
RCCIIIJ~. I. 450, On Au,cust 3. 1662
Ilccckman requcsteil Stu)vcs.~nt to zcn~l clo>in .I clcr,cyn~:ln. ',.IS there .Ire sevel-ill
cl~ildrcn to h.lptirc I I ~ I C .it A1tcn.1; nor Ii.~r the Lorcl'.; runper hccn ;~~lm~n~stere~l
I1c1.c for ?I/, yc.>ri."
36 [/>IJ , I. 393-99: I),,~.I/~IIL,II/
t. 111. 09-72.
37 Fcrr~\, Or1.ql11.11 ~ < / / / < J I I L ~ I I / 011 \ //I