This week in Delaware history

Compiled by Roger A. Martin
Special to the Coastal Point

April 7

1841 — Bells in the city of Wilmington rang continuously from noon until 5 p.m. on the occasion of the funeral in Washington of President William Henry Harrison, who served in that office about a month.

April 8

1893 — President Grover Cleveland visited former Delaware U.S. Sen. Thomas F. Bayard Sr. in Wilmington before he left to represent our country as ambassador to the Court of St. James in England.

April 9

2003 — In a deal between the state and the Cooch Family, 200 acres were set aside at Cooch’s Bridge near Newark to be preserved as open space rather than development. Simultaneously, some 260 acres were purchased by the state and added to the Nanticoke State Wildlife Area near Seaford.

April 10

1964 — John Townsend, former governor (1917-21) and U.S. senator (1929-41), of Millsboro, died at 92.

April 11

1903 — The Georgetown Fire Company was first organized.

April 12

1813 — With gunpowder supplied by a very young DuPont Company, Delaware Gov. Joseph Haslet called for a state militia of 1,000 men to organize to defend Lewes and the state from attacks by the British.

April 13

1926 — In one of the most regrettable instances in Delaware history, the Cape Henlopen Lighthouse toppled into the sea after the dune upon which it rested was washed away. Built in 1765, it was the second oldest in the U.S.