Delaware Counties Page
History
The Dutch founded the first European settlement in Delaware at Lewes (then called Zwaanendael) in 1631. They quickly set up a trade in beaver furs with the Native Americans, who within a short time raided and destroyed the settlement after a disagreement between the two groups. A permanent settlement was not established until 1638—by Swedes at Fort Christina (now Wilmington) as part of their colony of New Sweden; they reputedly erected America’s first log cabins there. The Dutch from New Amsterdam (New York) defeated the Swedes in 1655, and the English seized the colony from the Dutch in 1664. Thereafter, except for a brief Dutch reconquest in 1673, Delaware was administered as part of New York until 1682, when the duke of York (the future James II) ceded it to William Penn, who wanted it so that his colony of Pennsylvania could have access to the ocean. Though Penn tried to unite the Delaware counties with Pennsylvania, both sides resented the union. In 1704 he allowed Delaware an assembly of its own. Pennsylvania and Delaware shared an appointed governor until the American Revolution. Only in 1776 did the name Delaware—deriving from Thomas West, 12th baron de la Warr, a governor of Virginia—become official, though it had been applied to the bay in 1610 and gradually thereafter to the adjoining land.Source: Britannica