Delaware history in The News Journal archives, March 29 to April 4

• Excerpts from The News Journal archives from March 29 to April 4 include Wilmington’s national champion swimmers in 1926.
• A new plaque in 1976 commemorates Delaware’s role in the Underground Railroad.
• “Runaway development overwhelming Delaware” in 2006.

The Delaware history column features excerpts from The News Journal archives including The Morning News and The Evening Journal. See the archives at delawareonline.com.

March 29, 1926, The Evening Journal

Acclaim for high school national champion swim team

A self-appointed committee has started a movement to publicly honor the Wilmington High School swimming team, winner of the national inter-scholastic championship on Saturday at Northwestern University, Evansville, Ill., with a banquet in the Hotel duPont on Tuesday, April 6.

Reservations at $3 a plate can be made by sending a check for that amount to Herbert B. Mearns at Wilmington Trust Company, 10th and Market streets. Frank Ford Palmer, president of the Wilmington Swimming Association, and Councilman Alexander R. Abrahams, are the other members of the committee. …

Today is a holiday at Wilmington High School in celebration of the swimming team’s honor.

For several hours, the student body, headed by the school band as an escort to the championship team, paraded on Market and other streets of the city. …

The parade was the second within 24 hours, the boys having also paraded about the city upon the arrival of the team late last night.

More recent high school swimming news: Appo senior wins 200 free showdown as Salesianum takes boys swim title

Members of the team faced one of life’s proudest moments at the school this morning, when before their enthusiastic and cheering fellow students, they were eulogized by school teachers and officials for their achievements as mermen. …

The team includes Coach Leroy F. Sparks, Manager C.C. Gerow Jr., Captain Frank Holt, “Bus” Palmer, Sam Reese, Jim Frazer, Jack Spargo, Leon Syfrit, Charles Hartman, Bill Brown and Bill Briggs.

March 31, 1976, The Morning News

Wilmington plaque to honor slave escape route

A plaque to commemorate Delaware’s role in the Underground Railroad during slavery will be erected late this spring in the Peter Spencer Plaza on French Street, between 8th and 9th  streets.

The two-foot-by three-foot bronze emblem will have pictures of Thomas Garrett, who helped more than 2,700 slaves escape, and of Harriet Tubman, who led hundreds of slaves from the south to their freedom.

The project is sponsored by the Wilmington branch of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History through a $5,000 grant from the Delaware Bicentennial Commission.

The plaque will be erected about 25 feet from the Father and Son Statue honoring Peter Spencer. The plaza was named after Spencer in 1974 to commemorate the site of the church he founded in 1813 that was the first in the country entirely controlled by blacks.

The plaza was selected as the site for “The Underground Railroad” memorial “to permanently commemorate the spirit of freedom, self-determination and camaraderie,” according to a resolution passed by the Wilmington City Council earlier this month.

Delaware became an important link in the Underground Railroad because it was usually the “last stop before freedom” for slaves on their way to Philadelphia and other northern cities. The chain of safe homes stretched from the South into the North and Canada before the Civil War. As they moved north to freedom, blacks fleeing slavery could be hidden in the houses of antislavery whites.

More recent news on history of slavery: UD restores collection of research on slavery, history following report

April 2, 2006, Sunday News Journal

Runaway development overwhelming Delaware

Look around Delaware. Tens of thousands of people have poured in from other states, enticed by an affordable suburban lifestyle in neighborhoods framed by farms and woods – all just a short drive to the beach.

But now, look-alike houses stretch from Bear to Rehoboth Beach, every year consuming an area of land larger than Wilmington. Kent County has so many new homes that Boyd White of Magnolia can’t tell where one town starts and another ends: “The charm is disappearing.”

In old farming communities, newcomers found a peaceful rural refuge. But now, that influx has forced Middletown High School to put students in trailers. …

Vacationers and retirees from all over the East Coast have migrated to the Delaware beaches to escape metropolitan life. But now, traffic is so bad on the two-lane road to Fenwick Island that retiree Jack Weston would “rather go out in a boat than a car.”

Indian River Bay, a magnet for boaters and fishermen, is so clouded by pollutants that if Stephen Callanen goes sailing, “You can’t see the bottom when there’s a lot of toilets flushing.”

Fifteen years of growth that has outpaced Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania – in fact most of America – has forever changed much of rural Delaware. Since 1990, about 84,000 new homes have been built statewide.

But with about 100,000 more homes planned, experts fear that unless government leaders do a better job controlling land use, the prosperity and qualities that make Delaware so appealing might be lost.

“It’s a rush to destruction,” said John Hughes, Secretary of the Delaware Department of Natural Resources and Environmental Control.

Beyond the loss of scenic vistas, growth has created unprecedented traffic jams and air and water pollution, crammed classrooms and created a pressing need for public safety services. …

That is the legacy of decades of politicians promising strong land use reform but delivering weak policies that were often ignored. As a result, hundreds of farms have been transformed into one of the region’s top housing bargains. …

Maynard Esender, a cabinetmaker who has lived for nearly 20 years in the Sussex County town of Frankford, has watched growth steadily envelop the nearby beach areas. But last year, he was stunned after nearby Millville, which has about 270 people, approved a 2,700-home subdivision – the largest in state history.

“Soon the entire Delmarva Peninsula will be paved,” Esender said. …

When nurse practitioner Maltide Cruze moved to Middletown with her husband and two sons five years ago, they envisioned rural bliss. …

Both Maltilde, who commutes to Dover, and her husband Luis, who works at Christiana Hospital, now endure rush-hour backups as Middletown’s population has doubled to 12,000.

Reach reporter Ben Mace at rmace@gannett.com.