# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Delaware (state)

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​DELAWARE, a South Atlantic state of the United States of America, one of the thirteen original states, situated between 38° 27′ and 39° 50′ N. lat. and between 75° 2′ and 75° 47′ W. long. (For map see Maryland.) It is bounded N. and N.W. by Pennsylvania, E. by the Delaware river and Delaware Bay, which separate it from New Jersey, and by the Atlantic Ocean; S. and W. by Maryland. With the exception of Rhode Island it is the smallest state in the Union, its area being 2370 sq. m., of which 405 sq. m. are water surface.
Physical Features.—Delaware lies on the Atlantic coastal plain, and is for the most part level and relatively low, its average elevation above the sea being about 50 ft. 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. South of the Christiana there begins another elevation, sandy and marshy, which extends almost the entire length of the state from N.W. to S.E., and forms a second water-parting. 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; Cypress Swamp in the extreme S. has an area of 50,000 acres. The soils of the N. are clays, sometimes mixed with loam; those of the central part are mainly loams; while those of the S. are sands.
Minerals are found only in the N. part of the state. Those of economic value are kaolin, mined chiefly in the vicinity of Hockessin, New Castle county, the static kaolin product being exceeded in 1903 only by that of Pennsylvania among the states of the United States; granite, used for road-making and rough construction work, found near Wilmington; and brick and tile clays; but the value of their total product in 1902 was less than $500,000. In 1906 the total mineral product was valued at $814,126, of which $237,768 represented clay products and $146,346 stone. In 1902 only 2.2% of the wage-earners were engaged in mining.
The forests, which once afforded excellent timber, including white oak for shipbuilding, have been greatly reduced by constant cutting; in 1900 it was estimated that 700 sq. m. were wooded, but practically none of this stand was of commercial importance. The fisheries, chiefly oyster, sturgeon and shad, yield an annual product valued at about $250,000.
The proximity of the Delaware and Chesapeake bays help to give Delaware a mild and temperate climate. The mean annual temperature is approximately 55° F., ranging from 52° in the S. to 56° in the N., and the extremes of heat and cold are 103° in the summer and -17° in the winter. The annual rainfall, greater on the coast than inland, ranges from 40 to 45 in.
Industry and Trade.—Delaware is pre-eminently an agricultural state. In 1900 85% of its total land surface was enclosed in farms—a slight decline since 1880. Seven-tenths of this was improved land, and the expenditure per farm for fertilizers, greater in 1890 than the average of the Atlantic states, approximated $55 per farm in 1900. In 1899 Delaware spent more per acre for fertilizers than any of the other states except New Jersey, Rhode Island and Maryland. The average size of farms, as in the other states, has declined, falling from 124.6 acres in 1880 to 110.1 acres in 1900. A large proportion of farms (49.7%) were operated by the owners, and the prevailing form of tenantry was the share system by which 42.5% of the farms were cultivated, while 8.24% of the farms were operated by negroes; these represented less than 4% of the total value of farm property, the average value of farms operated by negroes being $17 per acre, that of farms operated by whites, $23 per acre. The total value of farm products in 1900 was $9,190,777, an increase of 30% over that of 1890, while the cultivation of cereals suffered on account of the competition of the western states. Indian corn and wheat form the two largest crops, their product in 1900 being respectively 24% and 52% greater than in 1890; but these crops when compared with those of other states are relatively unimportant. In 1906 the acreage of Indian corn was 196,472 acres with a yield of 5,894,160 bushels valued at $2,475,547, and the acreage of wheat was 121,745 acres with a yield of 1,947,920 bushels valued at $1,383,023. The value of the fruit crop, for which Delaware has long been noted, also increased during the same decade, but disease and frost caused a marked decline in the production of peaches, a loss balanced by an increased production of apples, pears and other orchard fruits. Large quantities of small fruits, particularly of strawberries, raspberries and blackberries, are produced, the southern portion of Sussex county being particularly favourable for strawberry culture. The vicissitudes of fruit raising have also caused increasing attention to be paid to market gardening, dairying and stock raising, particularly to market gardening, an industry which is favoured by the proximity of large cities. The same influence also explains, partly at least, the decrease (of 13%) in the value of farm property between 1890 and 1900.
The development of manufacturing in Delaware has not been so extensive as its favourable situation relative to the other states, the facilities for water and railway transportation, and the proximity of the coal and iron fields of Pennsylvania, would seem to warrant. In 1905 the wage-earners engaged in manufacturing (under the factory system) numbered 18,475, and the total capital invested in manufacturing was $50,925,630; the gross value of products was $41,160,276; the net value (deducting the value of material purchased in partly manufactured form) was $16,276,470. The principal industry was the manufacture of iron and steel products, which, including steel and rolling mills, car, foundry and machine shops, and shipyards, represented more than 30% of the total capital, and approximately 25% of the total gross product of the manufactures in the state. The tanning, currying and finishing of leather ranks second in importance, with a gross product ($10,250,842) 9% greater than that of 1900, and constituting about one-fourth of the gross factory product of the state in 1905; and the manufacture of food products ranked third, the value of the products of the fruit canning and preserving industry having more than doubled in the decade 1890–1900, but falling off a little more than 7% in 1900–1905. 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 Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington (Pennsylvania system), the Baltimore & Philadelphia (Baltimore & Ohio system), and the Wilmington & Northern (Philadelphia & Reading system) cross the northern part of the state, while the Delaware railway (leased by the Philadelphia, Baltimore & Washington) runs the length of the state below Wilmington, and another line, the Maryland, Delaware & Virginia (controlled by the Baltimore, Chesapeake & Atlantic railway, which is related to the Pennsylvania system), connects Lewes, Del., with Love Point, Md., on the Chesapeake Bay. There is no state railway commission, and the farmers of southern Delaware have suffered from excessive freight rates. ​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. The states of Maryland and Delaware aided in its construction, and in 1828 the national government also made an appropriation. Wilmington is a customs district in which New Castle and Lewes are included; but its trade is largely coastwise. Rehoboth and Indian River bays are navigable for vessels of less than 6 ft. draft. Opposite Lewes is the Delaware Breakwater (begun in 1818 and completed in 1869, at a cost of more than $2,000,000), which forms a harbour 16 ft. deep. In 1897–1901 the United States government constructed a harbour of refuge, formed by a second breakwater 21/4 m. N. of the existing one; its protected anchorage is 552 acres and the cost was more than $2,090,000. The harbour is about equidistant from New York, Philadelphia, and the capes of Chesapeake Bay, and is used chiefly by vessels awaiting orders to ports for discharge or landing. The national government also made appropriations for opening an inland waterway from Lewes to Chincoteague Bay, Virginia, for improving Wilmington harbour, and for making navigable several of the larger streams of the state.
Population.—The population in 1880 was 146,608; in 1890, 168,493, an increase of 14.9%; in 1900, 184,735, a further increase of 9.6%; in 1910, 202,322. The rate of increase before 1850 was considerably smaller than the rate after that date. Of the population in 1900, 92.5% was native born and 7.5% was foreign-born. The negro population was 30,697, or 16.6% of the total. In Indian River Hundred, Sussex county, there formerly lived a community of people,—many of whom are of the fair Caucasian type,—called “Indians” or “Moors”; they are now quite generally dispersed throughout the state, especially in Kent and Sussex counties. Their origin is unknown, but according to local tradition they are the descendants of some Moorish sailors who were cast ashore many years ago in a shipwreck; their own tradition is that they are descended from the children of an Irish mother and a negro father, these children having intermarried with Indians of the Nanticoke tribe. 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. The total number of communicants of all denominations in 1906 was 71,251,—32,402 Methodists, 24,228 Roman Catholics, 5200 Presbyterians, 3796 Protestant Episcopalians, and 2921 Baptists.
Government.—The constitution by which Delaware is governed was adopted in 1897. Like the previous constitutions of 1776, 1792 and 1831, it was promulgated by a constitutional convention without submission to the people for ratification, and amendments may be adopted by a two-thirds vote of each house in two consecutive legislatures. Its character is distinctly democratic. The property qualification of state senators and the restriction of suffrage to those who have paid county or poll taxes are abolished; but suffrage is limited to male adults who can read the state constitution in English, and can write their names, unless physically disqualified, and who have registered. In 1907 an amendment to the constitution was adopted, which struck out from the instrument the clause requiring the payment of a registration fee of one dollar by each elector. Important innovations in the constitution of 1897 are the office of lieutenant-governor, and the veto power of the governor which may extend to parts and clauses of appropriation bills, but a bill may be passed over his veto by a three-fifths vote of each house of the legislature, and a bill becomes a law if not returned to the legislature within ten days after its reception by the governor, unless the session of the legislature shall have expired in the meantime. The governor’s regular term in office is four years, and he is ineligible for a third term. All his appointments to offices where the salary is more than $500 must be confirmed by the senate; all pardons must be approved by a board of pardons. Representation in the legislature is according to districts, members of the lower house being chosen for two, and members of the upper house for four years. Members of the lower house must be at least twenty-four years of age, members of the senate at least twenty-seven; members of both houses must at the time of their election have been citizens of the state for at least three years. In November 1906 the people of the state voted (17,248 for; 2162 against) in favour of the provision of a system of advisory initiative and advisory referendum; and in March 1907 the general assembly passed an act providing initiative and referendum in the municipal affairs in the city of Wilmington. The organization of the judiciary is similar to that under the old English system. Six judges—a chancellor, a chief justice, and four associate justices—of whom there shall be at least one resident in each of the three counties, and not more than three shall belong to the same political party, are appointed by the governor, with the consent of the senate, for a term of twelve years. A certain number of them hold courts of chancery, general sessions, oyer and terminer, and an orphans’ court; the six together constitute the supreme court, but the judge from whose decision appeal is made may not hear the appealed case unless the appeal is made at his own instance. Bribery may be punished by fine, imprisonment and disfranchisement for ten years. Corporations cannot be created by a special act of the legislature, and no corporation may issue stock except for an equivalent value of money, labour or property. In order to attract capital to the state, the legislature has reduced the taxes on corporations, has forbidden the repeal of charters, and has given permission for the organization of corporations with both the power and name of trust companies. Legislative divorces are forbidden by the constitution, and a statute of 1901 subjects wife-beaters to corporal punishment. Although punishment by whipping and by standing in the pillory was prohibited by an act of Congress in 1839, in so far as the Federal government had jurisdiction, both these forms of punishment were retained in Delaware, and standing in the pillory was prescribed by statute as a punishment for a number of offences, including various kinds of larceny and forgery, highway robbery, and even pretending “to exercise the art of witchcraft, fortune-telling or dealing with spirits,” at least until 1893. In 1905, by a law approved on the 20th of March, the pillory was abolished. The whipping-post was in 1908 still maintained in Delaware, and whipping continued to be prescribed as a punishment for a variety of offences, although in 1889 a law was passed which prescribed that “hereafter no female convicted of any crime in this state shall be whipped or made to stand in the pillory,” and a law passed in 1883 prescribed that “in case of conviction of larceny, when the prisoner is of tender years, or is charged for the first time (being shown to have before had a good character), the court may in its discretion omit from the sentence the infliction of lashes.” An old law still on the statute-books when the edition of the revised statutes was issued in 1893, prescribes that “the punishment of whipping shall be inflicted publicly by strokes on the bare back, well laid on.”
The unit of local government is the “hundred,” which corresponds to the township of Pennsylvania. The employment of children under fourteen years of age in factories is forbidden by statute. Divorces are granted for adultery, desertion for three years, habitual drunkenness, impotence at the time of marriage, fraud, lack of marriageable age (eighteen for males, sixteen for females), and failure of husband to provide for his wife during three consecutive years. The marriages of whites with negroes and of insane persons are null; but the children of the married insane are legitimate.
In 1908 the state debt was $816,785, and the assets in bonds, railway mortgages and bank stocks exceeded the liabilities by $717,779. Besides the income from interest and dividends ​on investments, the state revenues are derived from taxes on licences, on commissions to public officers, on railway, telegraph and telephone, express, and banking companies, and to a slight extent from taxes on collateral inheritance.
Education.—The charitable and penal administration of Delaware is not well developed. There is a state hospital for the insane at Farnhurst. Other dependent citizens are cared for in the institutions of other states at public expense. In 1899 a county workhouse was established in New Castle county, in which persons under sentence must labour eight hours a day, pay being allowed for extra hours, and a diminution of sentence for good behaviour. 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 first public school law, passed in 1829, was based largely on the principle of “local option,” each school district being left free to determine the character of its own school or even to decide, if it wished, against having any school at all. The system thus established proved to be very unsatisfactory, and a new school law in 1875 brought about a greater degree of uniformity and centralization through its provisions for the appointment of a state superintendent of free schools and a state board of education. In 1888, however, the state superintendency was abolished, and county superintendencies were created instead, the legislature thus returning, in a measure, to the old system of local control. Centralization was again secured, in 1898, by the passage of a law reorganizing and increasing the powers of the state board of education. The state school fund, ranging from about $150,000 to $160,000 a year, is apportioned among the school districts, according to the number of teachers employed, and is used exclusively for teachers’ salaries and the supplying of free text-books. This fund is supplemented by local taxation. No discrimination is allowed on account of race or colour; but separate schools are provided for white and coloured children. Delaware College (non-sectarian) at Newark, founded in 1833 as Newark College and rechartered, after suspension from 1859 to 1870, under the present name, as a state institution, derives most of its financial support from the United States Land Grant of 1862 and the supplementary appropriation of 1890, and is the seat of an agricultural experiment station, established in 1888 under the so-called “Hatch Bill” of 1887. In 1906–1907 Delaware College had 20 instructors and 130 students. The college is a part of the free school system of Delaware, and tuition is free to all students from the state. There is an agricultural college for negroes at Dover; this college receives one-fifth of the appropriation made by the so-called “new Morrill Bill” of 1890.
History.—Delaware river and bay were first explored on behalf of the Dutch by Henry Hudson in 1609, and more thoroughly in 1615–1616 by Cornelius Hendrikson, whose reports did much to cause the incorporation of the Dutch West India Company. The first settlement on Delaware soil was made under the auspices of members of this company in 1631 near the site of the present Lewes. The leaders, one of whom was Captain David P. de Vries, wished “to plant a colony for the cultivation of grain and tobacco as well as to carry on the whale fishery in that region.” The settlement, however, was soon completely destroyed by the Indians. (See Lewes.) A more successful effort at colonization was made under the auspices of the South Company of Sweden, a corporation organized in 1624 as the “Australian Company,” by William Usselinx, who had also been the chief organizer of the Dutch West India Company, and now secured a charter or manifest from Gustavus Adolphus. The privileges of the company were extended to Germans in 1633, and about 1640 the Dutch members were bought out. In 1638 Peter Minuit on behalf of this company established a settlement at what is now Wilmington, naming it, in honour of the infant queen Christina, Christinaham, and naming the entire territory, bought by Minuit from the Minquas Indians and extending indefinitely westward from the Delaware river between Bombay Hook and the mouth of the Schuylkill river, “New Sweden.” This territory was subsequently considerably enlarged. In 1642 mature plans for colonization were adopted. A new company, officially known as the West India, American, or New Sweden Company, but like its predecessor popularly known as the South Company, was chartered, and a governor, Johan Printz (c. 1600–1663) was sent out by the crown. He arrived early in 1643 and subsequently established settlements on the island of Tinicum, near the present Chester, Pennsylvania, at the mouth of Salem Creek, New Jersey, and near the mouth of the Schuylkill river. Friction had soon arisen with New Netherland, although, owing to their common dislike of the English, the Swedes and the Dutch had maintained a formal friendship. In 1651, however, Peter Stuyvesant, governor of New Netherland, and more aggressive than his predecessors, built Fort Casimir, near what is now New Castle. In 1654 Printz’s successor, Johan Claudius Rising, who had arrived from Sweden with a large number of colonists, expelled the Dutch from Fort Casimir. In retaliation, Stuyvesant, in 1655, with seven vessels and as many hundred men, recaptured the fort and also captured Fort Christina (Wilmington). New Sweden thus passed into the control of the Dutch, and became a dependency of New Netherland. In 1656, however, the Dutch West India Company sold part of what had been New Sweden to the city of Amsterdam, which in the following year established a settlement called “New Amstel” at Fort Casimir (New Castle). This settlement was badly administered and made little progress.
In 1663 the whole of the Delaware country came under the jurisdiction of the city of Amsterdam, but in the following year this territory, with New Netherland, was seized by the English. For a brief interval, in 1673–1674, the Dutch were again in control, but in the latter year, by the treaty of Westminster, the “three counties on the Delaware” again became part of the English possessions in America held by the duke of York, later James II. His formal grant from Charles II. was not received until March 1683. In order that no other settlements should encroach upon his centre of government, New Castle, the northern boundary was determined by drawing an arc of a circle, 12 m. in radius, and with New Castle as the centre. This accounts for the present curved boundary line between Delaware and Pennsylvania. Previously, however, in August 1680, the duke of York had leased this territory for 10,000 years to William Penn, to whom he conveyed it by a deed of feoffment in August 1682; but differences in race and religion, economic rivalry between New Castle and the Pennsylvania towns, and petty political quarrels over representation and office holding, similar to those in the other American colonies, were so intense that Penn in 1691 appointed a special deputy governor for the “lower counties.” Although reunited with the “province” of Pennsylvania in 1693, the so-called “territories” or “lower counties” secured a separate legislature in 1704, and a separate executive council in 1710; the governor of Pennsylvania, however, was the chief executive until 1776. A protracted boundary dispute with Maryland, which colony at first claimed the whole of Delaware under Lord Baltimore’s charter, was not settled until 1767, when the present line separating Delaware and Maryland was adopted. In the War of Independence Delaware furnished only one regiment to the American army, but that was one of the best in the service. One of its companies carried a number of gamecocks said to have been the brood of a blue hen; hence the soldiers, and later the people of the state, have been popularly known as the “Blue Hen’s Chickens.”
In 1776 a state government was organized, representative of the Delaware state, the term “State of Delaware” being first adopted in the constitution of 1792. One of the peculiarities of the government was that in addition to the regular executive, legislative and judicial departments there was a privy council without whose approval the governor’s power was little more than nominal. In 1786 Delaware was one of the five states ​whose delegates attended the Annapolis Convention (see Annapolis, Maryland), and it was the first (on the 7th of December 1787) to ratify the Federal constitution. From then until 1850 it was controlled by the Federalist or Whig parties. In 1850 the Democrats, who had before then elected a few governors and United States senators, secured control of the entire administration—a control unarrested, except in 1863, until the last decade of the 19th century. Although it was a slave state, the majority of the people of Delaware opposed secession in 1861, and the legislature promptly answered President Lincoln’s call to arms; yet, while 14,000 of the 40,000 males between the ages of fourteen and sixty served in the Union army, there were many sympathizers with the Confederacy in the southern part of the state.
In 1866, 1867 and 1869, respectively, the legislature refused to ratify the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments to the Federal constitution. The provision of the state constitution that restricted suffrage to those who had paid county or poll taxes and made the tax lists the basis for the lists of qualified voters, opened the way for the disfranchisement of many negroes by fraudulent means. Consequently the levy court of New Castle county was indicted in the United States circuit court in 1872, and one of its members was convicted. Again in 1880 the circuit court, by virtue of the Federal statute of 1872 on elections, appointed supervisors of elections in Delaware. The negro vote has steadily increased in importance, and in 1900 was approximately one-fifth of the total vote of the state. In 1901 the legislature ratified the three amendments rejected in former years. Another political problem has been that of representation. According to the constitution of 1831 the unit of representation in the legislature was the county; inasmuch as the population of New Castle county has exceeded after 1870 that of both Kent and Sussex, the inequality became a cause of discontent. This is partly eradicated by the new constitution of 1897, which reapportioned representation according to electoral districts, so that New Castle has seven senators and fifteen representatives, while each of the other counties has seven senators and ten representatives.
In 1889 the Republicans for the first time since the Civil War secured a majority in the legislature, and elected Anthony J. Higgins to the United States Senate. In that year a capitalist and promoter, J. Edward Addicks (b. 1841, in Pennsylvania), became a citizen of the state, and after securing for himself the control of the Wilmington gas supply, systematically set about building up a personal “machine” that would secure his election to the national Senate as a Republican. His purpose was thwarted in 1893, when a Democratic majority chose, for a second term, George Gray (b. 1840), who from 1879 to 1885 had been the attorney-general of the state and subsequently was a member of the Spanish-American Peace Commission at Paris in 1898 and became a judge of the United States circuit court, third judicial circuit, in 1899. Mr Addicks was an avowed candidate in 1895, but the opposition of the Regular Republicans, who accused him of corruption and who held the balance of power, prevented an election. In 1897, the legislature being again Democratic, Richard R. Kenney (b. 1856) was chosen to fill the vacancy for the remainder of the unexpired term. Meanwhile the two Republican factions continued to oppose one another, and both sent delegates to the national party convention in 1896, the “regular” delegation being seated. The expiration of Senator Gray’s term in 1899 left a vacancy, but although the Republicans again had a clear majority the resolution of the Regulars prevented the Union Republicans, as the supporters of Addicks called themselves, from seating their patron. Both the Regular and Union factions sent delegations to the national party convention in 1900, where the refusal of the Regulars to compromise led to the recognition of the Union delegates. Despite this apparent abandonment of their cause by the national organization, the Regulars continued their opposition, the state being wholly without representation in the Senate from the expiration of Senator Kenney’s term in 1901 until 1903, when a compromise was effected whereby two Republicans, one of each faction, were chosen, one condition being that Addicks should not be the candidate of the Union Republicans. Both factions were recognized by the national convention of 1904, but the legislature of 1905 adjourned without being able to fill a vacancy in the Senate which had again occurred. The deadlock, however, was broken at the special session of the legislature called in 1906, and in June of that year Henry A. Du Pont was elected senator.
Governors of Delaware :
| I. Swedish ||||||
| Peter Minuit | 1638–1640 |
| Peter Hollander | 1640–1643 |
| Johan Printz | 1643–1653 |
| Johan Papegoga (acting) | 1653–1654 |
| Johan Claudius Rising | 1654–1655 |
| II. Dutch. ||||||
| (Same as for New York.) ||||||
| III. English. ||||||
| (Same as New York until 1682.) ||||||
| (Same as Pennsylvania 1682–1776.) ||||||
| Presidents of Delaware ||||||
| John McKinley | 1776–1778 |
| Caesar Rodney | 1778–1781 |
| John Dickinson | 1781–1783 |
| Nicholas Van Dyke | 1783–1786 |
| Thomas Collins | 1786–1789 |
Governors :
| Joshua Clayton | 1789–1796 | Federalist |
| Gunning Bedford | 1796–1797 | ” |
| Daniel Rogers | 1797–1799 | ” |
| Richard Bassett | 1799–1801 | ” |
| James Sykes | 1801–1802 | ” |
| David Hall | 1802–1805 | Federalist |
| Nathaniel Mitchell | 1805–1808 | ” |
| George Truett | 1808–1811 | ” |
| Joseph Haslett | 1811–1814 | ” |
| Daniel Rodney | 1814–1817 | ” |
| John Clarke | 1817–1820 | ” |
| Henry Malleston | 1820 | ” |
| Jacob Stout | 1820–1821 | ” |
| John Collins | 1821–1822 | Democratic-Republican |
| Caleb Rodney | 1822 | ” |
| Joseph Haslett | 1822–1823 | Democratic-Republican |
| Charles Thomas | 1823–1824 | ” |
| Samuel Paynter | 1824–1827 | Federalist |
| Charles Polk | 1827–1830 | ” |
| David Hazzard | 1830–1833 | American-Republican |
| Caleb P. Bennett | 1833–1836 | Democrat |
| Charles Polk | 1836–1837 | ” |
| Cornelius P. Comegys | 1837–1841 | Whig |
| William B. Cooper | 1841–1845 | ” |
| Thomas Stockton | 1845–1846 | ” |
| Joseph Maul | 1846 | ” |
| William Temple | 1846–1847 | ” |
| William Tharp | 1847–1851 | Democrat |
| William H. Ross | 1851–1855 | ” |
| Peter F. Causey | 1855–1859 | Whig-Know-Nothing |
| William Burton | 1859–1863 | Democrat |
| William Cannon | 1863–1865 | Republican |
| Gove Saulsbury | 1865–1871 | Democrat |
| James Ponder | 1871–1875 | ” |
| John P. Cockran | 1875–1879 | ” |
| John W. Hall | 1879–1883 | ” |
| Charles C. Stockley | 1883–1887 | ” |
| Benjamin T. Biggs | 1887–1891 | ” |
| Robert J. Reynolds | 1891–1895 | ” |
| Joshua H. Marvil | 1895 | Republican |
| William T. Watson | 1895–1897 | Democrat |
| Ebe W. Tunnell | 1897–1901 | ” |
| John Hunn | 1901–1905 | Republican |
| Preston Lea | 1905–1909 | ” |
| Simeon S. Pennewill | 1909 | ” |
Bibliography.—Information about manufactures, mining and agriculture may be found in the reports of the Twelfth Census of the United States, especially Bulletins 69 and 100. The Agricultural Experiment Station, at Newark, publishes in its Annual Report a record of temperature and rainfall. For law and administration see Constitution of Delaware (Dover, 1899) and the Revised Code of 1852, amended 1893 (Wilmington, 1893). For education see L. B. Powell, History of Education in Delaware (Washington, 1893), and a sketch in the Annual Report for 1902 of the United States Commissioner of Education. The most elaborate history is that of John Thomas Scharf, History of the State of Delaware (2 vols., Philadelphia, 1888); the second volume is entirely biographical. Claes T. Odhner’s brief sketch, Kolonien Nya Sveriges Grundläggning, 1637–1642 (Stockholm, 1876; English translation in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vol. iii.), and Carl K. S. Sprinchorn’s Kolonien Nya Sveriges Historia (1878; English translation in the Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography, vols. vii. and viii.) are based, in part, on documents in the Swedish Royal Archives and at the universities of Upsala and Lund, which were unknown to Benjamin Ferris (History of the Original Settlements of the Delaware, Wilmington, 1846) and Francis Vincent (History of the State of Delaware, Philadelphia, 1870), which ends with the English occupation in 1664. In vol. iv. of Justin Winsor’s Narrative and Critical History of America (Boston, 1884) there is an excellent chapter by Gregory B. Keen on “New Sweden, or the Swedes on the Delaware,” to which a bibliographical chapter is appended. The Papers of the Historical Society of Delaware (1879 seq.) contain valuable material. In part ii. of the Report of the Superintendent of the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1893 (Washington, 1905) there is “A Historical Account of the Boundary Line between the States of Pennsylvania and Delaware, by W. C. Hodgkins.” The colonial records are preserved with those of New York and Pennsylvania; only one volume of the State Records has been published, and Minutes of the Council of Delaware State, 1776–1792 (Dover, 1886). For political conditions since the Civil War see vol. 141 of the North American Review, vol. 32 of the Forum, and vol. 73 of the Outlook—all published in New York.
* ↑ Speaker of the senate. Filled unexpired term of Gunning Bedford (d. 1797).
* ↑ Speaker of senate. Filled unexpired term of Richard Bassett, who resigned 1801.
* ↑ Died before he was inaugurated.
* ↑ Speaker of the senate.
* ↑ Speaker of the senate, John Collins dying in 1822.
* ↑ Speaker of senate, Haslett dying in 1823.
* ↑ Speaker of senate.
* ↑ Speaker of senate, Stockton dying in 1846.
* ↑ Speaker of senate, Maul dying in 1846.
* ↑ As speaker of the senate filled the unexpired term of Cannon (d. 1865), and then became governor in 1867.
* ↑ President of senate, Marvil dying in 1895.