In 1638, the New Sweden Company financed Swedes and Finns to travel to the New World to establish a colony for trade with Native Americans and to learn about the land. They traveled up the Delaware River, entered the Christiana River, and settled at a natural rock landing, where they built Fort Christiana, named for Queen Christiana of Sweden, in the area now known as Wilmington, Delaware. Some colonists later crossed the Delaware River into what is now Pennsville Township in Salem County, New Jersey, where the land was better suited to farming for those not interested in trade. The Swedes settled in an area once called Churchtown, and the Finns called their home Finn's Towne, with records of land purchases there dating to 1660. Church Landing Road took its name from the landing used by Swedish colonists who crossed the Delaware River to attend services at Crane Hook Church, established in 1667, until Holy Trinity Church was built in 1699. Delaware colonists also used the route to join New Jersey settlers for weddings, funerals, and special services. These deeply religious settlers often had to walk several miles along newly cut woodland trails to the river, then launch boats and face bay gales, fishnets in spring and fall, and winter ice floats. The difficulty of crossing helped lead the New Jersey settlers to separate from the Christiana and Wicaco churches and form their own congregation at Penn's Neck. In 1714 they decided to build a church on land donated by Jean Jaquett, using logs donated by the congregation, and on March 31, 1717, Dean Andreas Sandell dedicated it as the Swedish Lutheran Church of St. George. Priests came from Sweden until 1792, when the area came under English rule and the church changed from Swedish Lutheran to Episcopal. The Swedes in New Jersey lived scattered on farms as farmers, shepherds, woodsmen, and fishermen, drawn by better fishing places, grazing grounds, and room for their animals. The Delaware River remained a strategic maritime route, serving as a highway in the seventeenth century, and in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century Samuel Sparks shipped vegetables and fish to Philadelphia from the foot of Church Landing Road. Beginning as a path, Church Landing Road became one of the oldest roads in the township and kept its name after river crossings for worship, business, and social gatherings had ceased.