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Early explorations
of the Delaware coastline were made by the Spaniards
and Portuguese in the sixteenth century, by Henry
Hudson in 1609 under the auspices of the Dutch,
by Samuel Argall in 1610, by Cornelius May in
1613, and by Cornelius Hendricksen in 1614.
The year
1681 marked the granting of the Province of Pennsylvania
to William Penn by King Charles II and the arrival
of Penn's agents on the Delaware River. They soon
reported to the proprietor that the new province
would be landlocked if the colonies on either
side of the Delaware River or Bay were hostile.
As a result of Penn's petition to the Crown for
the land on the west side of the Delaware River
and Bay below his province, the Duke of York in
March 1682 conveyed, by deeds and leases now exhibited
by the Delaware State Archives in the Hall of
Records at Dover, the land included in the Counties
of New Castle, St. Jones, and Deale. On October
27 of the same year, William Penn landed in America
first at New Castle and there took possession
from the Duke of York's agents as Proprietor of
the lower Counties. On this occasion, the colonists
subscribed an oath of allegiance to the new proprietor,
and the first general assembly was held in the
colony. The following year the three Lower Counties
were annexed to the Province of Pennsylvania as
territories with full privileges under Penn's
famous "Frame of Government." Also in
this year, the counties of St. Jones and Deale
were renamed Kent and Sussex Counties respectively.
After 1682,
a long dispute ensued between William Penn and
Lord Baltimore of the Province of Maryland as
to the exact dominion controlled by Penn on the
lower Delaware.
An important
stimulus to the recovery of the state's economy
after the war was the invention in 1785 by Oliver
Evans of Newport, Delaware, of automatic flour
milling machinery, revolutionizing the industry.
In the following
year, John Dickinson of Delaware presided over
the Annapolis Convention, which called for the
Federal Constitutional Convention, that met in
Philadelphia the next year. When the new Constitution
was submitted to the states for ratification,
Delaware was the first of the thirteen original
states to ratify the Constitution of the United
States. This unanimous ratification took place
in a convention of Dover on December 7, 1787,
whereby Delaware became "The First State"
of the new Federal Union. Proud of this heritage,
Delawareans continue to honor the traditions which
made them the First State to ratify the United
States Constitution, the document that continues
to protect our nation's justice, strength, and
liberty.
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