Delaware Diary: Episodes in the Life of a River [Paperback]

Frank Talbot Dale (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

In 19 chapters, each one like a separate essay, local historian Dale presents a series of verbal snapshots tracing historical events surrounding the Delaware River. He takes us from the mouth of the Delaware and the earliest Dutch settlements there in the 1600s to the upriver area where, in the late 1960s, hippie squatters were ousted by the Army Corps of Engineers from houses that the corps had condemned in anticipation of building the controversial Tocks Island Dam. Along the way we are treated to events that took place in the Revolutionary War, an account of a Civil War prison camp that makes Andersonville look like a picnic, details about a murder trial and execution that makes the O.J. case pale in comparison, plus accounts of tragedies and heroic efforts surrounding the natural disasters that one would expect near an unruly river the size of the Delaware. His essays give the river and the usually quiet backwater communities along its shores a place on the shelf with books about the bigger guys, such as the majestic Hudson and the grand Mississippi. Randall Enos --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Kirkus Reviews

A diverting collection of Delaware River lore, from freelance writer and local historian Dale. The Delaware River never was one of the nation's great commercial waterways: too many rapids, too little water for that. Its claim to fame rests largely with George Washington's crossing on that blizzardy Christmas night in 1776, headed for Trenton and an engagement with a few hundred besotted Hessians. But Dale knows there is more to the river's history, and he serves it up in linear, storybook fashion. He starts as far back as the Lenni-Lenape natives and their disastrous relations with the gathering swarms of Dutch, Swedish, and English settlers. From that sorry piece of the past, Dale moves to another: clear-cutting the riverbank's pine woods to feed the British admiralty's insatiable demand for timber. Great rafts of logs, the size of football fields, were floated downriver, and soon the riverine landscape was as denuded as the English hillsides. Dale goes into great detail describing the Revolutionary War battles waged along the Delaware; the development of various rivercraft, from the ore-bearing Durham boats (Washington's craft of choice), to Fitch's steam packetboat (predating Robert Fulton's by decades); and a nasty little Civil War prison located on Pea Patch Island, a Union rival to the grotesqueries of Andersonville. For latter years, Dale concentrates on the river's strange, cruel weather--the horrific floods (called ``freshets'' in these parts) of 1841 and 1903, the sprawling devastation of Hurricane Diane in 1955, brutal ice storms. There is lots more: snippets, asides, vignettes, rumors, quick biographical sketches. And the river's cleaning up its act; Dale, in a measure of true devotion, even drinks from its waters. Homey history, like something your grandfather might have recited before the living room fire, a history in which the narrator has a stake. (56 b&w illustrations, not seen) -- Copyright ©1996, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Rutgers University Press; 1st ed edition (June 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0813522838
• ISBN-13: 978-0813522838
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,377,599 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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