CHAPTER XXII AGRICULTURE, WITH A BRIEF MENTION OF OUR DOMESTIC ANIMALS Gabriel Thomas, the first historian of our State, in his quaint volume published in 1698, in describing the productions,…

CHAPTER XXI REDEMPTIONERS AND SLAVERY IN DELAWARE COUNTY When the system of redemptive servitude first appeared in our history I fail to ascertain, but certain it is that it related…

CHAPTER XX TRAVELING AND TRANSPORTATION, WITH AN ACCOUNT OF THE RAILROADS IN THE COUNTY In these days of rapid transit, when inside of eighty days a man can “put a…

CHAPTER XIX MANNERS AND CUSTOMS – HOW INHABITANTS OF DELAWARE COUNTY LIVED IN FORMER YEARS Houses. The progress of a nation is traced not in the life of an individual,…

CHAPTER XVIII CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS We have little or no information as to the criminal code which maintained among the early Swedish and Dutch settlers on the Delaware.* The fragmentary…

CHAPTER XVII THE CIVIL WAR The war of sections, which had overhung the country for over forty years, burst upon the nation on Saturday, April 18, 1861, when the American…

CHAPTER XVI THE REMOVAL OF THE COUNTY-SEAT TO MEDIA In considering the history of the removal of the county-seat from the ancient borough of Chester to Media, the present location,…

CHAPTER XV THE TEN-HOUR MOVEMENT One of the most important movements, and, in the results which have flowed from it, of great moment to the people of Delaware County, the…

CHAPTER XIV STORMS, FRESHETS, AND EARTHQUAKES We have little save tradition respecting storms, freshets, and earthquakes in the olden times. It is only within the last half-century that any circumstantial…

CHAPTER XIII FROM THE SECOND WAR WITH ENGLAND TO 1850 The second war with England had almost wholly severed communication with the Old World, particularly with Great Britain, and the…