In the autumn the lots near Fort Christina were more accurately measured off, and plans were projected for the building of a village, “since there was little room in the fortress.” This was to be the staple town of the colony, and skilled workmen, such as shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters and the like were to reside there.[19] Factories of various kinds were to be founded and the harbor was to be improved and enlarged, so that it could meet the new conditions, and maintain itself for all times, as the principal commercial port of the country. Several men were appointed to “cut timber on the eastern bank” of the Delaware (almost opposite Tinicum Island) under the direction of Johan Stålkofta, “and later they brought a little timber raft to Fort Christina.” Soon “some of the settlers commenced to build manors and houses on their lots.” A plot was also prepared for an orchard, a sort of a park, “planted with fruit trees and surrounded with palisades.” The city thus begun was called Christinehamn, the forerunner of present Wilmington. A great many Indian chiefs visited the Swedish fortress during the summer, and several conferences were held with them. Some of the old land purchases were renewed, and a number of Indians from the eastern bank promised to supply the Swedes with great quantities of hops. A certain sachem “by the name of Mister, who pledged himself to gather all the hops that grew along the river,” and deliver them to Rising, was given some gifts and a bag in which to carry the hops; but he never returned the sack nor did he bring any hops to the fort. The usual commercial relations were established with the savages in the fall. The sloops were sent up and down the river to fetch hops and to purchase provisions, and over a thousand bushels of Indian corn and several bushels of beans were bought. Twenty bushels of maize and a few deer skins were presented to Rising as a gift from the sachems. Jacob Svensson, although he had been ill several times during the summer, was very successful in his transactions with the Indians and in December we find him buying deer meat from the savages “for frieze, powder and lead.” The needs of the country and the failure of new supplies to arrive made the purchasing of provisions from the neighbors imperative. On September 24 Richard Lord from Hartford arrived at Christina “with a cargo of provisions and other goods.” He also delivered letters from Elswick, which told the sad story that the _Haj_, the one hope of the colony in its want and distress, had been captured. “It was a special injury to us,” says Rising in his journal, “and a blow not easily repaired.” As Lord undertook to transmit letters to Sweden via England, the director made his second report “to the commercial college, in which he related their weak condition and the pressing necessity of relief.”