The Quaker Colonies [65]
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
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