LITMIR.BIZ

      III.

      THE VALLEY OF THE DELAWARE.

       Table of Contents

      Delaware Bay—Cape May—Cape Henlopen—Delaware Breakwater—Maurice River Cove—The Pea Patch—Newcastle—Mason and Dixon's Line—Fort Christina—Wilmington—The Duponts—Brandywine—William Penn—West Jersey—Pennsylvania—Upland—The Ship "Welcome"—Philadelphia—Shackamaxon—The Lenni Lenapes—The City Hall—Independence Hall—Benjamin Franklin—Betsy Ross and the American Flag—Stephen Girard—Girard College—Notable Charities and Buildings—Christ Church—Old Swedes' Church—Longfellow's Evangeline—Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul—University of Pennsylvania—City of Homes—John Bartram and his Garden—Fairmount Park—Laurel Hill—Wissahickon Creek—Germantown—Johannes Kelpius—The Schuylkill River—Tom Moore—Pennsylvania Dutch—Valley Forge—Reading—Port Clinton—Pottsville—Anthracite Coal-fields—New Jersey Coast Resorts—Atlantic City—Ocean Grove—Asbury Park—Long Branch—St. Tammany—Poquessing—Rancocas—The Neshaminy—The Log College—Bristol—Burlington—Pennsbury Manor—Bordentown—Admiral Stewart—Joseph Bonaparte—Camden and Amboy Railroad—Delaware and Raritan Canal—Trenton Gravel—Trenton, its Potteries, Crackers and Battle—The Swamp Angel—Morrisville—General Moreau—Princeton and its Battle—General Mercer—Princeton University—Jonathan Edwards—Marshall's Walk—Pennsylvania Palisades—Forks of the Delaware—Easton—Lafayette College—Ario Pardee—Phillipsburg—Morris Canal—Lake Hopatcong—Lehigh River—Bethlehem—Lehigh University—The Moravians—Count Zinzendorf—Teedyuscung—Allentown—Lehigh Gap—Mauch Chunk—Asa Packer—Coal Mining—Summit Hill—The Switchback—Nescopec Mountain—Wyoming Valley—Wilkesbarre—Harvey's Lake—Scranton—Wyoming Massacre—The Foul Rift—The Terminal Moraine—The Great Glacier—Belvidere—Delaware Water Gap—The Wind Gap—Minsi and Tammany—The Minisink—The Buried Valleys—Nicholas Depui—George La Bar—Stroudsburg—Pocono Knob—Bushkill—Walpack Bend—Pike County—Dingman's Choice—Waterfalls—Milford—Tom Quick, the Indian Killer—Tri-States Corner—Neversink River—Port Jervis—Delaware and Hudson Canal—High Point—The Catskill Flags—Hawk's Nest—Shohola—The Lackawaxen and its Battle—The Sylvania Society—Horace Greeley—Blooming Grove—Pocono High Knob—Hawley—The Wallenpaupack—The Indian Orchard—Honesdale—Washington Irving—The Gravity Railroad—Carbondale—Mast Hope—Narrowsburg—Cochecton—Hancock—Delaware Headwaters—Popacton River—Mohock River—Deposit—Oquaga Creek and Lake—Lake Utsyanthia—Ote-se-on-teo, Source of the Delaware.

      DELAWARE BAY.

      The famous navigator of the Dutch East India Company, Hendrick Hudson, was the first white man who entered Delaware Bay. He discovered it on August 28, 1609, two weeks before he entered Sandy Hook Bay and found the Hudson River. When Thomas West, Lord De La Warr, Governor of Virginia, was driven by stress of weather into the bay in 1611, his name was given the river. In 1614 another redoubtable old skipper of the Dutch East India Company, Captain Carolis Jacobsen Mey, searching, like all the rest of the navigators of those days, for the northwest passage to Asia and the Indies, came along there with a small fleet of sixty-ton frigates, and tried to give the river and its capes his names; but only one of these has survived, Cape May. The southern portal at the entrance, which he wished to make Cape Carolis, was named a few years afterwards, by the Swedes, Cape Henlopen. The Indians called the river "Lenape-wihituck," or the "river of the Lenapes," meaning "the original people," or, as sometimes translated, the "manly men," the name of the aboriginal confederation that dwelt upon its banks. It had various other names, for when the Swedes came, the Indians about the bay called it "Pantoxet." In an early deed to William Penn it is called "Mackeriskickon," and in another document the "Zunikoway." Some of the tribes up the river named it "Kithanue," meaning the "main stem," as distinguished from its tributaries, and those on the upper waters called it the "Lemasepose," or the "Fish River," for the Upper Delaware was then a famous salmon stream, and its early Dutch explorers thus came to calling it the "Fish River" also. The Delaware, from its source in the Catskills to the sea, is about three hundred and sixty miles in length.

      The estuary of Delaware Bay is about sixty miles long and thirty miles broad in the widest part, contracting towards the north to less than five miles. The capes at the entrance are about fifteen miles apart. As a protection to shipping, the Government began, on the Cape Henlopen side, in 1829, the construction of the famous Delaware Breakwater. It consists of a stone breakwater about twenty-six hundred feet long facing the northeast, and an icebreaker about fourteen hundred feet long, at right angles, facing the upper bay. These were completed in 1870, there being an opening between them of about sixteen hundred feet width, which was afterwards filled up. The surface protected covers three hundred and sixty acres, and the whole work cost about $3,500,000. It was estimated in 1871 that fully twenty thousand vessels every year availed of the protection of this breakwater, the depth of water being twenty-four feet behind it—sufficient for most of the shipping of that day. But as vessels have become larger and of deeper draft, they have not been able to use it, and the Government has recently begun the construction of another and larger breakwater for a harbor of refuge in deeper

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