FIRST STATE: Over time the thirteen colonies in British North America grew more and more angry at the rules and taxes that England imposed upon them. Their frustration ultimately led to confrontations and war, but the road to independence was different for each colony. Less radical then many of its large neighbors, Delaware chose independence slowly and reluctantly. Delaware's three delegates to the Second Continental Congress which produced the Declaration of Independence, reflected some of the divisions in the small colony. Caesar Rodney and Thomas McKean favored independence but George Read took a more cautions view in July 1776. It looked like the vote was going down to a tie with one Delaware delegate missing. Caesur Rodney lay dying from skin cancer in a distant town. When it became obvious that his vote was crucial to the independence, he mounted a horse and rode for days, staggered into the Congress and voted for independence before collapsing. Just a year after Caesur Rodney made his famous ride to vote for independence, the new State of Delaware faced its greatest danger of the Revolutionary War. Invasion by British forces. In September 1777, British troops marched into Wilmington and occupied the city for over a month, capturing Delaware's government, the state's treasury and all its official papers. Delawareans learned firsthand, the price of war. It was in the next section that I learned another trivia. Some of the first roads in Delaware were built by private companies. These companies hired farmers and innkeepers who lived along the road to collect tolls. Long poles or "pikes" were often stretched across the road to prevent people from passing without paying. Only after travelers paid the toll would the toll keeper raise or "turn the pike", thus the roads were often referred to as Turnpikes. Frequent users of the road could purchase passes from the company. It is sad to say that not much has changed over the years in this area. The New Jersey Turnpike is still one of the most expensive roads I have ever driven on. POULTRY: In the early 1900s Americans ate chicken only on special occasions. That began to change in 1923 when a Dageboro hatchery accidentally sent Cecile Steele, a Susses County housewife 500 chickens instead of 50 she ordered. She raised the chicks and sold them for a hefty profit. Thus hatching the modern broiler chicken industry. Poultry farmers capitalized on Delaware's temperate climate, feed-producing farms and modern highways that connected them to larger urban markets. By the 1930s Delaware led the nation in broiler production making "a chicken in every pot" a reality. The industry continues to provide thousands of jobs on farms in processing plants and in associated industries. In 1948, the Atlantic and Pacific Tea Co. (A&P) sponsored a contest to breed the best broilers. From this came the Delaware Chicken Festival. In 1950 the Mumford Sheet Metal Works in Selbyville manufactured this ten-foot diameter frying pan, the worlds, largest, for the contest. After cooking over one hundred tons of chicken, the festival retired this pan in 1988. Delaware Poultry Inc., continues the festival to this day. THE CIVIL WAR YEARS: Caught in the middle, a slave state with a strong abolitionist presence Delaware remained part of the Union. Delawareans' loyalties, divided between North and South, created tension throughout the State and shattered families and friendships. People suspected of supporting the South were jailed, and Union troops guarded state and national elections. Many young Delaware men volunteered for Union forces yet a few with strong secessionist feelings chose to head south to join Confederate troops. Nearly 1,000 African Americans joined troops for other states when Delaware refused to sponsor black regiments. After the Civil war, Delaware refused to ratify the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the U.S. Constitution. In the 1870s Delaware adopted "Jim Crow" laws that limited the rights and privileges of African Americans. Those laws forced segregation on black residents. Exclusion from schools, businesses, certain employment, places of residence and even areas of recreation continued until the 1950s. when Delaware began the process of desegregation.

*** THE END ***