Delaware River

“ The Delaware River rises in the Western Catskill Mountains, flows southward for about three hundred and seventy-five miles, and expands into Delaware Bay about sixty miles from the sea. Its origin is among the Devonian and Carboniferous rocks, and in its course it passes through Silurian, Triassic and Cretaceous formations, finally reaching the Cambrian and Laurentian beds. ”

“ The streams that drain the state are small and insignificant. Those of the N. flow into Brandywine and Christiana creeks, whose estuary into Delaware river forms Wilmington harbour; those of the S.W. have a common outlet in the Nanticoke river of Maryland; those of the E. empty into Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. The principal harbours are those of Wilmington, New Castle and Lewes. The shore of the bay is marshy, that of the Atlantic is sandy. In Kent county there are more than 60,000 acres of tidal marshland, some of which has been reclaimed by means of dykes ”

“ It receives the Delaware River, whose estuary gradually emerges into the bay. It is about 40 miles long to where it contracts to a width of 4 miles. Its greatest width is 25 miles, and the width at the entrance, between Cape May, in New Jersey, and Cape Henlopen, in Delaware, is about 15 miles. The depth of the channel varies from 30 to 60 feet, but much of the bay has less than 30 feet of water. A breakwater at Cape Henlopen, constructed by the United States Government, forms a large and safe harbor from 24 to 35 feet deep. ”

“ The Delaware and the Hudson and the Connecticut are the children of the Catskills and the Adirondacks and the White Mountains, cradled among the forests of spruce and hemlock, playing through a wild woodland youth, gathering strength from numberless tributaries to bear their great burdens of lumber and turn the wheels of many mills, issuing from the hills to water a thousand farms, and descending at last, beside new cities, to the ancient sea.
Every river that flows is good, and has something worthy to be loved. ”

“ Here, for the first time since we left Port Jervis, the water ran slowly. It is hard to leave a spot so beautiful, where so few strangers are led. Here was Nature at first hand. To impress it deeper on my mind, I retrace our course, on the bank, to where, a hundred yards above the bend, a little singing river flows into the Delaware. Only a few inches deep, babbling over brown pebbles, bright as the sun itself in its flashes, coming down under a dim arch of trees and fringing underwood—a very dream of a little singing brook, that
"Knows the way to the sea." ”

“ There are very few districts of country in the nation in which so many subjects for consideration are centered.
[FN] Ganendagraen is probably from Gahenta (Gahenda) , "Prairie."
On the Delaware.
Keht-hanne, Heckewelder—Kittan, Zeisberger—"The principal or greatest stream," i. e. of the country through which it passes, was the generic name of the Delaware River, and Lenapewihittuck, "The river or stream of the Lenape," its specific name, more especially referring to the stream where its waters are affected by tidal currents. ”

“ The Schuylkill River is the chief tributary of the Delaware, an Allegheny Mountain stream about one 186 hundred and twenty miles long, coming out of the Pennsylvania anthracite coal-fields, and falling into the Delaware at League Island in such a lowland region that its mouth is scarcely discernible. ”

“ When near Port Jervis, which town is connected with Rondout, on the Hudson River, by the Hudson and Delaware Canal, the Delaware turns sharply to the southwest, and becomes the boundary line between the states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Below Easton the river again takes a southeasterly course, and flowing past Trenton, Bristol, Bordentown, Burlington, Philadelphia, Camden, Newcastle, and Delaware City, empties its waters into Delaware Bay about forty miles below Philadelphia. ”

“ Thence (2) along the mean low-water line of the eastern bank of the Delaware river the several courses and distances thereof, the general direction being southwestward, crossing in a straight line the mouth of each intervening small estuary, to a point on the end of the spit extending southwestward from the fast land of Oldman's Neck, on the northwestern side of the mouth of Oldman's creek; said point is located N. 51 38 W. True, 637 feet from Boundary Reference Monument No. ”

“ A Staten Island man, when the mosquitoes began to get busy in the borough across the bay, has been in the habit every summer of transplanting his family to the Delaware Water Gap for a few weeks. They were discussing their plans the other day, when the oldest boy, aged eight, looked up from his geography and said:
"Pop, Philadelphia is on the Delaware River, isn't it?"
Pop replied that such was the case.
"I wonder if that's what makes the Delaware Water Gap?" insinuated the youngster.—S.S. Stinson.
Among the guests at an informal dinner in New York was a bright Philadelphia girl. ”

“ Before 1614 a fleet of five vessels, under command of Captain Cornelius Jacobson Mey, arrived in Delaware Bay, and two years later Cornelius Hendrickson sailed up the Delaware and discovered the mouth of the Schuylkill, the present site of Philadelphia.
In 1621 the Dutch West India Company was chartered and in 1623 Captain Mey built Fort Nassau about five miles above Wilmington, Del., on the eastern shore. Another settlement of a few families was made farther north upon the same side of the river, but in 1631 no white man had made a settlement on the west bank of the Delaware River. ”

“ It shares with Philadelphia the advantages of the deep-water route to the ocean through the Delaware River and Bay. It owes Its first industrial impulse to the opening of the Camden and Amboy Railroad. From It many railroads radiate to all parts of the state and one crosses the Delaware to Pennsylvania. Direct communication with Philadelphia is maintained by ferries. More rapid communication will soon be obtained when the proposed tunnels under the Delaware are completed. Its industries, which are of the most varied character, have increased with astonishing rapidity. ”

“ Acquiescence is not compatible with a century of conflict. Only a few instances will be mentioned among many that are available. In 1813, the Delaware Assembly ceded to the United States an island in the Delaware river, east of the main channel and within the twelve mile circle, for the erection of a fort. A controversy arose between the United States as holder of the Delaware title and Henry Gale who claimed under New Jersey. ”

“ But that was long before the American colonies went to war with England, and in Revolutionary times it was not pirates that Lewes was afraid of, but English warships.
From Delaware Bay the Delaware River lies, wide and open, all the way to Philadelphia. An enemy’s ship that entered the bay could easily sail on up the bay and river, past New Castle, Wilmington and Chester,—and might bombard Philadelphia from the water-front. This was [78] what the Committee of Safety feared the British would do when the Revolutionary War began, so a guard was set at Henlopen light house. ”

“ Without going into details, it is sufficient to say that the acceptable division line began on the seashore at Little Egg Harbor at the lower end of Barnegat Bay and crossed diagonally or northwesterly to the northern part of the Delaware River just above the Water Gap. It is known as the Old Province line, and it can be traced on any map of the State by prolonging, in both directions, the northeastern boundary of Burlington County. ”

“ Below Trenton the Delaware is uninteresting for canoemen. We were so used to swift water that we seemed to be anchored while paddling under adverse circumstances. We stopped at Florence that night, and next day shipped our canoes on a river steamer, and ran down to Philadelphia.
Looking back, we salute the Delaware with love and admiration. It has filled our minds with memories and pictures to be cherished for a life time. Noblest of rivers for canoemen, but only for those who come before the middle of July. In the freshets of May and June, a run down the Delaware must be a revelation of joy. ”

“ The plaintiffs in error, who were plaintiffs below, are owners of certain mills in Pennsylvania, opposite to the city of Trenton, in New Jersey. These mills are supplied with water from the Delaware River, by means of a dam extending from the Pennsylvania shore to an island lying near and parallel to it, and extending along the rapids to the head of tide water. ”

“ Again we see men moving in scattered bands along the banks of the Delaware, in New Jersey. The river, widely extended, has invaded the outlying country in broad, lake-like arms, and only at narrowing throats between cliffs and resistant ledges does the confined flood raise a murmur of expostulation as it churns in flying spray against its gneissoid barriers. ”

“ What a change! and would that this old traveller could revisit the Delaware to-day. My boat is free again and the mists are gone. Through the trees are sifted the level sunbeams. There is at least a chance now to compare notes. The forest is now a field, 179the trackless marsh a meadow; wild life is largely a thing of the past; silence, both day and night, replaces sound. No, not that; but only the minor sounds are left. There are still the cry of the fish-hawk and the sweet song of the thrush. No stags now swim the river, but there remain the mink and the musk-rat. ”

“ The Delaware River forms the eastern boundary; a woodland road follows the river. At Milanville, is the old Skinner house, oldest, still in use in Wayne County, loopholes near the roof were made for defense against Indians; many Indian relics were found around here. ”

“ In the mean time, each State appropriated to itself as much of the waters of the river as suited its purpose. In 1827 and 1828, Pennsylvania diverted the River Lehigh, a confluent of the Delaware, and afterwards, finding that stream insufficient, took additional feeders for her canal, out of the main stream of the Delaware. On the 4th February, 1830, the legislature of New Jersey passed the act under which the defendants were incorporated, and in pursuance of which, they have constructed the dam and feeder, the subject of the present suit. ”

“ At Big Eddy the river makes a sort of lake two miles long, of pure spring water, the widest and deepest part of the Delaware beyond tidewater. Stupendous cliffs contract the river above at the Narrows, where the village of Narrowsburg is built, and this region and the neighboring lake-strewn highlands of Sullivan County, New York, were the chief scenes of Cooper's novel, The Last of the Mohicans. As we advance through its upper canyon, the Delaware grows gradually smaller, but the enclosing ridges recede and leave a broad and fertile valley. ”

“ Seen from the river the city makes a pleasing outline against the sky, with its many spires and domes. Smith's Island and Windmill Island lie opposite the city, a short distance away, and Camden is on the New Jersey shore. Ferry boats continually ply across the Delaware, carrying to and fro the travelers of a continent. ”

“ There is no state railway commission, and the farmers of southern Delaware have suffered from excessive freight rates. 948 The Delaware & Chesapeake Canal (131⁄2 m. long, 66 ft. wide and 10 ft. deep) crosses the N. part of the state, connecting Delaware river and Chesapeake Bay, and thus affords transportation by water from Baltimore to Philadelphia. The canal was completed in 1829; in 1907 a commission appointed by the president to report on a route for a waterway between Chesapeake and Delaware bays selected the route of this canal. ”

“ As the river and its shores are to-day, so they were a century ago perhaps for many; but the winter of our varying year is a mere puppet-show compared with what New Jersey winters once were, and the culmination of arctic rigors gave our Delaware Valley, in that distant day, a far different aspect; and, with each succeeding glacial flood, more and more sand, gravel, and great bowlders were rolled down from the rock-ribbed valley beyond and spread upon the open plain through which the present stream unruffled flows. ”

“ With deep water, say in May or June, when the river is from eight to ten feet higher than it was in the last week of August, a canoeman may run two hundred miles of this incomparable river without striking a stone. But every foot of fall in the stream makes a totally new river; and he who goes down on a freshet in early summer cannot imagine what the river is like at low water in late autumn.
The Delaware is a river of extraordinary pitch, the fall from Port Jervis to Philadelphia being nearly 1,200 feet. ”

“ The case before us requires us only to decide, that by the laws of Pennsylvania, the River Delaware is a public, navigable river, held by its joint sovereigns, in trust, for the public; that riparian owners of land have no title to the river, or any right to divert its waters, unless by license from the State. ”

“ It was this Knob which stood out as an island in the edge of the great glacier, a deep notch separating its summit from the plateau behind, and the Terminal Moraine encircles its sides at about two-thirds its height. In the river bottom lands are fertile farms, and a great deal of tobacco is raised. Thus the river leads us to Bushkill and the great Walpack Bend. The Delaware, coming from the northeast, impinges upon the solid sandstone wall of the "Hog's Back," the prolongation of the ridge dividing the two "Buried Valleys." ”