Yocum Family History
Page Nine
PAGE 259
Having reference to the unsucessful complaint by Hans Mansson and Peter Yocum the year before, the Upland Court on 14 June 1681 ruled:
Upon the request of Peter Jocum ordered that Peter Rambo cause his marsh land according to patent to be surveyed to the end said Peter Jocum may know what is left to him.
On 30 November 1681 "Peter Yokeham" was back in court a third time against Peter Rambo Sr., asking for damages for Rambo's trespass of the marshland at Aronameck. Appearing as witnesses were Anders Svensson (his wife's uncle), John Justasson (Justis), NIls Larsson (alias Friend) and
Otto Ernest Cock (unrelated to Peter Cock). Cock testified that "upon Governor of York's order to take patents for what land they held, the defendant got a patent and included the plantiff's land therein and after the plantiff got a patent for the land in regard, he oe predecessor (Hans Mansson) had it in possession." This time the jury favored Peter Yocum and awarded him 50 guilders damages. At the same court "Peter Yokeham" testified in Hans Mansson's lawsuit against Peter Dalbo for an uncollected debt. Mansson was awarded 160 guilders. At the
quarterly court session of 14 March 1682 "Peter Yoakham" served as juror and was appointed to serve a one-year term as overseer of highways in Kingsessing between Karkus Mill (the old Swedes' mill on Cobbs Creek) and the Schuylkill Falls. At the next court, 13 June 1682, he not only served again as a juror but also appeared as a witness in Lasse Cock's suit against Lasse Dalbo (Cock was awarded 200 guilders) and won his own
suit against Lasse Dalbo for a debt of 56 guilders.
LAND PROBLEMS UNDER PENN'S GOVERNMENT
With the arrival of William Penn late in 1682, followed by shiploads of immigrants from England, a cloud of uncertainty hovered over Peter Yocum and the other Swedes who possessed most of the riverfront land in the Philadelphia area, generally in tracts of hundreds of acres. The new government required the old settlers to surrender their deeds and submit to new surveys. They promised that new deeds would be issued. On the other hand Penn's new government wanted part of this land for the new settlers from England.In this sensitive transition time Lasse Cock served as William Penn's intermediary in dealing with the original Swedish settlers. Lasse was born 21 March 1646 in New Sweden, the eldest son of Peter Cock, who had arrived in the colony on the Charitas in 1641. On 15 May 1669 Lasse Cock married Martha Ashman, daughter of Robert Ashman, one of a group of English which had attempted an abortive settlement at Passyunk in the late 1660s shortly after the English conquest of the Dutch. Unlike most Swedes, Lasse could read and write English. It was his task to negotiate a successful transfer of lands which the Swedes had occupied for decades to William Penn's original purchasers.
PAGE 262
Peter Yocum was one of the first targeted Swedes to reach agreement with the new government. His Aronameck plantation west of the Schuylkill was not wanted, but his lands at Pennypack (Tacony) were. By late 1683 Peter agreed to surrender his 250 acres there. In return Peter was promised twice that amount west of the Schuylkill "above the Welsh townships."
On 21 August 1682 Peter Peterson Yocum negotiated the sale of another 100 acres of his Aronameck holdings to William Clayton, Jr., an English Quaker who had arrived in the Philadelphia area with his father before William Penn and perhaps had learned about this land when in 1681 he sat as one of the 12 jurors in Peter Yocum's trespass action against
Peter Rambo, Sr. On 28 June 1683 William Penn issued a warrant for the resurvey of lands belonging to the "antient inhabitants," which in the case of Peter Peterson Yocum meant two surveys at Aronameck: one made 17 April 1684 for the 580 acres he retained and one made 26 May 1684 for the 100 acres previously sold to William Clayton. Yocum's return also
included 30 acres of marsh meadow granted him by the Governor's warrant of 25 July 1684 and surveyed 16 December 1684. These surveys identify Clayton's 100 acres as the northernmost part of the 1,150-acre Aronameck plantation, and then reading southward: Nils Jonasson (200 acres), Jonas Nilsson (270 acres), and finally Peter Yocum (580 acres). These surveys also permit identification of the 1683 landholders of Aronameck shown in
Lasse Dalbo's return as follows:
Acres
Name Age Dalbo
Actual Cleared
Wm. Clayton, Junr _ 100
100 _
Neils Johnson (Nils Jonasson) _ 200
200 6
John Neilson (Jonas Nilsson) _ 300
270 _
John Minsterman 36 100
100 _
Peter Yocumbe (Peter Yocum) 30 400
480 10
Thus, as of the spring 1683, Peter was renting 100 of his remaining 580 acres to John Minsterman; his brother-in-law Nils Jonasson was actively farming his 200 acres, but his father-in-law and Clayton had not yet cleared any of the land they had acquired.
The 1684 surveys show a slight change. Peter's survey shows his land bordering on land then occupied by "Mountz Jonasson" (another son of Jonas Nilsson), suggesting that Mountz had moved onto his father's 270 acres during the preceding year. This development is confirmed by Thomas Holme's "Map of the Improved Part of the Province of Pennsilvania in America" published in 1687, reflecting land transactions through 1685, that shows "Mouns Johnson" occupying the tract of Jonas Nilsson.
The same map shows Lawrence Hedding replacing John Minsterman. Otherwise the land holders are the same: William Clayton and "Neels Johnson" (Nils Jonasson) at the north end and "Peter Yocomb" occupying the largest tract at the south end, next to Robert Longshore and across the river from Peter Rambo, Sr.
On 23 January 1686 Peter Yocum further reduced his Aronameck
holdings by selling another 130 acres, bordering on Robert Longshore to the south, to his father-in-law Jonas Nilsson.
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