The History of Helsingham

At the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, there was a strong migration from Finland - especially from the province of Savo - to central and northern Sweden. At that time, the regions were part of the same kingdom.

The reasons for the migration have been speculated to be the oppressive actions of the Finnish order holder towards the peasants, the famine and the seven-year tax exemption promised to the new settlers. However, in the 1630s, the Swedes began to claim areas inhabited by Finns for themselves.

In the end, the conflicts even led to the fact that, (with the Swedish ruler's order) Finns cottages and grain were ordered to be burned without a separate sentence, and Finns were forcibly moved to North America, where the colony founded on the east coast began to be inhabited by Finns, partly by Swedes and later by Norwegians. Little settlement got a name New Helsingborg.

The Swedes built a harbor on the spot, and the Finns continued further west and established settlements along the river, began to cut down the forest and float it to the coast.

During the Skone War (1675–1679), the Danes captured the harbor (12 soldiers - the Swedes had 3 retired soldiers) and named it New Helsingør. The Finns didn't care with whom they traded for furs and timber, and everything continued as it was. After the peace, no one in the mother countries was interested about a distant small port, and the Danes and Swedes decided to agree on the matter and continue cooperation. At the same time, the name Helsingham was agreed upon.

When the Finns reached the "big lake", they established a more permanent settlement there, which gave birth to a small town called Finntown. Finnish settlement was concentrated there while Helsingham, mainly inhabited by Scandinavians, grew up on the coast around the harbor, the majority of which -however - soon became English and Irish immigrants.

The Finns continued to cut logs and deliver them to the coast. Over time, Finntown and New Helsingtown initially grew along the banks of the river, and as logging continued, the towns practically united.

At that point, the coastal population was already mainly English and Irish immigrants. The Finns concentrated on the shore of the lake and did not equally assimilate into the population other than the Scandinavians.

The establishment of a monastery of the Baltic-German order in 1712 on the north side of the harbor was also a special case. The monastery brought capital to the city and acquired a large area of ​​land in the northwest to establish an apple orchard there. There was often mistrust between the Catholic monks and the mainly Protestant population, but on the other hand the culture generally became secular.

At some point, a strange "border" came across south of which the Finns no longer cutted the forest. The monks ran into the same limit when they felled the forest to expand their apple orchard. So the city continued to grow along the coast in a north-south direction.

When copper and lead were found in the nearby areas, a successful mining industry began. In this, the recognized ability of Finnish miners already in the 17th century in Swedish mines played a relatively significant role.

When the all-metal cartridge was developed in the middle of the 19th century, Helsingham developed into one of the centers of the ammunition industry in the north - not least because the two most important raw materials (copper and lead) were obtained from the area's mines.

In the American Civil War Helsingham was naturally on the north side and the town had its own regiment and artillery section. Ammunition production naturally grew to completely new dimensions.

In the 19th century, the city grew into one of the most significant cities on the east coast, between New York and Boston. A railway was built between these three cities along the coast in 1856.

When Asian immigrants, led by the Chinese, began to increasingly come to the cities of the United States via the west coast, for some reason the Koreans ended up in Helsingham. At that time, the city also had its own neighborhoods for the Irish, Germans and Italians.

At the beginning of the 20th century, industry continued to grow. For example, Helsingham's wristwatches became famous. The products of the brewing industry conquered the industry before the prohibition law.

The First World War was a golden age for the city. Ammunition production grew and expanded into arms manufacturing as well, and Helsingham became one of the most important cities for firearms production in the United States. At one point on the east coast "Helsingham". was synonymous with revolver.

Migration brought a lot of people to the place and the economy flourished. As a special feature, Korean and Irish immigrant populations continued to create their own cultural local clusters

After the Second World War, the city still flourished thanks to the arms industry, but slowly began to decline, because the economic driver began to be the automobile industry with Detroit as its center.

In the 1970's, Helsingham was a declining metropolis where unemployment and declining industry created a feeling that the golden age was in the past.