Sites across Delaware reflect distinctive contributions to American history through the cultures brought by early Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, and British immigrants and through the principles of the Society of Friends, or Quakers, that shaped the region's social and political values. In Brandywine Valley, preservation efforts over centuries have kept the land a haven for recreation and preserved remnants of European settlement, including mills, stone houses, barns, corn-cribs, springhouses, and grain fields. At Old Swedes Historic Site, a Swedish Lutheran congregation led by pastor Eric Björk laid the cornerstone of its church on May 28, 1698, and dedicated it on June 4, 1699, as a lasting sign of Swedish cultural influence along the upper Delaware Bay. At Fort Christina, Sweden began its effort to compete for empire in North America in 1638 when the Kalmar Nyckel brought New Sweden's first settlers near the mouth of the Christina River, and the fort protected the young fur-trading and agricultural colony until Dutch rivals forced its surrender in 1655. New Castle Court House was central to Delaware statehood and constitutional government when the Colonial Assembly met there on June 15, 1776, to vote to separate from Great Britain and Pennsylvania, and elected delegates met there again in September 1776 to adopt Delaware's first state constitution. The Dover Green became a center of political life where residents heard the Declaration of Independence on July 29, 1776, and where delegates meeting at a tavern on its edge ratified the U.S. Constitution on December 7, 1787, making Delaware the first state. The John Dickinson Plantation recalls the home of John and Mary Noris Dickinson and honors John Dickinson as the Penman of the Revolution and a signer of the U.S. Constitution.