Printz's Mill: The First European Industry in Pennsylvania

Along Cobbs Creek in West Philadelphia, hidden beneath the later mill dam, lie the anchoring holes of what was likely the first European water-powered mill in Pennsylvania. Built around sixteen forty-five by Johann Printz, the governor of the New Sweden Colony, it predates William Penn's arrival by nearly four decades.

New Sweden was established in sixteen thirty-eight along the Delaware River by Swedish and Finnish settlers and existed as a colonial enterprise until sixteen fifty-five, when the Dutch absorbed it. Printz built his mill along the Great Minquas Path, a major indigenous trade route, placing European industry at a crossroads already worn by generations of travel. The mill was a primitive Norse or splash grist mill, modest by later standards, but it represents the earliest industrial footprint of European settlement on this soil. Its stone anchor holes remain visible below the waterline to this day.