YEARS passed, and the Counties on the Delaware,[1] under the wise laws of William Penn,[2] grew and prospered. Dover was laid out and settled; New Castle flourished; Lewes became a town. Instead of the rough buildings of the early settlers, handsome country houses and comfortable farms were to be seen.
The manners and customs of the people were still very plain and simple. Very few foreign articles were used in this part of the country. Clothes were woven, cut and sewed at home. Beef, pork, poultry, milk, butter, cheese, wheat and Indian corn were raised on the farms; the fruit trees yielded freely, and there was a great deal of wild game; the people lived not only comfortably but luxuriously.[3]
The Counties on the Delaware were very fertile, and very little labor was needed to make the land yield all that was required. The people had a great deal of leisure time for visiting and pleasure. They were always gathering together at one house or another, the younger people to dance or frolic, and the older men to amuse themselves with wrestling, running races, jumping, throwing the disc and other rustic and manly exercises.
On Christmas Eve there was a universal firing of guns, and all through the holidays the people traveled from house to house, feasting and eating Twelfth cake, and playing games.[4]
So for years, life slipped pleasantly by in these southern Counties, and then suddenly there came a change. There began to be talk of war with England. News was eagerly watched for. There was no mail at that time. Letters were carried by stage-coach, or by messengers riding on horseback from town to town. In the old days, the people had been content to send their servants for letters. Now, when a messenger, hot and dusty, came galloping into the town, a crowd would be waiting, and would gather round him.
And it was thrilling news that the dusty messengers carried in those days, the days of 1775. England was determined to tax her colonies, and the colonies were rising in rebellion. Boston had thrown whole cargoes of tea into her harbor rather than pay the tax on it.
Then the first shots of the Revolution were fired at Concord and Lexington. At the sound of those shots the Counties on Delaware awoke. Drums were beat, muskets were cleaned, ladies sewed flags for the troops to carry; men enlisted, and the militia drilled. But still it was hoped by many that things would settle back peaceably.