Delaware Trivia & Tidbits - Page 16

Looking for Delaware trivia? Try our list Delaware little know facts, tidbits and trivia.

The Bangor, the first iron, propeller-driven seagoing ship built in the United States, was launched at Wilmington in 1844.

first appeared: 6/10/2001

Founded in 1726, Seaford (pop. 5,700) calls itself The Nylon Capital of the World and is the home of the Dupont Co.’s first nylon plant.

first appeared: 6/3/2001

St. Anne’s Episcopal Church near Middleton (pop. 5,000), built in 1768, has an altar cloth embroidered by Queen Anne (1502-1536).

first appeared: 5/27/2001

The town of Milton (pop. 2,500) was named in 1807 after English poet John Milton (1608-1674), author of Paradise Lost and Paradise Regained.

first appeared: 5/20/2001

Thomas Garret (1789-1871) of Wilmington gave his entire fortune to the battle against slavery. Though he was sued by a Maryland slave owner and fined for aiding an African-American family in flight, during his lifetime Garrett helped more than 2,700 fugitive slaves move through Delaware.

first appeared: 5/13/2001

Major league baseball teams buy 182 pounds of baseball rubbing mud each year from a farmer in Millsboro (pop. 1,825). The clay-like mud is used to take the gloss off baseballs and “condition” them before using them in games.

first appeared: 5/6/2001

In 1981, the legislature adopted the weakfish, a game and food fish, as the official state fish. It’s also known as sea trout, gray trout, yellow mouth, yellow fin trout, squeteague, and tiderunner.

first appeared: 4/29/2001

Delaware has two National Wildlife Refuges, one at Bombay Hook, the other at Prime Hook, both on Delaware Bay. The salt marshes within the parks—havens for numerous seabirds—are tidal, and twice a day largely disappear with the ebbing and flowing of the tide.

first appeared: 4/22/2001

Felix Octavius Carr Darley (1821-1888), one of Victorian America’s most famous illustrators of books and magazines and perhaps the father of American illustration, spent 20 years of his life and most of his career in Claymont (pop. 28,000).

first appeared: 4/15/2001

Although the Cape May-Lewes (pop. 2,295) ferry normally runs every day, even in winter, service was suspended for a record 45 days during icy conditions in Delaware Bay in January and February 1977.

first appeared: 4/8/2001

Fisher’s Popcorn, a “coastal caramel corn” hand-popped and flavored on Fenwick Island (pop. 300), has been ordered from as far away as Vietnam and Indonesia.

first appeared: 4/1/2001

Born in Wilmington, Dr. Henry Heimlich is the creator of the Heimlich Maneuver (mid-1970s), the Heimlich Chest Valve, the Heimlich Micro Trach, and other life-saving devices and techniques.

first appeared: 3/25/2001

Dover native Annie Jump Cannon (1863-1941) is credited with being the first astronomer to classify the heavens systematically. She was responsible for the discovery of five novas and about 300 variable stars (their brightness varies) but is best known for compiling a catalog of more than 350,000 stellar spectra. The catalog still is accepted as a standard work.

first appeared: 3/18/2001

George Read (1733-1798), a jurist who grew up in New Castle (pop. 5,000), was the last of many delegates to vote against the Declaration of Independence. He did so on July 2, 1776, two days before voting in favor to make the final vote unanimous.

first appeared: 3/11/2001

The state with the most automobile miles driven per year is Delaware, with each driver logging about 10,165 miles annually, according to the U.S. Department of Commerce, which did not speculate on the reasons for this.

first appeared: 3/4/2001

Betsy Ross’ flag apparently was first flown at the Battle of Cooch’s Bridge on Sept. 3, 1777. The site is on Route 4 in Newark.

first appeared: 2/25/2001

Rehoboth Beach (pop. 1,300), the state’s largest coastal resort town, was founded by Methodists who purchased the land for a summer camp in 1873. The Rehoboth Camp Meeting Association of the Methodist Episcopal Church was established with the purpose of maintaining a permanent “Christian seaside resort.”

first appeared: 2/18/2001

An 1878 storm washed away the land between the town of Woodland Beach (pop. 300) and the mainland. After the storm, a bridge had to be built to the town, and it is still the only way to reach the village.

first appeared: 2/11/2001

As the first state to ratify the U.S. Constitution, Delaware is often accorded the first position in such national events as presidential inaugurations.

first appeared: 2/4/2001

—Physician and novelist Robert Montgomery Bird (1806-1854) was born in New Castle (pop. 4,837) in 1806. Edgar Allen Poe called Bird’s 1834 book, Calavar, or the Knight of the Conquest: A Romance of Mexico, “without doubt one of the best American novels.”

first appeared: 1/28/2001

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