Chapter 1 of Robert Boyce Hazzard' History of Seaford

Chapter 1, 1720 on up to 1799. Hoopers Land become Seaford. Contributors are remembered.
The earliest reference to the tract of land, now the site of Seaford, that was found, was around 1720. So far, back at that date it belonged to the Hoopers. I desired that before I completing the manuscript I should be able to obtain the original deed under which the land came in possession of that family, but after a careful research among the old folios in the court house at Georgetown, Delaware, I was obliged to give it up and proceed to publish such facts as through the aid of Mr. Morris and Mr. Foster in the clerks office at Georgetoewn, I was able to gather from those folios.
I shall try to reproduce all the facts of the origin and history, comprising events, religious, social, financial, and tragical, that I have been able to retain in memory and to gather up from our old citizens. Among those who have contributed to this end were; Mrs. Margaret Wallace, Mr. James Darby, Mrs. Hosea Dawson, Hry Hopkins, Miss Ann Cannon, all of whom have passed away during the years since I began to write this history. Also Miss Sallie Harper.
The first name of the Hooper family found in the old county records and remembered by by an oler citizen, was Thomas. As 1720 must have been before he reached majority, the land probably was purchased by his father. Thomas, raised at his home somewhere on this tract of land , consisted of a famly of three sons and four daughters, Thomas, John and Henry, Nancy, Mollie, Priscilla and Sallie. As most of these daughters in marriage became citizens of Seaford we will name their husbands. Nancy married a Mr. Douglas, his christian or first name we have not been able to get, and this name soon became obsolete in the history of this village. Sallie married John Tenant, who owned and resided on the farm now known as the Governor Ross farm where the old Ross Mansion now stands. It is very possible that this was the homestead of the first Thomas Hooper. John Tenant died in 1831 or 1832, a young man , his tomb was in the old Hooper graveyard, now the Protestent Methodist Church Cemetery of Seaford. His family were soon broken up after his death and left the state. Priscella married Henry Travers, a Dorchester County Maryland man and died a few years thereafter. These family names soon became obsolete in the village. Mollie married John Wallace, the grandfather of the oldest family of the name now living in Seaford. Mollie was left a widow with one son and and one daughter, and married a second time to Jacob Wright of Dorchester county Maryland, who was the father of Mrs. Margaret Wallace, who lived almost eighty years in Seaford and who died but a few years ago, aged ninty three years. She, then Miss Margaret Wright, married Henry Wallace, son of John and Mollie, in 1815 or thereabouts. Her children, now comprising the several families living in Seaford, being the Cottingham families, the children of Mrs. Jane Rogers and Mrs Susana Roop, are the only survivors of that oigional family within or knowledge

In the division of of the lands, John Hooper. became possessor of the site of Seaford. We shall confine our record mostly to the families which grew out of his marriage , of himself personally, who he married, when he died and where hewas buried. I have been unable to gather any facts but suppose his dust lies in the Hooper Graveyard.
In this family there was one son, Henry, the father of Hicks Hooper, who was a long time resident of Seaford, well remembered by many of the older citizens of the town, his tomb is near the street in the Protestant Methodist Church Cemetery. There were three daughters in this Hooper family, Ann, Elizabeth and Susan. Ann married Dr. cottingham, Seaford's first physician. He died a young man and left three sons, Jn. Alfred and Charles, frm whom have descended Hooper families now in the town. Elizabeth married Nathan Vickers, one of the first settlers in Seaford village. The Vickers name has become obsolete here, Washington vickers, captain of a signal station on the Atlantic is the only grandchild living to my knowledge. Susan married Zebediah Fountain and had but one son, Zebediah, Jr., who married, but died a young man and left but one child who became the wife of Lewis Wallace, another of Seafords oldest citizens. The elder Zebediah Fountain died young. After hid death his widow married Captain Isaac Bradley who followed the coasting trade. He went down with his ship at the Delaware Breakwater in 1842. his wife died before he did and left four children, Jane, Susanna, Joseph and John. The roop and Rogers famlies perpetuate their memory. Mary Hudson, now Mrs Phillips, worthily esteemed, is a descendent of that family.