Wilmington, Delaware

About Wilmington, Delaware

Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware and is located at the confluence of the Christina River and Brandywine Creek, near where the Christina flows into the Delaware River. It is the county seat of New Castle County and one of the major cities in the Delaware Valley metropolitan area. Wilmington was named by Proprietor Thomas Penn for his friend Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington, who was prime minister in the reign of George II of Great Britain.

According to 2006 Census Bureau estimates, the population of the city is 72,826.

The area now known as Wilmington was first colonized by settlers from Sweden in March, 1638, establishing the colony of Fort Christina, New Sweden. Sweden claimed and, for the most part, controlled the lower Delaware River region (parts of present day Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey), but settled few colonists there. In 1655 the Dutch arrived and took over the colonies from the Swedes and Finns. Dr. Timen Stiddem (Timothy Stidham) was a prominent citizen and doctor in Wilmington. He is recorded in history as the first physician in Delaware (ref. J. Thomas Scharf, History of Delaware, p. 471). In 1664 British colonization began, the area stabilized under British rule, with strong influences from the Quaker communities, and was granted a borough charter in 1739 by King George II which changed the name from Willington, after Thomas Willing the first 'developer" of the land who organized the area in a grid pattern similar to that of its northern neighbor Philadelphia, to Wilmington, presumably after Spencer Compton, Earl of Wilmington.