The English Conquest of Delaware
It is a curious fact that the ancestor of the numerous Beekman
family in New York, after whom Beekman Street is named, was for a
time one of the Dutch governors on the Delaware who afterwards
became the sheriff of Esopus, New York. His successor on the
Delaware had some thoughts of removing the capital down to Odessa on
the Appoquinimink, when an event long dreaded happened. In 1664, war
broke out between England and Holland, long rivals in trade and
commerce, and all the Dutch possessions in the New World fell an
easy prey to English conquerors. A British fleet took possession of
New Amsterdam, which surrendered without a struggle. But when two
British men of war under Sir Robert Carr appeared before New Amstel
on the Delaware, Governor D'Hinoyossa unwisely resisted; and his
untenable fort was quickly subdued by a few broadsides and a
storming party. This opposition gave the conquering party, according
to the custom of the times, the right to plunder; and it must be
confessed that the English soldiers made full use of their
opportunity. They plundered the town and confiscated the land of
prominent citizens for the benefit of the officers of the
expedition.
After the English conquest on the Delaware, not a few of the Dutch
migrated to Maryland, where their descendants, it is said, are still
to be found. Some in later years returned to the Delaware, where on
the whole, notwithstanding the early confiscations, English rule
seemed to promise well. The very first documents, the terms of
surrender both on the Delaware and on the Hudson, breathed an air of
Anglo-Saxon freedom. Everybody was at liberty to come and go at
will. Hollanders could migrate to the Delaware or to New York as
much as before. The Dutch soldiers in the country, if they wished to
remain, were to have fifty acres of land apiece. This generous
settlement seemed in striking contrast to the pinching, narrow
interference with trade and individual rights, the seizures and
confiscations for private gain, all under pretense of punishment,
bad enough on the Delaware but worse at New Amsterdam, which had
characterized the rule of the Dutch.
The Duke of York, to whom Delaware was given, introduced trial by
jury, settled private titles, and left undisturbed the religion and
local customs of the people. But the political rule of the Duke was
absolute as became a Stuart. He arbitrarily taxed exports and
imports. Executive, judicial, and legislative powers were all vested
in his deputy governor at New York or in creatures appointed and
controlled by him. It was the sort of government the Duke hoped to
impose upon all Great Britain when he should come to the throne, and
he was trying his 'prentice hand in the colonies. A political
rebellion against this despotism was started on the Delaware by a
man named Konigsmarke, or the Long Finn, aided by an Englishman,
Henry Coleman. They were captured and tried for treason, their
property was confiscated, and the Long Finn branded with the letter
R, and sold as a slave in the Barbados. They might be called the
first martyrs to foreshadow the English Revolution of 1688 which
ended forever the despotic reign of the Stuarts.
The Swedes continued to form the main body of people on the Delaware
under the regime of the Duke of York, and at the time when William
Penn took possession of the country in 1682 their settlements
extended from New Castle up through Christina, Marcus Hook, Upland
(now Chester), Tinicum, Kingsessing in the modern West Philadelphia,
Passyunk, Wicaco, both in modern Philadelphia, and as far up the
river as Frankford and Pennypack. They had their churches at
Christina, Tinicum, Kingsessing, and Wicaco. The last, when absorbed
by Philadelphia, was a pretty little hamlet on the river shore, its
farms belonging to a Swedish family called Swanson whose name is now
borne by one of the city's streets. Across the river in New Jersey,
opposite Chester, the Swedes had settlements on Raccoon Creek and
round Swedesboro. These river settlements constituted an interesting
and from all accounts a very attractive Scandinavian community.
Their strongest bond of union seems to have been their interest in
their Lutheran churches on the river. They spread very little into
the interior, made few roads, and lived almost exclusively on the
river or on its navigable tributaries. One reason they gave for this
preference was that it was easier to reach the different churches by
boat.
There were only about a thousand Swedes along the Delaware and
possibly five hundred of Dutch and mixed blood, together with a few
English, all living a life of abundance on a fine river amid
pleasing scenery, with good supplies of fish and game, a fertile
soil, and a wilderness of opportunity to the west of them. All were
well pleased to be relieved from the stagnant despotism of the Duke
of York and to take part in the free popular government of William
Penn in Pennsylvania. They became magistrates and officials, members
of the council and of the legislature. They soon found that all
their avenues of trade and life were quickened. They passed from
mere farmers supplying their own needs to exporters of the products
of their farms.
Descendants of the Swedes and Dutch still form the basis of the
population of Delaware.* There were some Finns at Marcus Hook, which
was called Finland; and it may be noted in passing that there were
not a few French among the Dutch, as among the Germans in
Pennsylvania, Huguenots who had fled from religious persecution in
France. The name Jaquette, well known in Delaware, marks one of
these families, whose immigrant ancestor was one of the Dutch
governors. In the ten or dozen generations since the English
conquest intermarriage has in many instances inextricably mixed up
Swede, Dutch, and French, as well as the English stock, so that many
persons with Dutch names are of Swedish or French descent and vice
versa, and some with English names like Oldham are of Dutch descent.
There has been apparently much more intermarriage among the
different nationalities in the province and less standing aloof than
among the alien divisions of Pennsylvania.
* Swedish names anglicized are now found everywhere. Gostafsson has
become Justison and Justis. Bond has become Boon; Hoppman, Hoffman;
Kalsberg, Colesberry; Wihler, Wheeler; Joccom, Yocum; Dahlbo,
Dalbow; Konigh, King; Kyn, Keen; and so on. Then there are also such
names as Wallraven, Hendrickson, Stedham, Peterson, Matson, Talley,
Anderson, and the omnipresent Rambo, which have suffered little, if
any, change. Dutch names are also numerous, such as Lockermans,
Vandever, Van Dyke, Vangezel, Vandegrift, Alricks, Statts, Van
Zandt, Hyatt, Cochran (originally Kolchman), Vance, and Blackstone
(originally Blackenstein).
After the English conquest some Irish Presbyterians or Scotch-Irish
entered Delaware. Finally came the Quakers, comparatively few in
colonial times but more numerous after the Revolution, especially in
Wilmington and its neighborhood. True to their characteristics, they
left descendants who have become the most prominent and useful
citizens down into our own time. At present Wilmington has become
almost as distinctive a Quaker town as Philadelphia. "Thee" and
"thou" are frequently heard in the streets, and a surprisingly large
proportion of the people of prominence and importance are Quakers or
of Quaker descent. Many of the neat and pleasant characteristics of
the town are distinctly of Quaker origin; and these characteristics
are found wherever Quaker influence prevails.
Wilmington was founded about 1731 by Thomas Willing, an Englishman,
who had married into the Swedish family of Justison. He laid out a
few streets on his wife's land on the hill behind the site of old
Fort Christina, in close imitation of the plan of Philadelphia, and
from that small beginning the present city grew, and was at first
called Willingtown.* William Shipley, a Pennsylvania Quaker born in
England, bought land in it in 1735, and having more capital than
Willing, pushed the fortunes of the town more rapidly. He probably
had not a little to do with bringing Quakers to Wilmington; indeed,
their first meetings were held in a house belonging to him until
they could build a meeting house of their own in 1738.
* Some years later in a borough charter granted by Penn, the name
was changed to Wilmington in honor of the Earl of Wilmington.
Both Shipley and Willing had been impressed with the natural beauty
of the situation, the wide view over the level moorland and green
marsh and across the broad river to the Jersey shore, as well as by
the natural conveniences of the place for trade and commerce.
Wilmington has ever since profited by its excellent situation, with
the level moorland for industry, the river for traffic, and the
first terraces or hills of the Piedmont for residence; and, for
scenery, the Brandywine tumbling through rocks and bowlders in a
long series of rapids.
The custom still surviving in Wilmington of punishing certain
classes of criminals by whipping appears to have originated in the
days of Willing and Shipley, about the year 1740, when a cage,
stocks, and whipping-post were erected. They were placed in the most
conspicuous part of the town, and there the culprit, in addition to
his legal punishment, was also disciplined at the discretion of
passers-by with rotten eggs and other equally potent encouragements
to reform. These gratuitous inflictions, not mentioned in the
statute, as well as the public exhibition of the prisoner were
abolished in later times and in this modified form the method of
correction was extended to the two other counties. Sometimes a
cat-o'nine-tails was used, sometimes a rawhide whip, and sometimes a
switch cut from a tree. Nowadays, however, all the whipping for the
State is done in Wilmington, where all prisoners sentenced to
whipping in the State are sent. This punishment is found to be so
efficacious that its infliction a second time on the same person is
exceedingly rare.
The most striking relic of the old Swedish days in Wilmington is the
brick and stone church of good proportions and no small beauty, and
today one of the very ancient relics of America. It was built by the
Swedes in 1698 to replace their old wooden church, which was on the
lower land, and the Swedish language was used in the services down
to the year 1800, when the building was turned over to the Church of
England. Old Peter Minuit, the first Swedish governor, may possibly
have been buried there. The Swedes built another pretty
chapel--Gloria Dei, as it was called--at the village of Wicaco, on
the shore of the Delaware where Philadelphia afterwards was
established. The original building was taken down in 1700, and the
present one was erected on its site partly with materials from the
church at Tinicum. It remained Swedish Lutheran until 1831, when,
like all the Swedish chapels, it became the property of the Church
of England, between which and the Swedish Lutheran body there was a
close affinity, if not in doctrine, at least in episcopal
organization.* The old brick church dating from 1740, on the main
street of Wilmington, is an interesting relic of the colonial
Scotch-Irish Presbyterians in Delaware, and is now carefully
preserved as the home of the Historical Society.
* Clay's "Annals of the Swedes", pp. 143, 153-4.
After Delaware had been eighteen years under the Duke of York,
William Penn felt a need of the west side of the river all the way
down to the sea to strengthen his ownership of Pennsylvania. He also
wanted to offset the ambitions of Lord Baltimore to extend Maryland
northward. Penn accordingly persuaded his friend James, the Duke of
York, to give him a grant of Delaware, which Penn thereupon annexed
to Pennsylvania under the name of the Territories or Three Lower
Counties. The three counties, New Castle, Kent, and Sussex,* are
still the counties of Delaware, each one extending across the State
and filling its whole length from the hills of the Brandywine on the
Pennsylvania border to the sands of Sussex at Cape Henlopen. The
term "Territory" has ever since been used in America to describe an
outlying province not yet given the privileges of a State. Instead
of townships, the three Delaware counties were divided into
"hundreds," an old Anglo-Saxon county method of division going back
beyond the times of Alfred the Great. Delaware is the only State in
the Union that retains this name for county divisions. The Three
Lower Counties were allowed to send representatives to the
Pennsylvania Assembly; and the Quakers of Delaware have always been
part of the Yearly Meeting in Philadelphia.
* The original names were New Castle, Jones's, and Hoerekill, as it
was called by the Dutch, or Deal.
In 1703, after having been a part of Pennsylvania for twenty years,
the Three Lower Counties were given home rule and a legislature of
their own; but they remained under the Governor of Pennsylvania
until the Revolution of 1776. They then became an entirely separate
community and one of the thirteen original States. Delaware was the
first State to adopt the National Constitution, and Rhode Island,
its fellow small State, the last. Having been first to adopt the
Constitution, the people of Delaware claim that on all national
occasions or ceremonies they are entitled to the privilege of
precedence. They have every reason to be proud of the representative
men they sent to the Continental Congress, and to the Senate in
later times. Agriculture has, of course, always been the principal
occupation on the level fertile land of Delaware; and it is
agriculture of a high class, for the soil, especially in certain
localities, is particularly adapted to wheat, corn, and timothy
grass, as well as small fruits. That section of land crossing the
State in the region of Delaware City and Middleton is one of the
show regions in America, for crops of wheat and corn. Farther south,
grain growing is combined with small fruits and vegetables with a
success seldom attained elsewhere. Agriculturally there is no
division of land of similar size quite equal to Delaware in
fertility. Its sand and gravel base with vegetable mold above is
somewhat like the southern Jersey formation, but it is more
productive from having a larger deposit of decayed vegetation.
The people of Delaware have, indeed, very little land that is not
tillable. The problems of poverty, crowding, great cities, and
excessive wealth in few hands are practically unknown among them.
The foreign commerce of Wilmington began in 1740 with the building
of a brig named after the town, and was continued successfully for a
hundred years. At Wilmington there has always been a strong
manufacturing interest, beginning with the famous colonial flour
mills at the falls of the Brandywine, and the breadstuffs industry
at Newport on the Christina. With the Brandywine so admirably suited
to the water-power machinery of those days and the Christina deep
enough for the ships, Wilmington seemed in colonial times to possess
an ideal combination of advantages for manufacturing and commerce.
The flour mills were followed in 1802 by the Du Pont Powder Works,
which are known all over the world, and which furnished powder for
all American wars since the Revolution, for the Crimean War in
Europe, and for the Allies in the Great War.
"From the hills of Brandywine to the sands of Sussex" is an
expression the people of Delaware use to indicate the whole length
of their little State. The beautiful cluster of hills at the
northern end dropping into park-like pastures along the shores of
the rippling Red Clay and White Clay creeks which form the deep
Christina with its border of green reedy marshes, is in striking
contrast to the wild waste of sands at Cape Henlopen. Yet in one way
the Brandywine Hills are closely connected with those sands, for
from these very hills have been quarried the hard rocks for the
great breakwater at the Cape, behind which the fleets of merchant
vessels take refuge in storms.
The great sand dunes behind the lighthouse at the cape have their
equal nowhere else on the coast. Blown by the ocean winds, the dunes
work inland, overwhelming a pine forest to the tree tops and filling
swamps in their course. The beach is strewn with every type of
wreckage of man's vain attempts to conquer the sea. The Life Saving
Service men have strange tales to tell and show their collections of
coins found along the sand. The old pilots live snugly in their neat
houses in Pilot Row, waiting their turns to take the great ships up
through the shoals and sands which were so baffling to Henry Hudson
and his mate one hot August day of the year 1609.
The Indians of the northern part of Delaware are said to have been
mostly Minquas who lived along the Christiana and Brandywine, and
are supposed to have had a fort on Iron Hill. The rest of the State
was inhabited by the Nanticokes, who extended their habitations far
down the peninsula, where a river is named after them. They were a
division or clan of the Delawares or Leni Lenapes. In the early days
they gave some trouble; but shortly before the Revolution all left
the peninsula in strange and dramatic fashion. Digging up the bones
of their dead chiefs in 1748, they bore them away to new abodes in
the Wyoming Valley of Pennsylvania. Some appear to have traveled by
land up the Delaware to the Lehigh, which they followed to its
source not far from the Wyoming Valley. Others went in canoes,
starting far down the peninsula at the Nanticoke River and following
along the wild shore of the Chesapeake to the Susquehanna, up which
they went by its eastern branch straight into the Wyoming Valley. It
was a grand canoe trip--a weird procession of tawny, black-haired
fellows swinging their paddles day after day, with their freight of
ancient bones, leaving the sunny fishing grounds of the Nanticoke
and the Choptank to seek a refuge from the detested white man in the
cold mountains of Pennsylvania.
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