Milford chronicle., 1923-07-06
OLD DELAWARE
(From Boston Herald)

president Harding has discovered
that large family known as the Stat,
of Delaware, received a hearty vel
come from the whole kindred, anC
: tasted a hospitality on which the fam
lily prides itself. At Wilmington, where
. most of the aliens dwell, Is per CEN
of about 100000 he saw half the pop.
ulation of Delaware. Thence he plung.
ed into the deep green country of rural
New Castle county, and found himself
in region where nine-tenths of the
inhabitants are descended in at least
one line from seventeenth century i'm
migrants, and nearly all the rest
black or white, are natives of the soil
In rural Delaware most families are
old families; even the du Points begin
to be accepted as such, after almost a
century and a quarter. A name is
enough to identity a mans origin to
his neighbors in almost any part of
the state, and there are knowing ones
who profess to be able to guess by a
mans speech not only which of the
three counties he halls from, but even,
perhaps, his hundred"
That word hundred" the Delaware
term for township, is characteristic of
the way in which the little community
clings to the precious things of the
past. The name and the thing go back
into the mist of early Anglo-Saxon
civic life. In the names of Delaware's
hundreds, one may read a rapid sum-
mary of the states history. The abro-
iginal red inhabitants are memorializ-
led in the name of Appoquinimink and
possibly MispilliOn hundred, the Dutch
in Murderkill "a corruption of "Mo-
therkill') and probably Brandywine,
the English in st. Georges, Dover,
Lewes and half a dozen others, the
Welsh in Pencader.
Delaware has preserved not only its
traditional term for township, but has
maintained the chancellOrship as part
of its judicial machinery, as also the
whipping post as a bit of ancient, pun
tive apparatus. A prothonotary and a
clerk of the peace are among it's coun-
ty officers. Moving day throughout the
state was, until recently, the 25th of
March, the old first day of the Dyon-
isian year, and tenants were warned
out" by Christmas day or earlier. Exil-
ed Delawareans still fetch their dead
hundreds of miles to lay them besides
their ancestors in the cemeteries,
where the families have buried" for
generation.
Even in the matter of language, Del /
aware jealously preserves the past. In
the most southerly of the three coun-
ties, Sussex, which has an area al
most equal to that of Rhode Island, |
and tenth as many inhabitants, many
seventeenth century forms and
phrases persist. There must be places
in Sussex where "housen" is still
heard as the plural of house. Twelfth
Night is still celebrated there. Corn
is often pronounced as karin, and
can't as k-a-i-n-t. Delaware also has,
or very recently had, its ancient ma
tional drink-"peach-an-hOney," a
phrase that translates itself to those
acquainted with convival customs that
Mr.. VOlstead has banned. OF course,
Delaware has its own cook book, with
recipes for corn pOne, tansy pudding,
ways of preparing oys- {
.ers, terrapin, and wild game.
The patient thousands who lined the l
quite of President Harding from Mil
ord to Lewes, entirely through Sus-
lex, most of them cousins, are among
he most stable folk in the whole
United States. Many of them have Gull
ivated all their lives the sandy acres v
Inherited from ancestors who have I
transmitted their lands from father to b
on throughout the whole history of b
his country as an Independent nation. a
1t Lewes, Mr.. Harding must have seen L
he birthstone of Delaware, set up to .
the Dutch settlement at
in 1851. That settlement,
it lasted less than a year, is
)elaware's title to a statehood, and il
er excuse for boasting that she is =
alf century older than Pennsylva- E,
ia as civilized community. Little D
ewes likes to boast not only that it -
the cradle of Delaware, but that it b,
better known upon the seas of the W
-orld than Wilmington the only con- -
derable city of the State, as being a -,
arbor of refuge, behind its break II
ater, and port of call for the COM -
Ierce of all nations. -,
No doubt Sussex assured the Presi- &c
ent that it is the cheapest place on :
lie face of the globe for those who r,
ould live well and long. Sussex, Oh
ace famed for peaches, which fruit ia
elaware boasts herself the first state -
the Union to grow commercially, er
wv has vast apple orchards, produces to
lge quantities of melons, was the ~
.rliest region to undertake the cul- =,
re of sweet potatoes on large
ale, and has the ambition to grow sIE=
tton. ieI
AS President Harding moved south w
ard through New Castle county, he DO;
ssed within a few miles of the most -
nous feudal estate of the peninsula,
,hemia Manor, and actually travers- -
part of Augustine Manor, long !
aimed by Augustine Herman as part q
his vast holdings from the Calverts. IN IN
IRE, from 1861 to the early years Of I
e last century, Herman and half TIN
zen successive lords of the manor %
lintained a lordly life, with packs I
fox hounds, to which tenants were spe
und by feudal requirement to con- i9o
butte one or more dogs, and for their -
lie all the riches Of land and sea- \
sters, fish, deer, geese, swan, ducks Tiii TIfii
clouds that darkened the sun. bur
Mr.. Harding made a great many =
,eches during his short stay in Del For
are, but he must have heard a We
,at many more, for there were men Mil
,dy to pour into his ears the tale Of n
region that jealously preserves its Gus
al history and traditions. Some one my
st have told him of New Castle, IL IT. i
of the few endowed cities of the iil
tied States, for New Castle has 1tp
ned and administered through ten n
s for many years past about HOO wit