Clayton
RG# 6030 The 1800s Established as a stop on the railroad through Delaware in 1855, Clayton was originally known as Smyrna Station. In 1860, its name was changed to honor John M. Clayton, a former U.S. Secretary of State and a strong advocate of the railroad. Clayton was first incorporated in 1887. Five men […]
Cheswold
RG# 6020 The 1800s In 1856, a station stop was established on the Delaware Railroad at a location where the road that ran west from Leipsic intersected the railroad line. The community that developed here was called Leipsic Station. As it grew into a village, it would be called Moorton after John S. Moor, […]
Camden
RG# 6010 In the eighteenth century, the Mifflin’s, a Quaker family, owned a large tract of land which included the intersection of the Kings Road from Dover with the road to Forest Landing (now Lebanon). In the 1780s Daniel Mifflin sold twelve lots near the crossing to form a farm hamlet called Piccadilly but […]
Bowers
RG# 6000 The St. Jones and Murderkill Rivers empty into the Delaware Bay only about a ½ mile apart. Located on the land which lies between the mouths of these rivers is one of Delaware’s premier fishing communities, Bowers, which was named for John Bowers, who owned the land by 1734. 1900 – 1949 The […]
Elsmere
RG# 5050 1900 – 1949 In the early nineteenth century, the land just beyond the western limits of the City of Wilmington was a farm district with large estates. Due largely to the efforts of Joshua T. Heald, a real estate developer, whose “newspaper advertisements enticed prospective buyers with promises of escape from the […]
Delaware City
RG# 5040 The early history of Delaware City as a municipality is integrally connected to that of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. The concept of such a canal was being discussed in the eighteenth century but it was not until 1824 that construction began. The Newbold family owned land along the Delaware River and […]
Bellefonte
RG# 5030 The 1900s Located north of Rodman Road between Philadelphia Pike and River Road, a streetcar line along Brandywine Boulevard originally bisected Bellefonte making it one of Wilmington’s original “streetcar” suburbs. The Town was incorporated in 1915 in the corporate name of “The Commissioners of Bellefonte.” Its limits enclosed three subdivisions called Montrose, […]
Dagsboro
RG# 7040 In the seventeenth century, a village called Blackfoot Town was settled at the headwater of Pepper Creek, a tributary of the Indian River Bay. In 1774, William Penn granted a tract of land which contained this village to General John Dagsworthy and the village was re-named Dagsborough/Dagsboro in his honor. The 1800s Dagsboro […]
Town and City Histories
The legal principle which governs the way in which municipalities in Delaware are governed stems from a ruling made in 1868 by John Dillon, a judge from Iowa who decreed that “municipal corporations owe their origins to and derive their powers and rights wholly from the legislature.” As Delaware’s General Assembly determines how each local […]
