The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-07-18
STATE OF DELMARvIA.
Proposition to Unite Delaware and the
Eastern Shore of Maryland
and virginia.


Delmarvia is the old name that
some persons would bestow upon a
hypothetical state of the American
Union. A proposal to create such
state, says the New York Sur, by the
union of Delaware with the Eastern
Shore counties of Maryland and Vir-
ginia has been often discussed, usual
ly with considerable interest and de-
cided approval by the people of Della
ware, occasionally with qualified APP
proval by the people of Maryland
most directly interested, never with
either interest or approval by the
Eastern Shoremen of Virginia and
usually with unqualified disapproval
by Virginia and Maryland.
The Calyerts claimed under their
original grant of nearly two and
three-quarter centuries ago not only
the Eastern Shore of Maryland, but
also the whole of what is now Della
ware. They failed, however, after
long litigation with the Penns, to
make good their title to Delaware,
and the order of the English court
for partition of the Peninsula be-
tween the litigants brought about
the running of the most famous
boundary in American history, Mason
and Dixon's line.
Whenever the Eastern Shore coun-
ties of Maryland have felt themselves
aggrieved with their relations with
their neighbors of the Western Shore
some Eastern Shoremen have talked
of the advantages of union with Del
aware. Such was the condition of
feeling on the Eastern Shore about
seventy years ago that the Delaware
Legislature sent to Maryland Legisla-
ture proposal looking on union of
the Eastern counties with Delaware,
and a resolution for reference of the
question to the people of the Eastern
Shore was carried through the lower
house of Maryland and narrowly de-
feated in the Senate.
The subject was again much dis
cussion especially in Delaware, rather
more than twenty years ago and
there has never been a time since
when the question was not one of
lively, if only academic interest to
Delaware. The Eastern Shore be-
came somewhat interested in the
matter again when at the election of
Wellington to the Senate the historic
right of that region to one of the SEN
ators was ignored, but the discussion
at that time took on no great i'm
portance.
Were the suggested union of Della
ware with the rest of the Peninsula
brought about the resultant state
would have an area of about 5000
square miles, considerable more than
that of Delaware, and population of
nearly 100000 The State of Mary
land would lose in population nearly
100000 and the State of Virginia
about 1900, while Delaware would
considerably more than double her
population.
Rural Delaware and the Peninsula
counties of Maryland and Virginia
have common English origin and a
population almost exclusively native
and of native ancestry, But Will
mington, which will soon include
half the population of Delaware, has
large foreign element. Eastern
Shore traditions, also, are more dis
tinctly Southern and aristocratic than
those of Delaware, and the strong
Quaker element in northern Delaware
has no counterpart on the Eastern
Shore.
Delaware has always been favors-
bic to the proposed change because
she has everything to gain by it, and
the attempted purchase of seat in
the United States Senate by whole
sale bribery at the polls and bribery
on smaller scale in the legislature
has recently called the attention of
the people of Delaware to the dan
gers that may beset a very small
state.
Such piecing together of frag-
ments to form state has not been
known in recent American history,
though such things happened in
Colonial days, and a familiar provis-
ion of the Constitution seems to con-
template the possibility of future
cases. Transfers of small areas from
one state to another have been fire.
quent in the settlement of boundary
disputes, and within few years
Pennsylvania formally recognized as
Delaware territory few square miles
which had been in dispute for more
than a century.
Census Nearly Ready.