Delmarva Peninsula
38°30′N 75°40′W / 38.500°N 75.667°W
The Delmarva Peninsula, or simply Delmarva, is a large peninsula on the East Coast of the United States, occupied by the vast majority of the state of Delaware and parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland and Eastern Shore of Virginia.
The peninsula is 170 miles (274 km) long. In width, it ranges from 70 miles (113 km) near its center, to 12 miles (19 km) at the isthmus on its northern edge, to less near its southern tip of Cape Charles. It is bordered by the Chesapeake Bay on the west, Pocomoke Sound on the southwest, and the Delaware River, Delaware Bay, and the Atlantic Ocean on the east.
The population of the twelve counties entirety on the peninsula totals approximately 818,000 people as of the 2020 census.
Etymology
In older sources, the peninsula between Delaware Bay and Chesapeake Bay was variously known as the Delaware and Chesapeake Peninsula or simply the Chesapeake Peninsula.
The toponym Delmarva is a clipped compound of Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia (official abbreviation VA), which in turn was modeled after Delmar, a border town named after two of those states. While Delmar was founded and named in 1859, the earliest uses of the name Delmarva occurred several decades later (for example on February 10, 1877, in The Middletown Transcript newspaper in Middletown, Delaware[1]) and appear to have been commercial and booster-driven; for example, the Delmarva Heat, Light, and Refrigerating Corp. of Chincoteague, Virginia, was in existence by 1913[2]—but general use of the term did not occur until the 1920s.[3]
Geography
At the northern point of the peninsula there is a geographic fall line that separates the crystalline rocks of the Piedmont from the unconsolidated sediments of the Coastal Plain. This line passes through
Cape Charles forms the southern tip of the peninsula in Virginia.
The entire Delmarva Peninsula falls within the
Culture
The culture of Delmarva is starkly different from the rest of the
Delmarva is driven by agriculture and commercial fishing.[7] Most of the land is rural, with a few large population centers, though tourism has been an important part of the region.
Delmarva has longstanding
Political divisions
The border between Maryland and Delaware, which resulted from the 80-year-long
All three counties in Delaware, New Castle (partially), Kent, and Sussex, are located on the peninsula. Of the 23 counties in Maryland, nine are on the Eastern Shore: Kent, Queen Anne's, Talbot, Caroline, Dorchester, Wicomico, Somerset, and Worcester, as well as a portion of Cecil County. Two Virginia counties are on the peninsula: Accomack and Northampton.
The following is a list of some of the notable cities and towns on the peninsula.
- Cambridge, Maryland, is the county seat of Dorchester County and a busy port on the Choptank River.
- Centreville, Maryland, is the county seat of Queen Anne's County.
- Chestertown, Maryland, is the county seat of Kent County, MD and the home of Washington College.
- U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service through Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge; the Atlantic Ocean side of the wildlife refuge is administered by the National Park Service as the southern portion of Assateague Island National Seashore.
- Crisfield, Maryland, is a notable source of seafood.
- Delmar, Maryland, part of the Salisbury Urbanized Area, lies across the Maryland-Delaware border from its twin, Delmar, Delaware, on the Transpeninsular Line.
- Dover, Delaware, is the Delaware state capital and the peninsula's largest city in terms of population. It is also the county seat of Kent County, DE and is home to Delaware State University.
- Easton, Maryland, is the county seat of Talbot County.
- Election Day.[8]
- Lewes, Delaware, is the site of the first European colonization in Delaware, is nicknamed "the first town in the first state", and is a port city for the Cape May–Lewes Ferry.
- Ocean City, Maryland, is a popular beach and resort town.
- Princess Anne, Maryland, is the county seat of Somerset County and the home of the University of Maryland Eastern Shore.
- Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, "the Nation's Summer Capital", has a sixteenfold increase in population from winter to summer.
- St. Michaels, Maryland, is a popular tourist destination.
- Salisbury, Maryland, is the county seat of Wicomico County, the second largest city in the peninsula and the lower peninsula's only urbanized area. It is known as the "Crossroads of Delmarva". It is home to the Salisbury–Ocean City–Wicomico Regional Airport, the only airport on the peninsula with scheduled commercial flights. The city is also home to Salisbury University, a Maryland state university.
- Seaford, Delaware, the "Nylon Capital of the World", is the largest city in Sussex County.
At its southern tip, the Delmarva Peninsula is connected to
Largest municipalities
State capital and county seat ‡
Rank | Name | Type | Population | Area | County | State | Settled | Inc. | Origin of Name |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Dover ‡ | Capital city | 38,079 | 23.48 sq mi | Kent | Delaware | 1683 | 1829 | Dover in Kent, England |
2 | Salisbury† | City | 32,809 | 13.40 sq mi | Wicomico | Maryland | 1732 | 1854 | |
3 | Middletown | Town | 22,582 | 11.83 sq mi | New Castle | Delaware | 1861 | Halfway between Bunker Hill, Maryland, and Odessa, Delaware | |
4 | Easton† | Town | 16,494 | 10.56 sq mi | Talbot | Maryland | 1790 | ||
5 | Cambridge† | Town | 12,285 | 10.34 sq mi | Dorchester | Maryland | 1793 | ||
6 | Smyrna | Town | 11,580 | 6.01 sq mi | Kent/New Castle | Delaware | Ancient Greek city of Smyrna | ||
7 | Milford | City | 11,353 | 9.87 sq mi | Kent/Sussex | Delaware | Named for numerous mills around town | ||
8 | Seaford | City | 7,861 | 5.30 sq mi | Sussex | Delaware | 1865 | Seaford, East Sussex | |
9 | Georgetown † | Town | 7,427 | 5.14 sq mi | Sussex | Delaware | 1791 | 1869 | Commissioner George Mitchell |
10 | Ocean City | Town | 6,927 | 4.41 sq mi | Worcester | Maryland | 1875 | 1880 |
Proposed state
At various times in history, residents of the Delmarva Peninsula have proposed that its Maryland and Virginia portions secede from their respective states, merging with Kent County and Sussex County, Delaware, to create the state of Delmarva. A Delmarva State Party with this aim was founded in 1992. Its combined population would be about 750,000, or 977,511 in 2015, or 1,534,290 if New Castle County, Delaware, is also included, roughly the population of Idaho, or West Virginia.[9]
Legislative attempts to break away the Eastern Shore counties of Maryland and join them with Delaware were made several times. In November 1776, delegates from the Eastern Shore attempted to insert a clause into the Maryland Declaration of Rights that would allow the shore counties to secede from Maryland, with the clause being defeated 30–17. In 1833, the secession movement came close to succeeding: a Delaware resolution proposing the Eastern Shore of Maryland be absorbed into Delaware passed the Delaware Senate and Delaware House of Representatives, then passed the Maryland House of Delegates with a 40–24 vote, but failed to be voted out of committee by the Maryland Senate. The following year, a Caroline County representative proposed allowing the Eastern Shore to secede via referendum, but the Maryland House of Delegates voted 60–5 to indefinitely postpone the measure, and that proposal was never taken up again. In 1851, Dorchester County delegate and future Maryland Governor Thomas Holliday Hicks proposed an amendment that would give the Eastern Shore the right to vote itself into Delaware, but the amendment failed 51–27.[10]
Year | Democratic | Republican | Others |
---|---|---|---|
2020
|
53.0% 402,229 | 45.3% 343,352 | 1.7% 13,049 |
2016
|
47.6% 322,702 | 47.2% 320,387 | 5.2% 35,135 |
2012
|
53.0% 340,859 | 45.4% 292,042 | 1.6% 10,172 |
2008
|
55.5% 354,566 | 43.2% 276,438 | 1.3% 8,324 |
2004
|
48.4% 279,880 | 50.6% 292,716 | 1.0% 5,567 |
2000
|
51.0% 251,836 | 45.8% 226,268 | 3.2% 15,766 |
1996
|
48.8% 202,681 | 39.8% 165,360 | 11.3% 46,940 |
1992
|
41.2% 183,693 | 38.3% 170,585 | 20.5% 91,437 |
1988
|
41.2% 157,129 | 58.2% 222,013 | 0.6% 2,452 |
1984
|
37.7% 143,171 | 62.0% 235,378 | 0.3% 1,319 |
1980
|
44.4% 156,436 | 48.5% 170,788 | 7.2% 25,251 |
1976
|
51.1% 173,700 | 47.8% 162,669 | 1.1% 3,875 |
1972
|
35.8% 119,150 | 62.9% 209,460 | 1.2% 4,148 |
1968
|
38.0% 118,585 | 45.1% 140,933 | 16.9% 52,896 |
1964
|
59.6% 173,647 | 40.3% 117,394 | 0.2% 549 |
1960
|
49.7% 142,583 | 50.0% 143,578 | 0.3% 751 |
History
Pre-colonization
Some studies have shown that Native Americans inhabited the peninsula from about 10,000 BC to 8000 BC – since the last ice age.
Recent research indicates that
In 1970 a stone tool (a
Lifestyles
Native settlements relocated as natural conditions dictated. They set up villages – scattered groups of thatch houses and cultivated gardens – where conditions favored farming. In the spring they planted crops, which the women and children tended while the men hunted and fished. In the fall they harvested crops, storing food in baskets or underground pits. During the harsh winter, whole communities would move to hunting areas, seeking the deer, rabbit and other game that kept them alive until the spring fishing season. When the farmland around their villages became less productive – the inhabitants did not practice crop rotation – the native people would abandon the site and move to another location.[15]
Populations
The primary
The upper peninsula and the Chesapeake shore was the home of Nanticoke-speaking people such as the Nentigo and Choptank. The Assateague and Nentigo made a number of treaties with the colony of Maryland, but the land was gradually taken and those treaties dissolved for the use of the colonists, and the native peoples of the peninsula assimilated into other Algonquian tribes as far north as Ontario.[17]
Currently, the peninsula is within the traditional territory of the Piscataway, Nentego, and Lenape peoples.[18][19][20]
Colonization
In 1566, an expedition sent from Spanish Florida by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés reached the Delmarva Peninsula. The expedition consisted of two Dominican friars, thirty soldiers and an indigenous Virginia boy, Don Luis, in an effort to set up a Spanish colony in the Chesapeake. At the time, the Spanish believed the Chesapeake to be an opening to the fabled Northwest Passage. However, a storm thwarted their attempts at establishing a colony.[21] The land that is currently Delaware was first colonized by the Dutch West India Company in 1631 as Zwaanendael. That colony lasted one year before a dispute with local Indians led to its destruction. In 1638, New Sweden was established which colonized the northern part of the state, together with the Delaware Valley. Eventually, the Dutch, who had maintained that their claim to Delaware arose from the colony of 1631, recaptured Delaware and incorporated the colony into the Colony of New Netherland.
However, shortly thereafter Delaware came under British control in 1664.
In the 1632 Charter of Maryland, King Charles I of England granted "all that Part of the Peninsula, or Chersonese, lying in the Parts of America, between the Ocean on the East and the Bay of Chesapeake on the West, divided from the Residue thereof by a Right Line drawn from the Promontory, or Head-Land, called Watkin's Point, situate upon the Bay aforesaid, near the river Wigloo, on the West, unto the main Ocean on the East; and between that Boundary on the South, unto that Part of the Bay of Delaware on the North, which lieth under the Fortieth Degree of North Latitude from the Equinoctial, where New England is terminated" to Cecil Calvert, 2nd Baron Baltimore, as the colony of Maryland. This would have included all of present-day Delaware; however, a clause in the charter granted only that part of the peninsula that had not already been colonized by Europeans by 1632. Over a century later, it was decided in the case of Penn v Lord Baltimore that, because the Dutch had colonized Zwaanendael in 1631, the portion of Maryland's charter granting Delaware to Maryland was void.
Economy
The peninsula was the premier location for
The Eastern Shore is also known for its poultry farms, the most well-known of which is
Tourism is a major contributor to the peninsula's economy with the beaches at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, Ocean City, Maryland, Assateague Island National Seashore, Maryland, and Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia, being popular tourist destinations.
Salisbury University also adds to the economic activity of the Delmarva, with an estimated $480 million in contribution impact. The University is the largest four year comprehensive on the Eastern Shore, and serves as the largest employer other than Perdue supporting an estimated 3,200 jobs.[22]
Media
The area is served by four television markets. Cecil, Kent, Queen Anne's, Caroline and Talbot Counties in Maryland are primarily served by the
Transportation
The peninsula has minor airports with few commercial carriers, as it is overshadowed by proximate major airports in Baltimore and Philadelphia. Its airports include Wilmington Airport southwest of Wilmington, Delaware, Salisbury Regional Airport to the southeast of Salisbury, Maryland, and Dover Air Force Base to the southeast of Dover, Delaware.
Major north–south highways include
Until 1957, the
See also
- Delmarva Shorebirds
- List of railroad lines in the Delmarva Peninsula
- List of U.S. multistate regions
- Wallops Flight Facility
References
- ^ Reynolds, Edward, ed. (February 10, 1877). "Public Sale". The Middletown Transcript. Vol. X, no. 6. p. 2, col. 5. Retrieved March 7, 2022 – via Chronicling America.
- ^ Annual Report of the Secretary of the Commonwealth to the Governor and General Assembly of Virginia for the Year Ending September 30, 1914 (Richmond, Va., 1915), p. 267.
- ^ See, e.g., Michael F. Mulrooney, The Delmarva Peninsula (Wilmington, Del.?: Hearn Oil Co., 1926): the earliest use of the name in a title, per WorldCat.[original research]
- ^ "Stillpond Neck". Peakbagger. Retrieved February 19, 2014.
- ^ "President Map". The New York Times. December 9, 2008. Retrieved June 3, 2013.[failed verification]
- ^ "The Mid-Atlantic Dialects". Evolution Publishing. Retrieved June 3, 2013.
- ^ Jones, Pattrice (January 1, 2009). "Let the diversification of Delmarva's economy begin". DelmarvaNow.com. Archived from the original on September 23, 2015.
- ^ returnday.com
- ^ Gosier, Chris (February 20, 1998). "Would-be Secessionists Dream Up the State of Delmarva". Capital News Service. Archived from the original on December 15, 2018.
- ^ "Secession movement has long history on state's Eastern Shore". The Star Democrat. Easton, Maryland. March 18, 1994.
- ^ "Our Campaigns". Retrieved February 20, 2021.
- ^ Lowery, Darrin L.; Wah, John S. "Pedologic and Geologic Protocols for Understanding the Archaeology of Exploration: A Middle Atlantic Pre-Clovis Case Study". Pre-Clovis in the Americas Conference – Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. Institute for Archaeological Studies. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022. Retrieved March 7, 2022.
- ^ Ghose, Tia (August 11, 2014). "Fisherman Pulls Up Beastly Evidence of Early Americans". Live Science. Archived from the original on January 22, 2022.
- S2CID 131083970. Retrieved January 18, 2016 – via Academia.edu.
- ^ Plowman, Terry (October 1999). "Native American people of the Delmarva Peninsula". Delmarva Millennium, Volume I. Thomson-Chesapeake. Archived from the original on November 3, 2013 – via portfolio of work by Terry Plowman.
- ^ "History Page". The Assateague People. Archived from the original on December 17, 2003. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
- ^ Tagle, Christopher (March 20, 2003). "The True Ocean City Locals". The Oceana Magazine. Archived from the original on December 17, 2003.
- ^ "Nentego (Nanticoke)". Native Land. June 5, 2018. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
- ^ "Piscataway". Native Land. June 5, 2018. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
- ^ "Lenape Haki-nk". Native Land. June 5, 2018. Retrieved May 28, 2019.
- ISBN 9781560989400. Retrieved March 7, 2022 – via the Internet Archive.
- ^ Rush, Don (February 22, 2016). "Salisbury University: $480 Million Economic Impact". Delmarva Public Media. Archived from the original on March 7, 2022.
- ^ "Latest Nielsen DMA Rankings | Lyons Broadcast PR". January 18, 2017. Archived from the original on April 12, 2018. Retrieved November 2, 2017.
- ^ "Pennsylvania Railroad, Table 65". Official Guide of the Railways (90). National Railway Publication Company: 7. December 1957.
- ^ "Delmarva Central Railroad". Carload Express. November 8, 2016. Archived from the original on July 30, 2021. Retrieved October 21, 2018.
External links
- The Delmarva Peninsula
- "Assateague History". History of the Assategue People. Archived from the original on March 7, 2005. Retrieved March 3, 2005.
- "The Charter of Maryland (1632)". Avalon Project. Colonial Charters. Lillian Goldman Law Library. December 18, 1998. Archived from the original on December 25, 2021. Retrieved March 7, 2022.
- "The First Charter of Virginia (April 10, 1606)". Avalon Project. Colonial Charters. Lillian Goldman Law Library. December 18, 1998. Archived from the original on November 6, 2021. Retrieved March 7, 2022.
- Delmarva Peninsula census tracts United States Census Bureau
- The Confederation of Sovereign Nanticoke-Lenape Tribes
- Piscataway Conoy Tribe[permanent dead link]