Delaware History (1629) from The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (Amerisearch, 2009):
<Under the authority of the Dutch West India Company, a tract of land from Cape Henlopen to the mouth of the Delaware River was purchased from the natives, and a company was formed in Holland to colonize it. A ship of Dutch immigrants reached Delaware in the Spring of 1631 to build a settlement. To their demise, an Indian attack destroyed their settlement.
In 1638, Peter Minuit brought two ship with 50 settlers into Delaware Bay to found New Sweden. They founded Fort Christina, named for Sweden's Queen Christina, at the present site of Wilmington, Delaware.
After two years, sickness almost caused the colony's abandonment, but ships with new settlers revived it. In 1655, the Dutch fleet arrived and New Sweden surrendered. In 1664, the British fleet arrived and they surrendered again, being annexed by New York.
The controversy over the location of the borders between Delaware, Pennsylvania and Maryland led to bloodshed and was not resolved until 1750.
The Society of Friends erected their first meeting house in Delaware about 1687 and for the greater part of the State's history they were the most influential.
The first school in the State was opened before 1700, by the pastor of Old Swedes' Church.
In 1703, immigrants from South Wales settled the "Welsh Tract" and erected a Baptist Church. This was the third Baptist meeting house in America.
The first Presbyterian Church in the State was established around 1705.
Methodists had their first recorded meeting in Delaware, at Wilmington in 1766. In 1780, Methodists built "Barratt's Chapel" in Kent County, and the area became a cradle of Methodism for America, having the first General Conference of American Methodism.
In 1730 Cornelius Hallahan, an Irish Catholic, settled in New Castle and the first Catholic services in the State were most likely at his house.
Sometime before 1750, Jesuits established Apoquiniminck Mission in New Castle Country.
In 1748, a report from the Episcopal Mission at Dover, Kent County, to clergymen of the Pennsylvania province stated that the "Quakers and Roman Catholics were long accustomed to bury their dead at their own plantations." A 1751 report by the Episcopal Mission in Dover stated: "There are about five or six families of Papists, who are attended once a month from Maryland with a priest."
In 1765, Wilmington Academy was founded, aided by Presbyterian Gunning Bedford, who signed the U.S. Constitution.
Prior to 1772, there are no records regarding any regularly established Catholic Church in Delaware. In January of 1772, Father Matthew Sittensperger, going under the name Manners, purchased a farm in Mill Creek Hundred and erected a log chapel called St. Mary's. He was succeeded by the French Rev.
Stephen Faure, who was driven from St. Domingo during slave uprisings. He was assisted by Rev. John Rosseter, who had been an officer in Rochambeau's army that aided General Washington at the Battle of Yorktown during the Revolutionary War.
During the Revolutionary War Delaware enlisted 3,763 men. In 1776, the Constitution of the State of Delaware stated in Article XXII: "Every person who shall be chosen a member of either house, or appointed to any office or place of trust...shall...make and subscribe the following declaration, to wit: 'I,_____, do profess faith in God the Father, and in Jesus Christ His only Son, and in the Holy Ghost, one God, blessed for evermore; and I do acknowledge the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments to be given by Divine inspiration.'"
Richard Bassett, Governor of Delaware and signer of the U.S. Constitution, became friends with circuit-riding Preacher Francis Asbury and converted to Methodism. Bassett gave half the cost to build the First Methodist Church in Dover. He freed his slaves and paid them as hired labor, riding with them to revival camp meetings. In 1787, Major William Pierce, Georgia delegate to the Constitutional Convention, described Bassett as: A religious enthusiast, lately turned Methodist, who serves his country because it is the will of the people that he should do so. He is a man of plain sense, and has modesty enough to hold his tongue. He is a gentlemanly man and is in high estimation among Methodists."
In 1785, Delaware was one of the four states, the others being Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia, where Catholics were not under civil disabilities.
On December 7, 1787, Delaware was the first State to ratify the Federal Constitution. In 1790, the population of the State was 59,094, of whom 8,887 were slaves. About 1791 the Swedish Lutheran Church merged into the Protestant Episcopal.
In 1816, St. Peter's was the second Catholic Church in the State. In 1839 the first parochial school in the State was built adjoining St. Peter's. From 1825 to 1860, there was a large Catholic immigration, primarily from Ireland. In 1900, there were 153,977 whites, 30,697 African Americans and 61 persons of other races. In 1906, Delaware's population was 194,479.
The first Jewish congregation in Delaware began in 1879 and the Adas Kodesch Shel Emeth Congregation began in 1885, which is the oldest existing Jewish congregation in the State. In 1898, the B'Nai B'rith Wilmington Lodge was formed, the oldest Jewish organization in the State. In 1898, Louis Finger formed a branch of the B'nai Zion, the first Zionist Organization in Delaware. In 1901, the Chesed Shel Emeth Congregation was founded in Wilmington. The Ladies Bichor Cholem Society was formally organized in 1902. In Wilmington, the Beth Emeth Congregation was formed in 1906, and the Beth Shalom Congregation was formed 1922. In 1936, the Beth Sholom Congregation was founded in Dover. Hebrew schools began in Wilmington in 1943.> 1629DE001
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American Quotations by William J. Federer, 2024, All Rights Reserved, Permission granted to use with acknowledgement.
Endnotes:
1629DE001. William J. Federer, American Quotations (2014). Delaware History, beginning in 1629. William J. Federer, The Original 13-A Documentary History of Religion in America's First Thirteen States (St. Louis, MO: Amerisearch, Inc.).