Delaware: Trading with the world

The Delaware estuary is the second largest freshwater port in the United States and hosts the country's second largest concentration of petrochemical facilities, with shipping of petrochemicals and other products helping revitalize ports along the estuary as goods from many countries reach the United States by way of the Delaware River. Commercial vessels from around the world, from local tugboats to giant oil tankers from the Middle East, travel these waters, and a ship's silhouette can suggest its purpose, cargo, or destination, while its flag indicates where it is registered rather than where it is from. Since Colonial times, the estuary's treacherous shoals, strong tides, and swift currents have endangered maritime traffic, causing hundreds of losses and leaving dozens of wrecks still undetected beneath the water, which led to the development of an extensive lighthouse system, some of which still operate. The estuary's murky bottom preserves dozens of shipwrecks that, through sophisticated underwater exploration over the last thirty year, have yielded important clues about maritime heritage. Among them are H.M.S. Augusta, a British warship grounded in shallow water and attacked by Americans on October 23, 1777, during the Revolutionary War battle for control of the Delaware River; Papago, a naval tug sunk off Finns Point on February 19, 1968, after the tow line to a destroyer bound for the scrapyard in Baltimore broke and the destroyer overran the tug, killing two people; and Phoenix, an empty tanker struck just after midnight on June 6, 1953, by the tanker Pan-Massachusetts, which was carrying 165,000 gallons of high-octane fuel bound for Galveston, after which explosions broke Phoenix in half, fire spread to Pan-Massachusetts, and four crewmen died. These wrecks now help illuminate navigation history. Other reminders of the estuary's past are forts built to defend a young nation during the age of the great navies and lighthouses that guided ships through dangerous waters. Forts along the estuary had little strategic value after the advent of the airplane but held enormous military significance between the 1600's and World War I, and several still stand as public parks, historic sites, and wildlife habitat, including Fort Mifflin, built by the British in 1772 and now open in Philadelphia for tours and demonstrations; Fort DuPont, with history from the Civil War to World War II; Fort Delaware, constructed from 1842 to 1860 on Pea Patch Island and reached by ferry; and Fort Mott, built in 1896 and now a state park along the New Jersey shore. Navigational aids that still mark the river and bay include Harbor Refuge Light, built in 1901 on the outer breakwater at Cape Henlopen, whose one and a half mile-long breaker used rocks quarried near Fox Point on the Brandywine River; Brandywine Shoal, the last Delaware Bay light to be automated in 1974; East Point Lighthouse, built in 1849 and serving officially as an aid to navigation since 1980; and Ship John Shoal Light, named for the ship John, which sank near the lighthouse in 1797 and whose light remains an important navigational aid.

Delaware · United States