Major George Welsh, Wilmington Delaware Pilot, Pearl Harbor Hero, Death.

October 12, 1954 - Wilmington, Delaware :

George Lewis Welsh, age 36, of Wawset Park, Wilmington, Delaware, a Pearl Harbor hero, December 7, 1941, , was killed while testing an F-100 Saberjet aircraft in the Mojave Desert at Edwards Air Force Base, California, while chief test pilot for North American Aviation. Welsh was born George Lewis Schwartz but his parents change their name to avoid anti German sentiment during WWI. His father was a research chemist at duPont Experimental Test Station, Wilmington. Welsh was a graduate of St. Andrews School and took a mechanical Engineering major at Purdue University before joining the Army Air Corp in 1939. While stationed at Wheeler Field in Oahu, Hawaii after he received his wings and commission in January 1941, during the Japanese attack, he and Lt. Ken Taylor took off from Haleiwa Fighter Strip in two Curtiss P-40B taking several kills. He was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross, Silver Star, Asia-Pacific Campaign Medal among others, flying 348 combat missions in WWII and Korea with sixteen victories before malaria caused him to retire from the military. Major Welsh is buried in Arlington National Cemetery.

AMERICA'S CUP RACE 1887

7^th AMERICA'S CUP RACE WON BY DELAWARE BUILT YACHT

It was 1887 and being built at the Pusey and Jones Shipyard in Wilmington, Delaware was the yacht “Volunteer”, built in 66 days, for a member of the New York Yacht Club, General Charles L. Paine. The yacht had been especially designed for the America's Cup Race by Harvard educated Edward Burgess, 39 year old yacht designer of West Sandwich, Massachusetts, who had already designed two America's Cup winners, The Puritan and The Mayflower.

“Volunteer” was the first America's Cup Yacht to be built of all steel frame and hull . She had a deck of white pine and was of 130 ton displacement, 108 foot length overall, 86 feet length at waterline. She had a 23 foot 2 inch beam and a draft of 10 foot and carry 8,981 square feet of sail.

“Volunteer” was skippered by Captain Hank Haff with assistance of Captains Terry, Berry and L. Jeffreys and easily beat 1886 America's Cup defender Mayflower and won both challenger trial races. In 1888 she won the America's Cup against the Scottish challenger “Thistle” in two races, first race by a 19 minute 24 second margin and the second race by a 11 minute , 49 second margin.

After the race “Volunteer” was bought by John Malcolm Forbes, who also owned The Puritan. She was altered as a schooner in 1891. In 1910 she was broken up at a New York junk yard .

Source: Wikipedia and San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park

Lewes, Delaware Again a Place of Smugglig.

The Times-Picayune of New Orleans on the 22 n of January, 1883 has told of smuggling at the Lewes Breakwater. It tells that the quaint family town on the Delaware has regained notoriety it once possessed as a haunt for smugglers as it did in 1878 before government secret service agents caused the risky traffic to abandon the Breakwater area.

Recent withdrawal of these agents has allowed the immediate revival of the nefarious business without interruption, but on a much smaller scale that the 1878 operations. Town folk know the open secret of rum and cigar smuggling to the tune of more than $30,000 annually being offloaded and brought to shore by darkness of night without knowledge of Dr. Burton, the resident Deputy Customs Collector. Lewes possesses very favorable facilities to make smuggling successful, direct on the navigational track and safe harbor, a safe stop for sailing vessels from southern ports. Traders of questionable character rarely, if ever, pass Lewes on their inward passage.

The present band of smugglers numbers near one dozen men who are notified by the pilots who have negotiated with ship captains., to make connections for landing the smuggled goods.

To effectually prevent the activity there must be established at the Breakwater a 'office' to to give unwavering vigilance day and night by government men.

Right now, the quaint village of Lewes is full of rum and cigars, enjoyed by locals and visitors alike.

Delaware in the Civil War

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Sussex Countian
Contributed by Harrison

Description: September in Delaware During the Civil War
Newspaper published in: Georgetown

Source: Roger Martin Collection

Page/Column: This Week in Delaware History

September 5, 1861:
Despite the presence of Union Troops and Prisoners of War, excursion steamers continue to bring parties of men and women to Pea Patch Island where picnics were held.

September 8, 1864:
Pvt. Henry T. Thorn, company D., 2nd Delaware Infantry, became one of 10 Delaware soldiers to die of scurvy, diarrhea, dysentery, etc., in Andersonville Prison in Georgia during the month of September. Their remains have been buried there.

September 11. 1863:
Twelve Confederate bodies in coffins were placed on the wharf at Fort Delaware, the first od many, readied for burial on the New Jersey side of the Delaware River at Finns Point.

September 16, 1862:
President Lincoln called for 300,000 men, 3440 of which were Delaware's quota. The draft was extended to allow securing volunteer and after funds were raised to pay bounties the quota was filled.

September 29, 1862:
The bodies of Captains Evan Watson and James Rickards of 1st Delaware Infantry Regiment, killed at Antietam lay in state in Old Town Hall then buried in Wilmington Brandywine Cemetery.

September 30, 1863:
The month ended with 340 Confederates at Fort Delaware having died during a like period from prison hardship and disease.

The Revolution This Week

Sussex Countian
Contributed by Harrison


Description: George Washington & The Revolution This Week -
September 3 - 10
Newspaper published in: Georgetown

Source: Roger Martin Collection

Page/Column: This Week in Delaware History

The Revolution News for Week of September 3 - 10 :

3 September 1774
George Washington, on his way from Mount Vernon to attend the first Continental Congress in Philadelphia, dined at Carson's Buck Tavern at Summit and stayed overnight in New Castle, then crossed the 4th Street Ferry in Wilmington.

3 September 1777 :
British General Howe and his Army debarked ships from the Chesapeake and marched north toward Elkton, Maryland. Meanwhile Hessian General Willhelm von Knyphausen met up with Howe and Cornwallis at Aiken's Tavern, halting a move on Newark.

5 September 1774
Caeser Rodney, Thomas McKean and George Reed represented Delaware in Philadelphia at the First Continental Congress. Although John Dickerson maintained residence in Kent County, he was a delegate from Pennsylvania

8 September 1777
At 7 am British troops passed through Newark on their way to defeat George Washington's ytoops in the 'Battle of Brandywine'.

9 September 1777
General George Washington left Stanton and marched his American Army to Chadds Ford Pennsylvania hoping to cut off the British from entering Philadelphia.

9 September 1780
General George Washington praised Dr. James Tilton of Delaware and thanked him for his hospital work and efforts to alleviate typhus in the American Army.

Ellendale Swamp

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Wikipedia
Contributed by Harrison

Description: Ellendale Swamp - Black Camp Insurrection
Date: 2013

Source: internet

The Nanticoke Swamp, as Ellendale Swamp was then known, was said to be a place where criminals hid from the law in the 1750's thereabouts. One cause being that this area was in a border dispute between Maryland and Delaware, and neither claimed jurisdiction. In 1780's the Nanticoke Swamp became a refuge to British Loyalists and known as the Black Camp Insurrection. Harold Hancock in his "History of Sussex County" says "With the removal of the British from Philadelphia in the spring of 1778, British vessels in the Delaware Bay decreased and activities of Sussex County Tory's diminished except for the 1780 Black Camp Rebellion in which insurrectionists, mainly from Sussex Counties Cedar Creek and Slaughter Neck, who had headquarters in this Swamp about six miles north of Georgetown where 'leaders' Bartholomew Banynum and William Dutton had near 400 men under arms formed into militia units. These people, it was said' were ignorant, opposing all laws, favored the Kings Law, the payment of tax and thought that the south of Chesapeake Bay had laid down arms and taken Kings Law and thought Sussex should do the same." A Continental Militia from upper Delaware dispersed these insurrectionists, some were place in the Continental Army, some faced treason charges and some were to be "hung by the neck until most dead, then cut their bowels out and be burnt before your face, then the head be severed and the body quartered". By good fortune, this order common for treason, was never carried out and all were pardoned in 1780 session of the General Assembly on November 4th. In 1780 there were two villages, Fleatown, aka Federalsburg, to the North and New Market to the south. Ellendale had not yet been formed.

New Sussex County Airport Manager

Journal Every Evening
Contributed by Harrison

Date: July 12 1946

Newspaper published in: Wilmington, Delaware

Source: Own collection

Page/Column: News From Delmarva Peninsula

Georgetown, Delaware - July 12 1946 :

Colonel William Campbell Goldsborough, retired Army Air Corps officer, a native of Smyrna, Delaware, has been named as manager of the Sussex County Airport by the Sussex Levy Court, and will assume his position on Monday of next week with headquarters in a building located at the air field near Georgetown. Goldsborough brings wide knowledge and experience in aviation. He is a veteran of both World Wars and has served 27 years in the Army Air Corps. He was educated in the local Smyrna school system, a preparatory school and studied law at University of California. He received an Army commission in 1918 in the Aviation Section of the Signal Corps as a pilot. After the close of WWI he was commissioned a First Lieutenant in the Regular Army Air Corps. He served assignments in the Hawaiian Islands, Scott Air Field in Illinois, flew mail for six months and in 1939 was Commander at Langley Field. During WWII he served as a submarine patrol pilot and also had administrative duties in India and China. He comes to Georgetown from Curtice Wright Corporation where he was an executive in their research division.