Wilmington, Delaware

“ The favourable situation, railway facilities and proximity to the coal-fields of Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Virginia, to the sources of supply of raw materials, and the water-power furnished by the Brandywine, combined with the enterprise of its citizens, have made Wilmington the most important manufacturing centre of Delaware. ”

“ The town of Wilmington, the chief place of the little State of Delaware, shows very attractively from the river, with which it communicates by a navigable creek, and, together with the neighbouring springs of the Brandywine, is in high repute for the beauty of its scenery as well as for its general salubrity. ”

“ At Wilmington the system of the Delaware railroads begins: it spreads out over the peninsula of Delaware and the Eastern Shore of Maryland like a huge left hand. The thumb touches Chestertown and Centreville, the fore finger Oxford, the middle finger Cambridge, the ring finger Crisfield, the little finger Lewes; and this hand gathers into the main road every year millions of baskets of peaches, and millions more of oysters in baskets and sacks, and crates of berries, and car-loads of hardwood and lumber. Under the influence of these roads the sleepy peninsula is beginning a new career. ”

“ Delaware is an agricultural state wholly, with only one city worthy of the name, and that, Wilmington, which by its close proximity to Philadelphia, is really a suburb of the latter. There are no large number of factories, business houses, or thickly settled residential sections of the wealthy classes offering temptation to the professional burglar of other cities. ”

“ About midnight of that same day we passed by Wilmington unmolested by any one, and, as near as I can judge, it was three o’clock that morning when the dividing line that runs between the States of Delaware and Pennsylvania were crossed. No words can depict the joy and gratitude that filled the bosom of one who had, as it were—not rather as it actually was—stepped from bondage into liberty, from darkness into light. ”

“ They have, where practicable, separate churches and schools, the latter receiving state aid. The urban population of Delaware (i.e. of Wilmington, the only city having more than 5000 inhabitants) was, in 1900, 41.4% of the state’s population. There were thirty-five incorporated cities and towns. The largest of these was the city of Wilmington, with 76,508 inhabitants. The city next in size, New Castle, had a population of 3380, while the largest town, Dover, the capital of the state, had 3329. ”

“ One sixteenth of the people are foreigners, and one sixth are colored. There are but three counties, and in view of the many marshes Randolph of Roanoke once said that the Delaware senators represented three counties at low tide and one county at high tide. The state is well-served with railroads. The Chesapeake and Delaware Canal, which joins the two bays at their necks, was finished in 1829. The capital is Dover, and the only large city is Wilmington (population, 87,411) . The population of the state is 202,322, making it the smallest state in population except Wyoming and Nevada. ”

“ But the best thing a manufacturing town can do for her workman is to educate his children. During the old aristocratic days of Wilmington she was satisfied with the reputation of her private tutors and of her young ladies' seminaries, where "sweet girl-graduates in their golden hair" cultivated cheeks like the surrounding peaches, while they learned Shakespeare, musical glasses and the use of the globes. It was not until 1852 that the Delaware Legislature chartered a board of education for the town. In these twenty years fifteen schools have been put up, with five thousand attenders. ”

“ Only a few English, however, had come to Delaware to live. The people of Wilmington (once Christinaham, or Christina Harbor) and of New Castle, were principally Dutch and Swedes. They were simple farmer people, raising crops and cattle and chickens, and they were very willing to keep the laws that the English at New York made for them. The Indians were still [52] troublesome at times, but the settlers had their block-houses or forts to retreat to and were generally able to protect themselves. ”

“ A man might step out to the city limit, and stand with one leg in full Yankeeland, thrilling with enterprise and emulation, and the other planted, as it were, in the "Patriarchal Times." Elsewhere along the effaced line of Mason and Dixon the sections die away into each other: here they stand face to face, and stare.
THE BRANDYWINE, AND LEA'S MILLS.
Wilmington's legend belongs to the general story of the settlements along the Delaware. The discoveries of its site overlapped each other, the Quakers discovering the Swedes, who had discovered the Dutch, who had discovered the Indians. ”

“ The Delaware and Chesapeake Canal connects the two great bays, and makes an easy water transit for produce between Philadelphia and Baltimore. Delaware is an agricultural State ; a part of it is in a high state of cultivation. Besides wheat, maize, and other grain, peaches are grown in immense quantities, and sent over the country. Small fruits are also raised for transportation. In the northern parts of the State are numerous manufactories. Wilmington has large machine-shops, and cotton, paper, morocco, and carriage factories ”

“ 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 ”

“ At Wilmington is the Ferris industrial school for boys, a private reformatory institution to which New Castle county gives $146 for each boy; and the Delaware industrial school for girls, also at Wilmington, receives financial support from both county and state.
The educational system of the state has been considerably improved within recent years. The maintenance of a system of public schools is rendered compulsory by the state constitution, and a new compulsory school law came into effect in 1907. ”

“ The next curve in the road shows us the meadows of the Shell Pot and the Brandywine, with Wilmington in the distance. The Brandywine, famous in our history, runs through as picturesque a valley as there is in America, combining all that the climate of Delaware permits in trees, shrubs, vines and flowers with the wildness and variety of the valley of the Pemigewasset or the wild Ammonoosuck. In this rare valley are mills as old as the settlement of the country, and quaint hamlets that seem to belong to Europe rather than America. ”

“ General Wayne and other of Washington’s officers, were stationed at Mr. Tatnall’s house, too.
Brandywine Village was then a separate place, and not a part of Wilmington as it is now. There was no bridge across the Brandywine, and people who wished to go from one place to the other, were ferried across the stream. [1] Lafayette often crossed the Brandywine in this way. He would ride his horse on to the great [142] clumsy boat and sit quietly while it was ferried over; then he would ride clattering off on the Wilmington side, and up the hilly streets to join Washington at his headquarters. ”

“ They sailed about two and a half miles through its delta marshes to some rocks which formed a natural wharf and which still stand today at the foot of Sixth Street in Wilmington. This was the Plymouth Rock of Delaware. Level land, marshes, and meadows lay along the Christina, the remains of the delta which the stream had formed in the past. On the edge of the delta or moorland, rocky hills rose, forming the edge of the Piedmont, and out of them from the north flowed a fine large stream, the Brandywine, which fell into the Christina just before it entered the Delaware. ”

“ It is situated in the eastern part of the peninsula formed by Chesapeake Bay and the estuary of the Delaware river. In the extreme N. the country is rolling, with moderately high hills, moderately deep valleys and rapid streams. West of Wilmington there rises a ridge which crosses the state in a north-westerly direction and forms a watershed between Christiana and Brandywine creeks, its highest elevation above sea-level being 280 ft. ”

“ 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. ”

“ James Adams, a native of Ireland, was the publisher of The Wilmington Chronicle, the first newspaper in Delaware. After working for about seven years in the office of Franklin & Hall in Philadelphia, he set up a press in that city, but a year later (1761) he moved to Wilmington, where he first printed books and almanacs. In 1762 he started The Chronicle, but failed to get enough subscribers to make the venture profitable and after six months discontinued the sheet.
The second newspaper was also started in Wilmington in June, 1785, by Jacob A. Killen. He called his paper The Dela- ware Gazette ”

“ DOVER. The capital of the State of Delaware, and the county-seat of Kent County, 48 miles south of Wilmington; situated on Jones Creek, and on the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (Map: Delaware, P 4) . It is regularly built on elevated ground. The Wilmington Conference Academy (Methodist Episcopal) and an agricultural and manual training school for colored students are located here. The public buildings include the State House, which contains a State library of 30,000 volumes, the county courthouse, and the Government post-office. ”

“ The breadth of the Delaware directly opposite Wilmington is reckoned an English mile and a half; yet to look at it, it did [21] not seem to be so great. The depth of the river, in the middle, is said to be from four to six fathoms here.
December the 12th. The Joiners say, that among the trees of this country they chiefly use the black walnut-trees, the wild cherry-trees, and the curled maple. Of the black walnut-trees (Juglans nigra) there is yet a sufficient quantity. However careless people take pains enough to destroy them, and some peasants even use them as fewel. ”

“ 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. ”

“ You could have made a fortune selling Maalox to Delaware Democrats between 1988 and 1990. Wilmington plumber Daniel D. Rappa made a valiant, but doomed, last-ditch effort by running against Carper in the 1990 primary.
2: Paragraph 27 No sketch of Delaware's political scene would be complete without some mention of the media situation: There is no television station in Delaware, and there are no competing newspapers. Most people have cable tv, and there's only one carrier serving each area ”

“ The manufacture of paper and wood pulp showed an increased product in 1905 19.1% greater than in 1900; and flour and grist mill products were valued in 1905 43.6% higher than in 1900. In the grand total of manufactured products, however, the state showed in 1905 a decrease of 4% from 1900. The great manufacturing centre is Wilmington, where in 1905 almost two-thirds of the capital was invested, and nearly three-fourths of the product was turned out. There is much manufacturing also at New Castle.
Delaware has good facilities for transportation. Its railway mileage in January 1907 was 333.6 m ”

“ The old ford, where the division of the British army under Howe and Cornwallis crossed the Brandywine, was eight
* The Brandywine Creek rises near the boundary of Lancaster and Chester counties, Pennsylvania, and flows through Delaware. After uniting with Christiana Creek, it enters the Delaware River, forming the harbor of Wilmington. It is navigable as high as Brandywine village.
** This is copied from Day's Historical Collections of Pennsylvania. The house is of stone, and ranked among the first country mansions of the period. It is about a mile and a half south of the Paoli tavern. ”

“ Something quaint, peremptory, old-world and feudal strikes the traveler as adhering in this custom, by which Wilmington constantly pays for the general safety of her promenaders with the offering of a citizen's life and limbs. This impression is right. The city is the best-defined spot on the American map where the South begins and the North ends. Wilmington is, for its own part, a perfect crystal of Yankee grit, run out and fixed in a country which in the highest [pg 371] degree represents the soft, contented, lazy, incoherent Bourbon temper. ”