Above: The Bangor, first iron steamer in America, built 1843-4 In 1842 the Wilmington outfit Betts, Pusey and Harlan, a builder of railroad cars, was a modest 20 person operation. That was all about to dramatically change, when Samuel Harlan accepted a repair job on the iron cylinder of the wooden steamboat Sun from Captain…
Above: University of Delaware, Old College / Special Collections, University of Delaware Library Francis Alison planted the seed for what is today the University of Delaware in 1765, when he established the Newark Academy in the town of the same name. The school was in fact a transplant from a free school he’d begun in…
Above: Star Hill was the first A.M.E. church built (1867) in Richard Allen’s hometown of Dover, DE. “He was more like a father to his slaves than anything else,” said Richard Allen years later of Stokely Sturgis, his former master in Dover, DE. Sturgis trusted Allen enough, for example, to allow him as a teenager…
Above: Delores St. Armand as Harriet Tubman at 1978 National Portrait Gallery exhibit “Portraits in Motion.” Map courtesy Seaford Museum. Underground Railroad conductor Harriet Tubman (1822-1913) made no less than 19 trips to the south between 1850 and 1860, freeing 300 slaves during that fruitful decade. None were ever recaptured. Between 1852 and 1857 Tubman…
