Once Upon a Time in Delaware

by Katharine Pyle

But busy though he was, he managed to find some time for visiting about among his friends. Especially he found time to visit at the house of a young Quaker widow named Sarah Rowland. Mistress Rowland lived in Lewes. She was a Tory, but she was very beautiful and witty, and Caesar Rodney was said to be in love with her. He might often have been seen, between his busy times, cantering along the road that led to Lewes and to her house. Mistress Rowland, as a Quaker, believed all fighting to be wrong, but she was always friendly with the General. Perhaps she hoped in some way to be able to help the Tories by things the General told her, or by having him at her house. At any rate she always made him welcome.

Now, while General Rodney was still busy down in the Counties on the Delaware, with his work and pleasure, great things were happening in Philadelphia. The Declaration of Independence was finally drawn up and written out.

It was laid on the table before the Colonial Congress, and the delegates were given five days to make up their minds to agree, whether they would sign it or not. They considered and discussed it in secret behind closed doors.

One after another, the delegates from various colonies agreed to sign. At last, only the Counties on the Delaware were needed to carry the agreement. They could not sign the Declaration, for they had now only two delegates present at Congress. Of these, one (McKean) was for it, and one (Mr. Read) was against it, so it was a tie between them, and Rodney, whose vote could have decided the matter, was down in the Counties on Delaware, eighty miles away.

McKean was in despair. He sent message after message, down to Delaware, begging the General to return to Philadelphia and give his deciding vote, but no answer came. The fact was that General Rodney did not receive any of these messages McKean sent. He was visiting Mistress Rowland in Lewes at the time, and she managed to keep the letters back from him. She hoped that he might know nothing about the Declaration until it had been voted on and the whole matter decided. Even if all the other Colonies decided to sign, it would weaken the union very much if the Colonies on the Delaware did not sign.

On the third of July, McKean sent a last message down to Rodney, passionately begging him to come to Philadelphia. The vote of the delegates was to be taken July the fourth, and if the General was not there the vote of the Counties on Delaware could not be cast for the Declaration of Independence, and it might be lost.

On this same day, July the third, 1776, Caesar Rodney was chatting with Mistress Rowland in the parlor of her house at Lewes. It had seemed strange to him that he had not heard from McKean lately, but he felt sure that if anything important was happening at Philadelphia he would receive word at once. So he put his anxieties aside and laughed and talked with the widow.

Suddenly, the parlor door was thrown open and a maid-servant came into the room. She crossed over to where General Rodney was sitting. “There!” she cried. “I’m an honest girl and I won’t keep those back any longer!” and she threw a packet of letters into the General’s lap.

Rodney picked them up and looked at them. They were in Mr. McKean’s hand-writing. Hastily he ran through them. They were the letters Sarah Rowland had been keeping back,—the letters begging and imploring him to hasten north to Philadelphia.

Without a word, General Rodney started to his feet, and ran out to where his horse was standing before the house.[6] Sarah Rowland called to him, but he did not heed her. He sprang to the saddle and gathered up the reins, and a moment later he was galloping madly north toward Dover. It was a long ride, but a longer still was before him. The heat was stifling, and the dust rose in clouds as he thundered along the King’s Highroad.