Swedeland is a small

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a parcel of land that is not governed by a local general-purpose municipal corporation. (At p. 178.) They may be governed or serviced by an encompassing unit (such as a county) or another branch of the state (such as th ...

that is located in Upper Merion Township, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States, in the suburbs of

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

. As of the 2020 United States census the population was 1,495. It was founded as "Matsunk" by Swedish settlers in 1710. The name was changed to Swedeland sometime in the late 19th century.

History

Situated along the

Schuylkill River The Schuylkill River ( , ) is a river in eastern Pennsylvania. It flows for U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-resolution flowline dataThe National Map(). accessed April 1, 2011. from Pottsville, Pennsylvania, Pottsville ...

and the Matsunk Creek, this Swedish village was composed of roughly nineteen homes. After the conquering of the Swedish colony by the Dutch, followed by English control, in 1664, a third generation settler with the

New Sweden New Sweden () was a colony of the Swedish Empire between 1638 and 1655 along the lower reaches of the Delaware River in what is now Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania. Established during the Thirty Years' War when Sweden was a g ...

Colony named Peter Yocum the Third (1678–1753) established Swedeland. William Penn offered the Swedish and Finnish colonists land from his grant in this Upper Merion area. By the mid-nineteenth century, Abraham Supplee operated a factory producing Kentucky Jean, employing some twenty-five hands. The extensive works of the Swede Iron Company were also located here, consisting of two large furnaces and a railroad line leading from the iron ore mines to the Schuylkill River. The land in the vicinity Swedeland/Matsunk was known for its fertile soil,

limestone Limestone is a type of carbonate rock, carbonate sedimentary rock which is the main source of the material Lime (material), lime. It is composed mostly of the minerals calcite and aragonite, which are different Polymorphism (materials science) ...

and iron ore quarries. The Alan Wood Steel Company built a massive steel Plant and Coking Facility in Swedeland in 1919; this brought forth a need for additional housing. Alan Wood Steel operated into the early 1980s. The Swedeland Volunteer Fire Company was formed in 1920 and continues to protect the citizens of Upper Merion and nearby communities. Swedeland has continued its industrial heritage and is surrounded by pharmaceutical giant

GlaxoSmithKline GSK plc (an acronym from its former name GlaxoSmithKline plc) is a British Multinational corporation, multinational Pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical and biotechnology company with headquarters in London. It was established in 2000 by a Mergers an ...

, chemical manufacturer Lonza, the Renaissance Business Park and The Philadelphia Newspapers Incorporated Complex.

Education

The school district is the

Upper Merion Area School District The Upper Merion Area School District provides education to Upper Merion Township, Bridgeport, and West Conshohocken in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. It consists of seven schools. Schools *Upper Merion Area High School (grades 9-12) *Uppe ...

.
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History

Education

References

See also