Above: Fort Delaware, June 1863 / Harper’s Weekly 1863-06-27: Vol 7 Iss 339 The fact is, Fort Delaware was never designed to be used as a prison. That, and the amount of space it occupied on tiny Pea Patch Island in the Delaware Bay, meant it was destined to become a chamber of horrors when…
Above: Alfred I. DuPont and 1901 DeDion Bouton In early November 1900, Alfred I. DuPont’s first car, the first one in Delaware, broke down. Within 3 months he bought his second, this one a French made vehicle from DeDion Bouton. “It is a neat machine and is especially designed for a woman’s use,” pointed out…
Above: A Dupont Powder Mill Drying House explosion/fire from 1914 / Hagley Museum and Library In 1847 Dupont’s Powder Mill was in the midst of supplying gunpowder to the US Government, then midway through the Mexican-American War. Eleuthere Ireene du Pont de Nemours’ Brandywine Valley mill near Wilmington had been in business already for 45…
Above: Edward Williams Clay, Skaters on the Delaware River at Philadelphia, 1831 / National Museum of American History “Amidst the dreariness of wintry winds and chilling frosts that have stripped the rugged oak of its foliage,” begins memoirist Elizabeth Montgomery, on the topic of early 19th century Wilmington, DE winters, “that have disrobed all inanimate…
