The Lenape lived along the Delaware Bay for thousands of years before the Swedes built New Sweden in 1638 and the Dutch took it twenty-five years later. On December 7, 1787, Delaware became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution — the vote at Wilmington was thirty to nothing. The DuPont family arrived in 1802 and built the country’s largest gunpowder works on the Brandywine. Today the state holds the corporate charter of more than half of America’s publicly traded companies. Three counties, ninety-six miles.
Delaware’s 3 counties run from the northern urban corridor of Wilmington along the Delaware River south through Dover’s flat farmland to the Sussex County beaches on the Atlantic and Delaware Bay.
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Delaware’s claim to fame is simple and indelible: on December 7, 1787, it became the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. The vote at Wilmington was unanimous — 30 to 0. Delaware’s delegates had little doubt. The small state understood that a strong federal union was the only protection a tiny neighbor had against the ambitions of Virginia and Pennsylvania pressing on either side. The First State’s nickname was earned in a single afternoon and has never been challenged.
Before the English, there were the Lenape — the original people of the Delaware Valley who had lived along the river for thousands of years. The Dutch and Swedes competed for the river trade in the early 1600s; New Sweden, established at Fort Christina in 1638, was the first permanent European settlement in the Delaware Valley. The English took it all in 1664, and Delaware passed through various colonial arrangements before developing its own assembly and a stubborn sense that it was not merely a province of Pennsylvania.
The DuPont family arrived in 1802 and never really left. Éleuthère Irénée du Pont built a black powder mill on the Brandywine Creek near Wilmington after fleeing Revolutionary France, and from that mill grew a chemical empire that at its peak employed a substantial fraction of Delaware’s entire population. DuPont invented nylon, neoprene, Kevlar, Teflon, and Lycra from its Wilmington laboratories. The company shaped the state’s landscape, politics, and culture for 200 years.
Delaware’s modern economy rests on an unlikely foundation: corporate law. In 1899, Delaware passed a general incorporation law so permissive that companies from across the country began filing there to take advantage of its flexible regulations and specialized Court of Chancery. Today more than 60 percent of Fortune 500 companies and two-thirds of all U.S. public companies are incorporated in Delaware. The state collects billions in franchise taxes from corporations that have never employed a single Delawarean.
The physical Delaware is often overlooked in the shadow of these legal abstractions. Sussex County’s Rehoboth Beach and Bethany Beach are quiet, beloved seaside towns. The Great Cypress Swamp in the southwest is the northernmost stand of bald cypress trees on the East Coast. Cape Henlopen guards the entrance to the Delaware Bay, where Henry Hudson anchored in 1609. And Wilmington’s Riverfront has transformed an old industrial waterfront into a destination. Delaware is small, specific, and entirely itself.
Henry Hudson enters Delaware Bay and anchors off Cape Henlopen, the first European documented to reach Delaware waters.
Swedish colonists establish Fort Christina at present-day Wilmington — the first permanent European settlement in the Delaware Valley.
The Duke of York seizes New Sweden and New Netherland; Delaware passes into English colonial administration.
Delaware ratifies the U.S. Constitution on December 7 by a unanimous vote of 30-0, earning its permanent title as The First State.
Éleuthère Irénée du Pont establishes a black powder mill on the Brandywine Creek, founding an industrial dynasty that transforms the state.
Delaware, a slave state, chooses to remain in the Union despite significant Confederate sympathy, particularly in southern counties.
Delaware passes its permissive General Corporation Law, beginning the transformation of the state into America’s corporate capital.
DuPont announces nylon, the world’s first synthetic textile fiber, developed at its Wilmington Experimental Station.
Joe Biden of Scranton and Wilmington is elected to the U.S. Senate at 29, beginning a political career that ends in the presidency.
Joe Biden becomes the 46th President of the United States, the first Delawarean to hold the office.
Real Delaware people who have placed their names — and their stories — into the hex grid. Each square mile, a chapter.
My grandfather came to Delaware in 1953 with nothing but a suitcase and a job offer at the steel mill in Wilmington. He worked there for for...
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In honor of my brother. Marine. Gone in 2007. Still the bravest person I have ever known. This piece of Delaware is his forever.
View StoryMy grandfather Eladio crossed the border at El Paso in 1944, on a temporary work visa under the Bracero Program. He was twenty-three years o...
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In memory of my mother. She loved Delaware more than she ever let on. The garden, the seasons, the quiet of a Sunday afternoon.
View StoryMy family has called Delaware home for five generations. My great-great-grandfather Anders arrived from Sweden in 1887 with seventeen dollar...
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Three counties packed into ninety-six miles — the smallest geography in the Union and the first signature on the Constitution. New Sweden, the Brandywine powder mill, and the corporate charters that run half the country’s public companies. Delaware was first by a December afternoon. Sign your name on the Diamond State.
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