Georgetown, Delaware, July 30, 1888:

Georgetown is the county seat of Sussex county Delaware located at the junction of the former Junction and Breakwater and the Breakwater and Franklin Railroads, now the Delaware Division of the Pennsylvania. In 1880 it had 710 inhabitants and in 1887 there were 1600, a lot to do with the locating of the C. H. Treat Company, maker of peach baskets and other wood products which employed over 100 people. also there was the Sussex Manufacturing Company which made wood work items for the building business, such as windows, doors, etc. There are three food canning houses, an evaporator of fruit and several smaller business to keep the population working. Georgetown, named for George Mitchell, one of a committee appointed to locate it in 1791. The county seat was moved from Lewes for a more convenient location to the county.

The oldest religious edifice is the St. Paul's Episcopal Church that was originally built in 1794 with money raised by a lottery authorized by the State of Delaware Legislature. Several more lotteries were necessary in the early 1800's to complete it and build a Masonic Hall and Academy There is also a Presbyterian and Methodist church and Catholic's occasionally meet in the Court House.

Georgetown is laid off from a center square with wide shaded streets running at right angles. The court house, the Eagle and the Brick hotel's front on this square. The town has two newspapers, The Sussex Journal, editor McKendree Downham and The Delaware Democrat, editor E. F. Paynter, both newsy weekly journals.

Georgetown has one old custom it has kept for years, Return Day, following elections in November to which Sussex county people flock to the town center to hear the results of election read from the court house door at noon.

Print Save to List Rate Comment (0) E-Mail Report

Philadelphia, Inquirer
Contributed by Harrison

Description: Delaware's youngest Bride at Age 13 Years.
Date: December 7 1909

Newspaper published in: Philadelphia

Source: GBank

Bayard, Delaware, December 7, 1909:

Richard Banks, 18 years old of Williamsville in Sussex county Delaware, a son of James A and Ann Banks, took to himself a "child wife", supposed to be the youngest girl ever married in Delaware, when he was married to Miss Orma Hickman, age 13, daughter of the late Theodore and Maggie Hickman, who have during the past ten years moved to Bayard from Cape May county in New Jersey. The wedding was held with the full consent of her mother and was solemnized at the home of her widowed mother. The young girl is well developed for her age d easily passes for sixteen years old. She is perfectly happy with her new husband telling friends she found the one she loved. The bride was born and bred in this country but has seen very little of life outside of her family farm home. she and the husband will reside at the farm which her mother owns.

Richard Warren Banks lived until June 1967 before he died near Bishop, Worcester county, Maryland. Orma died in 1978. both are buried in Carey's Cemetery at Frankford, Delaware.  Sometime after 1921 the family moved to St. Martins Neck in Worcester county where Richard became a carpenter, giving up a short span of farming. They had five children, daughter Edna born 1912, daughter Zenia born 1916, son's Arthur born 1919, Clifton born 1921, all in Delaware and their last son Richard Warren Banks Jr., born 1927 in Worcester Maryland.

DELAWARE RIVER BRIDGES

LACKAWAXEN BRIDGE

The bridge across thr Delaware river at Lackawaxen, Pennsylvania to Yulan, New York is known today as the Roebling Bridge, named after its builder-designer, John August Roebling,  built in 1848 as an aqueduct , 535 feet in length, 20 feet wide with 8 feet of water depth, to carry coal barges pulled by mules,  from Pennsylvania's anthracite mines across the Delaware on the Delaware and Hudson Canal  to the Hudson River bound for NewYork City. There was a wooden plank walkway for the mules on the edge of the waterway. Today it carries vehicles with a one-way, yield to oncoming traffic, road with scenic views. The Lackawaxen Bridge was open to wagon and auto traffic in 1900.  It was the largest one of four built by Roebling for the canal. Roebling also was the designer of the Brooklyn Bridge in New York City but died before it was completed  by his son, Washington Roebling.

Due to the rapid construction of a railroad system to transport coal to New York City  the Delaware and Hudson Canal ceased operation. Lackawaxen Bridge was for sale.  Railroads were offered the structure, however, the Cornell Steamboat Line  purchased it, hoping to sell for a railroad which never happened. 

In 1908, a Scranton lumber dealer, Charles Spunks,, purchased the bridge and the roads leading to it in order to transport lumber from New York State to his Scranton business. So it soon became a toll bridge for wheeled vehicles and pedestrians which continued to about 1933 when most of the bridge woodwork was destroyed by a fire, perhaps started by locals in order to have a toll free bridge built.  Until May 1980 the Lackawaxen Bridge had several new owners and many problems, finally it became more of a tourist attraction, was then purchased by National Park Service for $75,000.00 , repairs for traffic and opened again in 1987.

Other tourist attractions near are the home of the Western Cowboy writer, Zane Grey and the site of the 1779 Battle of Minisink Ford, the only major battle of the Revolutionary War fought on the Delaware River. 

1671 DELAWARE RIVER CENSUS

THE SETTLEMENTS AND THEIR PEOPLE;

WHOREKILL 1671:

Whorekill is Dutch,, horren kill,  aka, Whore Creek, now known as Lewes.  In 1659 they had built a fort, then in 1663 a settlement was established by forty Mennonites from Amsterdam on the ship St. Jacob, the leader being Peter Cornelisen Plockhoy. In 1664 the English in Maryland plundered these settlement and by 1671 the communities were a mix of dutch and English residents. The settlements were claimed by both the Maryland Governor and the Duke of York of New York and the governor of New York established a Court there naming  Helmanus Wiiltbank sheriff and chief justice, Sander Molleston, Otto Wollgast, and William Clasen as justices. This took place 28 February 1670 and on the third of October 1670, Maryland  took action and surveyed six tracts of land for residents which included all four of the New York appointees.
1673 the dutch retook the Delaware and New Castle, changing the Maryland policy toward Whorekill and that same year A Maryland Milita Troop of forty men led by Capt Thomas Howell seized the settlement, burned the houses, boats and took all weapons from the residents.. However, the community lived on. 
A census was made 8 May 1671 by the sheriff Wilrbank, entitled, " list of persons, young and old, who are here at Whorekill , aka, Sekonnessinck".
The Census:  Helmanus Fredricks Wiltbanck, his wife, two sons and one servant, (5);  Sander Moelsteen, his wife, two sons, one servant, (5); Otto Wolgast, his wife, one son, a servant (4); William Clasen, two daughters, one child (4); Jan Kipshaven , his wife, one daughter (3);  James Weedon, his wife, one daughter, one son, four servants (8);  Jon Rods, his wife, three sons, two daughters (7); John Brun, his wife, one partner, John Colleson, (3);  Jan Michiels, Antony Pieters, Abraham Pieters, Pieter Hansz (4); Peter Gronendick Antony Hansen, Herman Cornelissen, (3); Hendrick Drochstraeten (1) for a total of 47 souls.
Sheriff wiltbanck also gave numbers to the homes from 166 to 176. He also reported the five occupants of the ship Betfort of Capt. Martyn Cregier and two Crew of  Pieter  Alrich's  boat of New Castle, both anchored at Whorekill in the bay Delaware.

THAT BOY  FROM MONTANA ON THE SNOW BIKE

Than boy from Montana, Mike Potter,  from Whitefish, Montana, on his big wheeled bike on a tour of the United States, by name Four Corners Tour, was at the Village of five Points Arenas Coffee shop Friday, the first of February, a cold day for here, in his shorts but with a wool watch cap. Somewhat appropriate I guess. See his blog a www.relaxedchaos.com.  He is a talker for sure and has an interesting story, both coming and going,, talks  my language, "plain talk, easy understood".   An Army veteran  where he became assigned a 'journalist', because he was one of his group that could write a complete sentence. Any way he is here in Lewes, right now helping  Abrakas with a internet web site for his art business.  Hudson's are allowing him to stay in the Spaceship, at Eagle Crest.  So far he has been across the top of the country to Portland, Maine, down the coast through New Jersey and  tool  Cape-May Lewes Ferry ans Lewes. 

I have not made much way on his family genealogy but think his grandfather was Harry Potter, born in Montana and grandmother was. Allena, born in Missouri. Both were living in Whitefish in the 1930 census. Anyway, Joe Hudson and I enjoyed his visit at Arenas Friday morning.  Check out Whitefish on google maps. It has a railroad museum and the Great Northern Brewery.                                                           You may say this article is from the Arenas Express Press, a short lived news journal, which may come in play in the future.

HAEEISON

SONS OF DELAWARE SOCIETY  VISIT LEWES FOR ANNUAL REUNION IN 1914

Proud of their native state and boastful  of its progress and historical prominence, more than 150 members of the Philadelphia Sons of Delaware Society visited  historic Lewes today on their annual reunion pilgrimage.

The excursion of the former Delawareans was of state wide interest. governor Charles R. Miller welcomed the visitors on behalf of the syaye; Mayor Jsames T. Thompson of Lewes and George P. Tunnell, president of the Lewes Board of Trade also extended greeting.   Many citizens of the town formed a reception committee which had made elaborate plans for the entertainment of the visitors.

An old fashion SHAD dinner, with all the trimmins, cooked by southern mammies was the central part of the celebration was held in the auditorium  after which were heard recited glories by the men who are now leaders in Delaware and Philadelphia where they are widely known in professions and business.

The Sons of Delaware traveled by special train which left Broad Street Station just afterenoon and arrived at Lewes at 3 o'clock. The Lewes station was resplendent beneath banners and flowers.  They then were driven around town in motor cars which took them to the DeVries Monument where Judge Henry C. conrad of Georgetown and Benjamin A. Hazel of Smyrna narrated the history of the settling of the Dutch and told how this small settlement had expanded into the State of Delaware.. From there the sons of Delaware were escorted to the ocean front where the Harbor and Federal Breakwater and wireless station were inspected. The group also visited the new fish factory, recently erected,  and told the plants are considered the largest and most modern on the Atlantic Coast.

Some of the noted speakers were  Dr. Charles H. Hearne, richard Fisher, Govenor Miller, Judge Conrad, Daniel O. Hastings, , ex-govenor Tunnell and ex-congressman Hiram Burton. who reside in Lewes.

Officers of the Sons of Delaware Society are; president, Dr. Hearne; first vice pressident, Charles MeGee, second vice president, Clarence Nesbit, treasurer, L. C. Dill,  secretary, John W. Graham, and Historian, W. S. Emerson.