The First State: Delaware History Quiz

Answer: Fort Christina

Of the four forts, Fort Christina was a Swedish fort while Forts Beversreede, Casimir, and Zwaanandael were all Dutch forts.

Fort Beversreede was constructed in 1633 south of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at the confluence of the Schuylkill and Delaware Rivers. This was the end point of the Great Minquas Path (the Great Trail), also known to the Dutch as the Beversreede (Beavers Road). Fort Casimir was constructed seven miles south of Fort Christina in New Castle. Constructed in 1651 by Peter Stuyvesant to harass New Sweden and Fort Chritina, Fort Casimr was captured by the Swedes in 1654 and renamed Fort Trefaldighet (Fort Trinity). Fort was constructed in. Fort Zwaanandael (alternate spellings include Zwanendael, Swanendael, and Swaanendael) was constructed near Lewes in 1631. Fort Zwaanandael was attacked by Native Americans sometime between September 1631 and December 1632, all the colonists there were killed and the fort burned to the ground.

Fort Christina was built at the site of present day Wilmington and named for the then twelve year old Queen Christina of Sweden. Located at the confluence of Brandywine Creek and the Christina River, the fort was constructed to defend the first permanent Swedish settlement in New Sweden. This settlement, Christinaham (Kristinehamn) was also named Fort Christina and served as the capital of New Sweden. In an ironic twist of fate, Dutchman Peter Minuit, a former director of the Dutch New Netherland colony (and the man generally credited with purchasing Manhattan Island for the Dutch from the Lenape people), founded New Sweden on territory claimed by the Dutch. Minuit would briefly serve as the first governor of New Sweden from its founding in early 1638 to his death in August that year.

The earthworks of the fort were strengthened two years later under the authority of Governor Peter Hollander Ridder, the third governor of New Sweden. The intention was to strengthen the fort against attacks by the Dutch and the Native Americans. The fort would be rebuilt in 1647 under the governorship of Ridder's successor Johan Björnsson Printz as Christinaham itself grew.

Things would change for Fort Christina when the final governor of New Sweden, Johan Classon Risingh, came to power. One of Risingh's first orders was the capture of Fort Casimir in 1654, renaming it Fort Trinity. Realizing his actions would bring possible retaliation on the part of the Dutch; Risingh ordered a wooden palisade built around the earthworks of the fort in order to strengthen its defenses. Risingh's concerns proved accurate as Stuyvesant lead a large force against New Sweden in 1655. His forces recaptured Fort Casimir and laid siege to Fort Christina. After a ten to sixteen day siege Fort Christina was surrendered to the Dutch, who renamed it Fort Altena.

Answer: Thomas West

Thomas West was governor of the Virginia Colony from 1609 to his death in 1618. West was also known as the 3rd Baron De La Warr, which is pronounced as Delaware is spelled. In 1611 Baron De La Warr would publish Samuel Calvert's (or Samuel Argall's) book "The Relation of the Right Honourable the Lord De-La-Warre, Lord Governour and Captaine Generall of the Colonie, planted in Virginea". He and his wife would introduce John Rolfe and Pocahontas.

In 1523 Spanish Magistrate Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón received a grant from the Holy Roman Emperor to explore lands which had been explored two years earlier. These lands included the area around Delaware Bay. Ayllón dispatched Captain Pedro de Quejo, who had been involved in the 1521 exploration of these lands, to explore the area in 1525. Based on discoveries at this time, Ayllón and Quejo would name the bay Saint Christopher's Bay. In 1609 Henry Hudson, searching for the Northwest Passage for the Dutch East India Company, came across the bay. Hudson renamed it either Godyn's Bay or Godin's Bay after Samuel Godin (also spelled Godyn and Godijn), director of the Dutch East India Company at the time. He also named the river that flowed into the bay the Zuyd River (South River) The Dutch also referred to the bay as Niew Port May for Captain Cornelius Jacobsen May (Cornelis Jacobsen Mey), a Dutch explorer and the first director of the New Netherland colony. In 1616 May sailed up the Zuyd River. The bay was also called the Zuyt Baye (South Bay)

Between 1610 and 1618 Baron De La Warr had serving under him one Samuel Argall. Sometime between 1610 and 1618 Argall discovered Godyn's Bay/Niew Port May and the Zuyd River. Argall would rename both in honor of Baron De La Warr at some point after he discovered them. The Dutch names would actually remain in use until 1667 when, under the Treaty of Breda, the New Netherland colony was transferred to the English. At this time Argall's Delaware Bay and Delaware River became the official name for both the bay and river. The name of the bay and river also became the name of the English colony.

Answer: Delaware

Also known as Lenni Lenape and Leni Lenape, the Lenape in the United States today principally belong to the Delaware nation and Delaware Tribe of Indians in Oklahoma as well as the Stockbridge-Munsee Community in Wisconsin. Though there are other groups who claim Lenape descent both state recognized in the Lenape's historic range and unrecognized in that range and outside of it. In Canada the Lenape belong to the Munsee-Delaware Nation, Moravian of the Thames First Nation, and Delaware of Six Nations, all in Ontario. Just like the state, bay, and river, the Lenape became known as the Delaware after Thomas West, 3rd Baron De La Warr. Because they lived along the Delaware River and the Delaware Bay, the English called them the Delaware Indians rather than the Lenape. To the Swedes of New Sweden they were the Renappi.

Lenni may mean genuine, pure, real, or original while Lenape may mean either real person or original person. In the Unami dialect of the Lenape (the dialect spoken by those in what is today Delaware), Lenni Lenape may literally be translated as Men of Men, but it may also be translated as Original people. Lenapehoking may be translated as homelands of the Lenape, though it may also mean in the land of the Delaware Indians. Lenapehoking may refer to the historic range of the Lenape (along the Atlantic seaboard from western Connecticut down through Delaware in the east and along the Delaware River in the west). The Lenape called the Delaware River Lenape Wihittuck (the rapid stream of the Lenape) and the Delaware Bay Poutaxat (near the falls).

It may have the Lenape who were responsible for the destruction of Fort Zaanendael in the 1630s.

In 1682 William Penn began establishing the Province of Pennsylvania, beginning along the lower Delaware River. The counties of Delaware were treated as a separate colony within the province until the late 18th century. Penn negotiated a treaty with the chief of the Lenape of the Delaware Valley, Tamanend (also known as Tammany for which the later Tammany Societies were named), to ensure peace between the colonists and the Lenape. Penn and Tamanend would eventually sign a total of eight peace treaties to ensure the peace between the two peoples. However, these treaties would put pressure on the Lenape as arriving colonists would displace the Lenape from their ancestral homes.

Things would get worse following the deaths of both Penn and Tamanend. While William Penn lived he tried to maintain the peace between the colonists of the Province of Pennsylvania and the Lenape. Following his death, his sons John and Thomas took over running the colony. They abandoned Penn's policies and began to look for ways to make money. Among these was the idea of selling Lenape lands to newly arriving colonists. This resulted in the Walking Purchase. This would ultimately drive the Lenape from Delaware.

Answer: February 12, 1901

The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which went into effect in December 1865, was the one which abolished slavery. At the time twenty-seven of the thirty-six states in the nation needed to ratify the amendment for it to pass. Delaware was a slave state and in February 1865 voted against ratifying the amendment.

The irony is that although Delaware fought for the Union during the war, all but one Confederate state ratified to 13th Amendment before Delaware did. That one, Mississippi, voted to ratify the amendment March 16, 1995 (though the vote would not be certified until February 7, 2013). South Carolina, the first Confederate state to secede and the state where the American Civil War is generally accepted as beginning, ratified the amendment November 13, 1865 and Georgia became the final state needed to pass the amendment, ratifying it December 6, 1865. Respectively these two Confederate states became the 24th and 27th states of the twenty-seven states needed to pass the amendment.

Of the thirty-six states in the nation in 1865, Delaware was the 34th to ratify the amendment. It was also the first of three states to reject the amendment in 1865, the others being New Jersey and Mississippi. Delaware would symbolically vote to ratify the amendment on February 12, 1901; some thirty-five years after the amendment had passed.

Delaware also ratified the 14th and 15th Amendments on February 12, 1901 after rejecting both in 1867 and 1869 respectively. Like the 13th Amendment, both these amendments were Reconstruction Era amendments.

Answer: Border State

During the American Civil War the Border States were the Northern slave states. The majority of the Border States actually bordered the states of the Confederacy. Delaware is the only state of the five not to have border with a Confederate state; it shares borders with Pennsylvania to the North, New Jersey to the east, and fellow border state to the south and west.

By the end of 1860 less than 2% of Delaware's population was slaves. Of the African-American population in Delaware in 1860, over 90% were free. This did not mean Delaware embraced abolition with open arms. Legislators restricted free black organizations and Wilmington's constabulary was accused of harshly enforcing the runaway slave laws. It was also not uncommon for many citizens of the state to kidnap free blacks and sell them into slavery.

Despite being a slave state, Delaware never voted to secede. Both houses of the state's General Assembly voted against secession, with the House of Representatives voting unanimously against the idea. Governor William Burton is said to have stated at the time that Delaware was the first to ratify the U.S. Constitution and it would be the last to secede from the Union.

Answer: Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours

Éleuthère Irénée du Pont de Nemours was born June 24, 1771 in Paris, France to Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and Nicole-Charlotte Marie-Louise le Dée de Rencourt. Pierre had been the protégé of Dr. François Quesnay, the physician to Madame de Pompadour (Louis XV's mistress) and a leader of a political faction known as the économistes. The économistes, also known as physiocrats, were liberals who were dedicated to economic and agricultural reforms. And Pierre would become a prominent member of the group, drawing the attention of intellectuals such as Voltaire. His 1768 book "Physiocratie, ou Constitution naturelle du gouvernement le plus avantageux au genre humain" would advocate free trade among nations while in the mid-1770s the king of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth would invite him to help organize the country's educational system. Louis XVI would appoint him to the position of France's Inspector General of Commerce. Pierre also had a hand in negotiating the 1783 Treaty of Paris which officially ended the American Revolution. In 1784 Pierre was made a noble and had the suffix de Nemours (of Nemours) added to his name to reflect where his place of residence was. The same year Nicole-Charlotte died of typhoid. In 1795 he'd marry Marie Françoise Robin de Poivre, daughter of a French aristocrat and the widow of Pierre Poivre

Éleuthère Irénée, the third son of Pierre and Nicole-Charlotte and one of only two to reach adulthood, grew up on his father's estate near Égreville. As a boy he was studious in most of his studies, though he showed particular interest in explosives. In the fall of 1785, fourteen year old Éleuthère Irénée entered the Collège Royal (today the Collège de France). At sixteen he became a student at the Régie des poudres after having been accepted as an apprentice by the noted chemist Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, a friend of his father's. The Régie des poudres was the government agency in charge of the manufacturing of French gunpowder. From Lavoisier the young du Pont would gain expertise in nitrate extraction and manufacture as well as studying techniques for the production of advanced explosives that would suit him well later in life. He'd briefly serve at the French powder works in Essone. In 1791 he married Sophie Madeleine Dalmas.

Éleuthère Irénée joined his father in supporting the French Revolution and was a member of the pro-revolution Republican guard in the early 1790s. However, this did not stop the two defending Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette during their escape from Tuileries Palace. Pierre then refused to go along with the execution of Louis XVI, which caused father and son to be viewed as a liability to the revolution. In 1794 Pierre was arrested and sentenced to execution, only managing to survive as the Reign of Terror came to a close before he was to be guillotined. In 1797 both Pierre and Éleuthère Irénée were imprisoned for a night in La Force prison. This event would convince the elder du Pont to immigrate with to the United States, bringing with him his second wife, sons Victor Marie and Éleuthère Irénée, and their families. The du Pont's would leave France late in 1799, arriving in Rhode Island New Year's Day 1800.

According to Delaware legend, it was a hunting trip that convinced Éleuthère Irénée to go into the gunpowder business in the United States. While hunting with former French artillery officer, Major Louis de Tousard. Tousard, at the time, was employed by the United States Army to procure gunpowder. While hunting du Pont's rifle misfired due to the inferior quality American gunpowder it was loaded with. Du Pont requested a tour of an American gunpowder factory. Tousard arranged the tour for him where he learned that the American process of refining gunpowder could not compete with the processes he'd learned as a young man.

Du Pont determined that he could enhance the quality of American gunpowder and at the same time bring reform to the American gunpowder industry. In the early 1800s he formed the E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company, establishing the Eleutherian Mills on Brandywine Creek just north of Wilmington. The E. I. du Pont de Nemours and Company would become better known simply as DuPont.

Answer: His image is on the Delaware state quarter

In 1999 the 50 State quarters series of commemorative quarters began to be released, with each quarter supposed to be released in the order in which the states joined the Union. Naturally the Delaware state quarter was the first to be released, being released to the public beginning January 4, 1999.

On the obverse (the heads side) of the quarter was the John F. Flanagan design of George Washington which has appeared on the American Quarter since 1932. The states were involved in picking out the reverse (the tails side) design specific to that state with most states appointing an advisory group to oversee the design process and choose between three and five final options which would be submitted to the U.S. Treasury for approval. Approved designs would be sent back to the states to select the final design. Delaware picked for its design a man on horseback accompanied by the words "The First State", in reference to it being the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution and thus the first to enter the Union, and Caesar Rodney. Caesar Rodney is, in fact, the man on horseback on the quarter.

One of the Founding Fathers, Caesar Rodney is perhaps best remembered today for a "little" ride he took in 1776. Along with Thomas McKean and George Read, Rodney was a member in 1776 of Delaware's delegation to the Second Continental Congress. At the time voting on the Declaration of Independence came up, Rodney was in Dover tending to the creation of local militia and dealing with Tory problems. Delaware only needed two yes votes to pass the Declaration so it would have seemed Rodney's presence wasn't required. However, McKean and Read were soon deadlocked in the vote for independence, with Read surprising many in the Congress by voting against it (although he would later sign the Declaration). McKean sent word of the deadlock to Rodney.

Upon hearing this, Rodney rode on horseback through a night time thunderstorm some seventy to eighty miles from Dover to Philadelphia in order to cast his vote, arriving soaked and muddy. According to a letter he wrote his brother Thomas "I arrived in Congress (tho detained by thunder and rain) time enough to give my voice in the matter of independence . . . We have now got through the whole of the declaration and ordered it to be printed so that you will soon have the pleasure of seeing it."

An equestrian statue of Rodney, which may have served as the basis for the design of the Delaware state quarter, was erected in 1923 in Rodney Square in Wilmington. It stood until June 2020 when it was temporarily removed in the wake of protests of the murder of George Floyd.

Answer: False

Although the University of Delaware was not chartered as a college or university until 1833, the school traces its origins back to 1743 when it was founded in New London, Pennsylvania as a "Free School" opened by Presbyterian minister Francis Alison. Among the first students of the school were Thomas McKean and George Read, both of whom would go on to represent Delaware in both the First and Second Continental Congresses.

In 1765 the school moved to Newark, Delaware, at this time it became the Newark Academy. The board of trustees tried to have the academy chartered as a college in 1781, but the Delaware General Assembly did not grant the request at this time. In 1832 a new site for the school was selected in Newark and construction began late in the year. In January 1833 the board of trustees again approached the state legislature requesting a charter as a college. This time the charter was granted February 5, 1833, with Newark Academy becoming Newark College. Newark Academy itself would continue to exist as a preparatory department of the college until January 1835 when the state legislature would order the academy to cease operations and transfer all educational responsibilities to the college. This was done with the stipulation that should the college cease to have an academic department (when opened in 1833 Newark College had two departments, the academic department and a collegiate department) the academy would be revived.

In 1843 the school's name was changed again to Delaware College. During the 1840s the school faced financial problems. In 1818 the state legislature had authorized the operation of a lottery by Newark Academy board of trustees in order to raise the funds to establish the school as a college. This lottery would not go into effect until 1825. It continued to support the school for the next twenty years. Two years after becoming Delaware College the lottery which supported the school stopped. The school tried to replace the lottery with a scholarship system which would prove fiscally unsound. And following the death of a student in 1858 the college would temporarily suspend operations beginning in 1859. The stipulation to reopen Newark Academy went into effect at this time.

In 1870 Delaware College reopened due to having become a land-grant college the previous year. In 1867, seeking a way to reopen the college and make it financially sound the board of trustees proposed the school be opened as a land-grant college pursuant to the Morrill Land-Grant Act which had been signed into law by President Abraham Lincoln in 1862. Proposed by Vermont Congressman Justin S. Morrill in 1857, the Morrill Land-Grant Act granted each state public lands in order to establish agricultural and engineering schools. An agreement was signed in January 1869 between the board of trustees and the state legislature in which Delaware College would become Delaware's land-grant college and the state would gain 1/2 interest in the college and the ability to appoint new members to the board of trustees. With the agreement reached the state of Delaware purchased 90,000 acres in Montana, which were in turn sold to raise the finances to fund the school.

In 1921 Delaware College became Delaware University. That same year it began the process of merging with the Women's College of Delaware, which had opened in 1914. The merger would be completed in 1945, making Delaware University a coeducational school.

The 1891 Delaware College for Colored Students is today the Delaware State University. In 2015 it became the first historically black college and university to have a no-smoking on campus policy.

Answer: Emily Bissell

Christmas seals began in 1904 in Denmark as a way to raise money to fight tuberculosis. In the first year alone some four million were sold at a cost of 0.02 Danish krone. They quickly spread to Sweden and Iceland, then on to the rest of Scandinavia and throughout Europe.

The Brandywine Sanatorium, also known as the Brandywine Shack, had been established on Brandywine Creek by the Delaware Anti-Tuberculosis Society, which itself was formed the same year as Denmark establish Christmas seals, as an open air tuberculosis treatment facility. Among the staff was one Dr. Joseph Wales, Emily Bissell's cousin. In 1907 Dr. Wales wrote Bissell, asking her for ideas on how to raise $300 (roughly $8,897.94 in January 2022) in funds for the sanatorium. Bissell, who had helped establish Delaware's first Red Cross chapter in 1904, had read an article about the Danish Christmas seals and thought this might hold the answer.

She introduced the idea to Delaware in order to raise the money for the sanatorium that year, with the first ever Christmas seals in the United States going on sale December 7, 1907. By the end of the 1907 Christmas season these first U.S. Christmas seals had raised $3,000 (roughly $88,979.36 in January 2022). The following year Christmas seals went nationwide in the U.S.

Answer: Pumpkin Chunkin

The World Championship Pumpkin Chunckin (WCPC), also known as Pumpkin Chucking, was established in 1986 with their first championship being held in Lewes, Delaware. That year the Melson-Thompson team, using a catapult, would "chuck" a pumpkin 178 feet. The annual event would grow from there with teams coming in from around the United States. As the event progressed the event saw teams using more and power powerful devices to fire pumpkins over greater distances. In 2003, for example, the championship air cannon known as 2nd Amendment had managed to fire a pumpkin to a distance of 4,434.28.

By 2007 the annual event had to move to Bridgeville, Delaware as the number of teams, spectators, and the distances being reached made early locations impractical. That year some seventy-five teams and more than 20,000 spectators attended the event, which raised $800,000. The event would remain there until after the 2013 season when a lawsuit by the property owner dating back to 2011 forced the WCPC to seek a new location. This was to be the Dover International Speedway beginning in 2014, but both the 2014 and 2015 seasons were canceled due to logistical problems with the race track (the straightaways were less than the one mile minimum the event required.

In 2016 the event returned to Bridgeville. This would be the last time the event was held in Delaware. Beginning in 2009 the event was televised on the Science Channel with the Discovery Channel hosting specials on the event from 2010 to 2013, hosted by both the hosts and later the build team of "MythBusters" (Discovery had televised the event for the first time in 2002). During taping of the 2016 season an air cannon malfunctioned and sent metal flying at a member of the member of the TV production staff, seriously injuring them. Producers filed a lawsuit against the WCPCA (World Championship Pumpkin Chunkin Association, the governing body of the event). Because of this and the with drawl of the Science Channel as a television partner, the event was not held in 2017. It was also not held in 2018.

In 2019 it moved to Chanute Air Force Base in Illinois. This would be a smaller event than in previous years, partly due to the fact that many of the Delaware teams chose not to travel all the way to Illinois to take part in what had once been held in their home state. 2020 would again see a cancellation, this time due to the COVID epidemic. 2021 again saw no event.