The Pennsylvania Newspaper Record: Delaware County

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This database documents the move to industrialization from a predominantly agrarian culture established by Quaker farmers in the 18th century.

The collection contains full-text transcriptions of articles, advertisements and vital statistics, providing insight into technology, business activity and material culture in a down-river milling and manufacturing community at the height of the Industrial Revolution.

About Delaware County

In 1789 Delaware County split apart from Chester County and kept its local governmental seat in Upland/Chester. As the county’s interior developed citizens began complaining about the distance to the county seat. This led the county to move to Media in 1850. The Delaware County Courthouse was erected there in 1889. Some of the riverside landowners sold their farms and purchased land nearer to the new county seat. This opened the riverfront to new industrial development. After 1845 the Delaware County riverfront attracted new heavy industry. Along the riverbanks there were shipyards building vessels for both foreign and domestic buyers. This area was also the chief export location for Baldwin locomotives and other heavy steel manufacturing companies.

Carnegie Library on Cheyney University

By the middle of the 19th century the Pennsylvania Railroad’s Main Line had been completed through Radnor Township in the northern part of the County. The years to follow the Baltimore, Ohio and Reading Railroads extended through the southeastern part of the county. Between 1870 and turn of the century, nineteen boroughs were established, largely along the path of these new railroads.

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