PART III.

CHAPTER I.

HISTORY OF WILMINGTON.

WILMINGTON lies between two rivers, the one adapted to navigation and commerce, the other to mills and manufacturing establishments. In these respects Nature has made our city to resemble the metropolis of Pennsylvania, while Art has been actively engaged in carrying out the resemblance. The streets of Wilmington are all laid out at right angles with each other, and those running from river to river are crossed by others that are named numerically. Through the central part of the city runs the main street, which is called Market street; the others running parallel to it, are mostly named after the trees of the country, and after distinguished individuals. The reader will perceive in all these circumstances the striking resemblance between Philadelphia and Wilmington. The truth is, that the founders of our city were humble copyists, but in general judicious ones. The world could have hardly afforded them a better model. There have been several attempts to improve upon Penn's plan, but they have all failed; and the city of Washington, whose founders had every advantage which talents, knowledge, and pecuniary resources could give, have perhaps failed the most conspicuously. No plan yet adopted for a city, whether with a view to business, cleanliness, health, convenience, or economy, has been found to answer these purposes better than that in which the streets are laid out at right angles, from fifty to one hundred feet wide, according as circumstances dictate. The citizens of New York have adopted this plan in the new parts of their city to great advantage.

Wilmington is "a city set upon a hill;" the highest point in Market street, near the great reservoir or basin, is one hundred and nine feet above the tide. This point is attained by a gentle ascent from the Christina, and distant from it three thousand seven hundred feet, being more than two-thirds of a mile. The distance from this point to the river Brandywine is seventeen hundred and thirty-two feet, making the whole distance from river to river, one hundred and fifty-two feet more than a mile.

Although Wilmington stands on a hill of such elevation, it is partly surrounded by a chain of hills still loftier, nearly in the form of a crescent, and distant from one to three miles. Beginning at the "high hills of Christeen" near the Delaware, and in a north-east direction from the city, they sweep round towards the north and west, with varying height, and waving outline, until they subside nearly in a south direction on the road leading to New Castle. The city stands on ground which gradually declines towards the east, until it finds both a natural and legal boundary in the two rivers, Christina and Brandywine, where they meander through the meadow lands beyond the old church, to meet each other and mingle their waters before they enter the Delaware.

The Christina approaches the city from the south-west, and is navigable for sloops of fifty tons about ten miles beyond it. The Brandywine comes to us from the north, having within four miles, a fall of one hundred and twenty feet, affording great power for manufacturing purposes, to which a considerable portion of its forces has already been applied.

It is navigable for vessels carrying 2000 bushels of wheat, as high up the stream as the mills, which are situate at the northerly extremity of the city. They are thirteen in number, and have long been celebrated for their power and efficiency as flour manufactories.

The land on which the city of Wilmington now stands, was granted by Colonel Francis Lovelace, Governor General of the territories held by the Duke of York, to John Anderson, and Tymen Stidham. The grant to Stidham is dated at Fort James

in New York, the old Fort Amsterdam, the 23d of May, 1671. Anderson's patent was probably taken out about the same time. The date is uncertain, but it could not have been later than 1673, as Lovelace left this country in that year, and did not re

turn.

The patent granted to Stidham is not to be understood as an original grant of unseated land. As the patent recites, it was then "in ye tenure or occupation of Tymen Stidham," and the deed was to confirm a title, which he had by possession, probably from the time of the first Swedish colony in 1638. After the conquest by the English, all the inhabitants were summoned to New York to receive deeds for their lands, whether those already occupied, or such as were yet vacant. The few deeds granted during the Swedish government, were for lands held by persons not subjects of Sweden, as the Finns and Dutch; and contained a condition in the habendum, "that they should hold them so long as they continued subject to the Swedish authorities."* As they had now promised allegiance to another power, many of them, probably afraid of losing their lands, availed themselves of the present opportunity to secure their titles. Anderson was a Dutchman, and may have deemed a patent from Lovelace necessary to make his title indisputable.

The patent to Stidham is curious, as showing the extreme looseness of description which at that time was satisfactory both to the grantor and the grantee; it is also worded so as to be, in some respects, unintelligible. "Brandywine kill," and "Rattlesnake kill," and "the Black Katt's kill," are yet well known. But a surveyor would now find it impossible to ascertain the beginning, the ending, or the quantity of the tract.

As a curiosity, and as connected with the history of Wilmington, it is deemed worthy of preservation. It is as follows,—to wit:

"Francis Lovelace, Esq., one of ye gentlemen of his Majesty's Honble privy chamber, and Governour Genn" under his

*Acrelius, 427.