In coming over by railroad from the Chesapeake to the Delaware, the
train, after crossing the broad Susquehanna and the head of Elk, and
rounding in Maryland the Northeast Arm of Chesapeake Bay, soon enters
the State of Delaware near the northeastern corner of the former
State. This corner is at the termination of the crescent-shaped
northern boundary of Delaware. The northern boundary of Maryland here
beginning and laid down due west, to separate it from Pennsylvania, is
the famous "Mason and Dixon's Line," surveyed by Charles Mason and
Jeremiah Dixon, two noted English mathematicians and astronomers in
the eighteenth century. This boundary gained great notoriety because
it so long marked the northern limit of slavery in the United States.
For almost a century there were conflicts about their respective
limits between the rival proprietaries of the two States, producing
sometimes riot and bloodshed, until, in 1763, these men were brought
over from England, and in December began laying out the line on the
parallel of latitude 39° 43' 26.3" North. They were at the work
several years, surveying the line two hundred and forty-four miles
west from the Delaware River, and within thirty-six miles of the
entire distance to be run, when the French and Indian troubles began,
and they were attacked and driven off, returning to Philadelphia in
December, 1767. At the end of every fifth mile a stone was planted,
graven with the arms of the Penn family on one side and of Lord
Baltimore on the other. The intermediate miles were marked by smaller
stones, having a P on one side and an M on the other, all the stones
thus used for monuments being sent out from England. After the
Revolution, in 1782, the remainder of the line was laid down, and in
1849 the original surveys were revised and found substantially
correct.
When the little colony of Swedes and Finns under Peter Minuet came
into Christiana Creek in April, 1638, and established their fort,
they began the first permanent settlement in the valley of the
Delaware. It was built upon a small rocky promontory, and they named
it Christina, in honor of the daughter of Gustavus Adolphus. The Dutch
afterwards captured it and called it Fort Altena; but the town
retained part of the original name in Christinaham, and the creek also
retained the name, the English taking possession in 1664. The Swedes,
however, regardless of the flag that might wave over them, still
remained; and their old stone church, built in 1698, still stands,
down near the promontory by the waterside, in a yard filled with
time-worn gravestones. This old Swedes' Church of the Holy Trinity,
the oldest now on the Delaware, was dedicated on Trinity Sunday, 1699,
and Rev. Ericus Tobias Biorck came out from Sweden to take charge as
rector. It was sixty by thirty feet and twenty feet high, and a little
bell tower was afterwards added. The ancient church was recently
thoroughly restored to its original condition, with brick floor, oaken
benches, and stout rafters supporting the roof. This interesting
church building is in a factory district which is now part of
Wilmington, the chief city of Delaware, a busy manufacturing community
of sixty-five thousand people, built on the Christiana and Brandywine
Creeks, which unite about a mile from the Delaware. This active city
was laid out above the old settlement, in 1731, by William Shipley,
who came from Leicestershire, England. Ships, railway cars and
gunpowder are the chief manufactures of Wilmington. The Brandywine
Creek, in a distance of four miles, terminating in the city, falls one
hundred and twenty feet, providing a great water power. Up this stream
are the extensive Dupont powder-mills, among the largest in the world,
founded by the French statesman and economist, Pierre Samuel Du Pont
De Nemours, who, after the vicissitudes of the French Revolution,
migrated with his family to the United States in 1799, and was
received with distinguished consideration. He afterwards was
instrumental in securing the treaty of 1803 by which France ceded
Louisiana, and was in the service of Napoleon, but finally returned to
America, where his sons were conducting the powder-works, and he died
near Wilmington in 1817. Admiral Samuel Francis Dupont, of the
American Navy, was his grandson. Farther up the Brandywine Creek, at
Chadd's Ford and vicinity, was fought, in September, 1777, the battle
of the Brandywine, where the English victory enabled them to
subsequently take possession of Philadelphia.