Maps are taken at face value. Today, their very nature denies any sort of questioning or doubt over the location of a street, a town or any other geographic feature. Their representations are the truth. The ideas they convey, the relationships they illustrate and the powers they suggest are fact. With the advent of satellite-aided mapping and remote geographic positioning systems that can locate one's exact position within feet, it is no wonder we take the maps that we create on blind faith. This was not always the case. Maps were used, and indeed still are, to impart certain cultural and political messages. For example, plat maps in the United States show the Americas in their center, Japanese maps draw focus to Japan and Eastern Asia with North and South America at the periphery. European maps do the same - occasionally, Asia nearly falls off the sides. Yet what about older maps; those created before satellite imaging and aerial surveys; what were their goals, their inaccuracies, their biases?

We have a tendency to look at maps of previous ages as full of fantasy and containing gross inaccuracies. Those mapmakers and their users would take great offense to that comment. Their maps were the most accurate that they had; they were building off past traditions. Two hundred years ago accurate maps were being surveyed and drawn that rival those of today. We must realize that 500 years ago a significant portion of the world was unknown to Western European culture: most of the Americas, Africa, the Pacific and Asia were literally uncharted by Europeans. What lay beyond the horizon was a mystery. What should be over the next hill or around the next cape was conjectured, debated, fantasized and often depicted on maps. Ferrar's 1651 map, Virginia showed the Pacific and the islands of Japan a mere 200 miles to the west. Maps were often drawn in a manner that promoted a nationalistic drive for colonialism, a certain world-view or a preconceived notion of what was supposed to be there. Why, we may ask? Often, it was done for the same reasons information is falsified today - individual glory, political gain, economic wealth, etc.

Maps are also weighted with a sense of political purpose. They define geographic limits but do not necessarily reflect idealistic boundaries. For example, in the latter part of the first century B.C. and the first century A.D., Roman maps reflected a far greater empire than one would expect. Ideas of boundaries were not well defined in ancient Roman thought; the very word "boundary" is not even recorded in Roman Senate records until the last years of Augustus' reign - around the year 10. Indeed, a map of the world from this time includes India and Ethiopia as part of the Roman Empire, not part of the Roman Empire as we would consider it. The Roman Empire offers a remarkable example when discussing the psychological and actual impressions that boundaries - or the lack thereof - can inflict.

Detail of Joshua Fisher Chart of 1776. Shows Delaware coast from modern Fenwick Island to modern Cape Henlopen. Note that Cape Henlopen is named at Fenwick Island and the modern Cape is known as Cape James. Also note that Cape James is referred to as "False Cape." © The Lewes Historical Society [1989.1.9]

We might ask ourselves, what political gain was there for the Romans in depicting India or Ethiopia as part of their Empire? In colonial North America, a similar situation emerged. An isolated and weather-beaten cape became the center of controversy between two of the most powerful proprietary families of the American colonies. Cape Henlopen, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, literally and figuratively became a dividing line. Questions immediately surface about the dispute over rightful ownership of Cape Henlopen. Why did Lord Baltimore covet the lands on the Delaware? What political advantage did the Lower Counties give to the Penn family? Who got there first? Could a decimated Dutch colony really have denied the Calvert's claim to all the Delmarva peninsula? What do first hand accounts of the situation, including maps, reveal about the nature of the dispute? Historically, the Delaware-Maryland boundary dispute should rightfully be called the Pennsylvania-Maryland border dispute since the land comprising the modern state of Delaware was at the time considered a part - in name and for the most part governance, but separate in identity - of Pennsylvania. Referred to at the time as the Delaware Counties, Delaware would not achieve full autonomy from Pennsylvania as an independent commonwealth until 1775. For the purpose of this study, however, it is referred to as the Delaware-Maryland dispute. The history of Delaware's evolution as an independent colony and ultimately a state is perhaps the most interesting of any. The justification for the existence of the state of Delaware, a peculiarly situated and oddly shaped area, lies mired in the complexities of multi-national European colonialism in North America, legal battles over the phrasing of charters establishing those very colonies, semantics, geography, and, ultimately, the power and perception imbued to maps.

Yet, the Delaware-Maryland dispute was far from the only disputed boundary in colonial America. New Jersey and New York disputed their shared boundary that extends from the widening of the Hudson north of New York City, northwest to the Delaware River. William Watson notes on his map of New Jersey that the "boundary was settled by the commissioners in 1769." It is surprising that the naming of the true Cape Henlopen, being the primary navigational landmark for one of North America's largest cities at the time, Philadelphia, eluded mapmakers and politicians until the early nineteenth century and was the final cause of much animosity between the Penn and Calvert families.

Other North American promontories that were frequently mapped and used as key navigational features such as Sandy Hook, Cape Charles, Cape Henry, Cape Hatteras, Cape Lookout and Cape Cod - not to mention Cape May, across Delaware Bay from Cape Henlopen - never went through so many name changes nor were so charged with such far-reaching political ramifications and influences on colonial history. John Smith identified, mapped and named Cape Cod as early as 1616. Prince Charles requested that Smith name the cape Cape James, despite Smith's initial identification as Cape Cod. In 1634, the alternate spelling of 'Codd' is seen. A seventeenth century French map of New England and Nova Scotia shows Cape Cod as Cape Malebarre. The most frequently given place-name on colonial maps, however, is Cape Cod. The advance in colonial mapping projects was not unique to Cape Cod or Cape Henlopen. Maps were created to solidify power through territorial, political, and economic gains - this information could then be used to attract new colonists and persuade the Crown to grant the requests of favored and productive colonies. Maps were created to increase strategic knowledge of an inhabited area or one that was under dispute; in these cases, information was power. In the case of Cape Henlopen, maps reflected perceived ideas about where a specific point of land was on a lonely, desolate and removed peninsula on North America's Atlantic coast. The maps created during the 17th and 18th centuries that depict the Delmarva Peninsula were created with the express interest in conveying a political message or used after the fact to support a certain claim to the Delaware Counties. In a sense they were the physical manifestation of the changing idea of power and authority over the region. This dispute over the Delaware Counties between the Penn and Calvert families can trace its origins to two causes. First, in the form of an obscure and temporary Dutch settlement on the southern shores of what is known today as Delaware Bay, and second, the disputed position of Cape Henlopen.

In 1631, acting on behalf of the Dutch West India Company, David Pieterson deVries established a small colony of Dutch settlers at the mouth of Delaware Bay. The small settlement, on a hill overlooking the Whorekill River, was given the name Swanendael. It was envisioned as becoming a great Dutch whaling port and commercial center along the central coast of North America. When deVries returned in 1632 he found the settlement eradicated - massacred by a local Lenni Lenape tribe due to a misunderstanding over the raising of the Dutch coat-of-arms. Distraught over the fate of their colony on the lower Delaware, Dutch officials decided to concentrate their settlements further up the Delaware River founding New Amstel, modern Wilmington and New Castle. Europeans inhabited Swanendael and the cape region sporadically over the remainder of the seventeenth century. Swanendael itself was a subtle tool to encourage colonial development. Translated as "Valley of the Swans," the name lends an idea of serenity to what was described by early settlers as a vile, humid and mosquito infested swamp with little or no redeeming value.

Charles Calvert, the Lord Baltimore, received his charter to establish a colony in North America in 1632. The boundaries of the Calvert colony were fixed by royal decree within the charter and were defined as follows:

. . .Between the ocean on the east and the Bay of Chesapeak on the west and divided from the other part by a right line drawn from the promontory, or cape of land, called Watkin's Point (situate in the aforesaid bay, near the river Wighco) on the west, unto the main ocean on the east; & between that bound on the south unto that part of Delaware Bay on the north which lieth under the fortieth degree of northerly latitude where New England ends, and all that tract of land between the bounds aforesaid; that is to say, from the aforesaid unto the aforesaid bay called Delawar Bay, in a right line by the degree aforesaid, unto the true meridan of the first fountain of the river Potowmack, & from thence tending toward the south unto the further bank of the river, & following the west and the south side thereof unto a certain place called Cinquak, situate near the mouth of the said river, where it falls into the bay of Chesapeak, & from thence by a streight line unto the aforesaid promontory and place called Watkin's Point (so that all that tract of land divided by the line aforesaid, drawn between the main ocean and Watkin's Point unto the promontory called Cape Charles, & all appurtenances, do remain entirely excepted to us, our heirs and successors for ever).

A boundary line based on the charter's parameters can be clearly seen on the map of John Ogilby, Noua Terrae-Mariae tabula (Figure 1), and the map drawn by Jerome Hawley and John Lewger Noua Terrae-Mariae tabula (Figure 2). The Hawley-Lewger map reproduced here clearly depicts the 'fortieth degree of northerly latitude;' this line continues east, crossing the Delaware River and incorporating southern New Jersey as part of Maryland. Ogilby's map uses the Delaware River and Bay as Maryland's natural eastern boundary; on each map, the site of modern Philadelphia is included in Lord Baltimore's charter. In 1680, William Penn received his royal chartering establishing the colony of Pennsylvania. Penn's charter describes the lands granted to him as being bound by "the Delaware on the east, whence it extended westward five degrees of longitude, the 43rd degree of latitude on the north, and on the south a circle of twelve miles drawn about New Castle to the beginning of the 40th degree of latitude." As Hall points out, however, this description only added to the pressure growing between the Penns and the Calverts for New Castle is situated twenty miles south of forty degrees north latitude. At the time, Penn was only vaguely aware of the controversial Swanendael colony that had been settled by the Dutch. He certainly was not aware of the issues that that small settlement would cause him and his heirs. Primarily, Penn was concerned with securing an Atlantic port for his land-locked colony; he was worried that without one, Pennsylvania could not compete economically with cities such as Boston, Charleston or New York. As Hall writes, "Penn was eager to secure by some means or other an outlet upon the [Chesapeake] bay which would not be subject to control by his neighbor on the south." Penn then acquired titles to the Delaware Counties through patents previously held by the Duke of York in order to gain some territory along the Atlantic Coast.

Essentially, the dispute between the Calvert and Penn families arose over a key phrase in the charter of the colony of Maryland that described the land that the Calvert family was permitted to assume under its authority. The Calvert family, and particularly the Lords Baltimore, felt that their claim to all the lands south of the fortieth degree of north latitude could sustain any reasoning presented by the Penn family. Caelius Calvert, Baron of Baltimore, in our Kingdom of Ireland. . . hath humbly besought leave of us, by his industry and charge, to transport an ample colony of the English nation. . . in the parts of America, not yet cultivated and planted, though in some parts thereof inhabited by certain barbarous peoples, having no knowledge of Almighty God [emphasis own].

In the end, Lord Baltimore would surely agree with George Johnston, when he exclaimed that Swanendael, an "unfortunate settlement," had a greater affect in determining the bounds of Maryland than any other. Battles raged - literally and figuratively - along the Eastern Shore and upon the shores of the lower Delaware. Marylanders often raided the farming and fishing villages established along the Delaware coast and in Sussex and Kent Counties. It is well noted that Lewes, at the mouth of Delaware Bay, was burned several times, the most famous on Christmas Eve, 1673 when the entire town was burned except for one building that purportedly still exists today and is known as the Ryves Holt House. Marylanders, in their fury at the Penn family's disregard for Lord Baltimore's charter, tried to frighten residents into submission to Maryland and Lord Baltimore. Munroe describes a time when John Newton of western Kent County purchased land in the disputed territory.

Thinking it was in Maryland, he paid taxes on it there at first, but upon learning it had originally been surveyed, 'seated,' and assessed for taxes as a part of Kent County on the Delaware, he ceased paying Maryland taxes. He refused repeated demands made on him by the tax collector of Dorchester County, Maryland, whereupon, in 1732, the undersheriff of that county, accompanied by 'ten or a dozen lusty, pirt fellows' burst into his house early one morning and carried him off, heading Cambridge jail. A Kent County constable learned of the seizure and rallied a number of Newton's neighbors. Setting off after the Maryland posse, the rescued Newton 'after a Bloody Battle (but no life lost),' as a contemporary told the tale.

The tenuous hold that Penn had established on the Delaware Counties waned even further as time passed. The Calvert family claimed that the ill-fated Swanendael colony had no bearing on their charter to the Delaware counties since it was not authorized or established under English law. They cited a similar situation in regards to the Claiborne settlement on the Kent Islands in Chesapeake Bay. The English Board of Trade agreed but had no means of enforcing any of its decisions. Penn, infuriated at the thought of losing the Delaware Counties, appealed to the Court of Chancery. Tthat court took fifteen years to fashion a decision. Its decision favored the Penn family - any claim Lord Baltimore could make was null since the Calvert family never securely wrested the Delaware from the Dutch. The court ruled that through the Duke of York's control of the Delaware and lawful transfer to the Penns of his deeds, in conjunction with nearly 150 years of Penn administration, the Delaware Counties should remain under the control of Pennsylvania.

After determining that the eastern half of Delmarva rightfully belonged to the Penn family because of the Swanendael settlement, agreeing upon the bounds of the Delaware Counties presented yet more obstacles. The problem now facing the Penns and Calverts was exactly where the Delaware Counties were situated. Maryland maps of the time show Pennsylvania's claim to the Delaware Counties as minimal at best. Two excellent examples of these maps are Hermann Moll's map of 1708 entitled Maryland and Virginia (Figure 3) and John Hinton's A New Map of the Province of Maryland in North America (Figure 4) published in 1780. The fact that Moll's map was created in 1708 only reinforces the notion that the Cape Henlopen dispute was a very real and long-lived dilemma.

The problem of New Castle's twelve-mile radius with Pennsylvania had been settled, but the determination of a southern and western boundary for the Delaware Counties had yet to be decided. Part of that decision involved agreeing upon where the southern east-west boundary would originate. Yet again, the Calvert and Penn families would find themselves in an English court, deciding once and for all the true extent of the Delaware Counties. Ironically, this time the matter was settled by Lord Baltimore based upon his own misunderstanding of geography and a map that he presented as evidence reflecting the same. This map, created by John Senex in 1732 (Figure 5) for the Lord Baltimore v. William Penn case, shows Cape Henlopen at the location of modern Fenwick Island; it mirrors a map used by William Penn in establishing in his opinion the extent of the Delaware Counties. Penn used a map drawn by Nicholas J. Visscher from the 1650s (Figure 6); Penn most likely intended to use its age as an authority in establishing the location of the true Cape Henlopen. At modern Cape Henlopen, both maps show the place-name Cape Cornelius.

Modern place-names still reflect the conflicting claims made by the Penn and Calvert families. For instance, Baltimore Hundred, along Sussex County's southern boundary with Maryland, is a holdover from a time when the Calvert family exerted greater political control over parts of Sussex County. Many genealogical records, land deeds and other official records from these parts of Sussex County from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries are stored in archives in the adjacent Caroline, Dorchester, Talbot, Wicomico, and Worchester Counties of Maryland. Maps of Delmarva from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries show various names for the modern geographic feature known as Cape Henlopen. Names such as Cape James, Cape Cornelius, Cape Hinlopen and Cape Henlopen dot these maps. As stated above, the Cape Henlopen dispute began over confusion of the location of the true Cape Henlopen; it began with a misuderstanding of Swedish grammar. As Francis states

By the terms of the agreement of 1732, the Transpeninsular Line was to begin at Cape Henlopen, and a controversy now arose about the true location of that place. This controversy originated in the different methods of spelling the name of the cape. The early Swedish settlers called the present Cape Henlopen, Cape Inlopen, and the exterior or False Cape at Fenwick's Island Cape Henlopen or Hinlopen, the latter of which is said to be a Swedish word signifying entering in; from which it appears that the aspire letter 'H', in the Swedish language prefixed to Inlopen altered the sense of it from the interior to the exterior cape. The matter in dispute was referred to the Lord Chancellor, who decided that the respective parties should abide by the agreement that fixed the beginning of the line at the exterior cape on Fenwick's Island.

A quick look at modern Swedish dictionaries reveals that there is truly such a distinction. In Swedish, the verb lopp, to run, in its gerund takes the form lopnïng. Close to Henlopen. Interestingly, the dictionary continues that the Swedish phraseology for "running within/into" is inomlopen, even closer to Henlopen. However, the Swedish Schoolnet, when queried as to the English meaning of hinlopen, replied that such a word does not exist in modern Swedish, but that the closest word (by spelling? by inferred meaning?) was inloppen meaning "an entrance or an approach." Swedish Schoolnet also provided a compund derivative hamninlopp, meaning "entrance to a harbour." Hence, the aspirate "h" described by Vincent is revealed in this particular phrase, "entrance to a harbour" - perfectly descriptive of Henlopen's position at the mouth of Delaware Bay. Interestingly, Vincent makes no attempt in interpreting why a place-name that clearly means "an entrance to a harbour" would be consciously given to a place that was at least twenty-eight miles from what is today known as Delaware Bay and ten miles from Indian River Inlet. Based on geography, Swedish grammar and Vincent's interpretation of both, it is still unclear why Fenwick Island would be confused as an "entrance to a harbour." Keeping in mind that inloppen also takes the meaning "approach" and that Fenwick Island is the most eastwardly point of the Delmarva peninsula, Fenwick Island certainly could seem to be the final "approach" to the true Henlopen as one gradually turns to the northwest northward on the Delaware coast. Surprisingly, the Swedish term Inlopen, referred to by Vincent, is not found on any of the maps surveyed.

Modern place-names locate Cape Henlopen as the extreme southern shore at the conjunction of Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Neither Cape James nor Cape Cornelius exist along the Delaware coast. The spelling of Henlopen did not stabilize until the mid-nineteenth century - it was still spelled variously with an "e" or an "i". Fenwick Island - occasionally referred to as Fenwick's Island - still is found at the eastern-most point of the Delmarva peninsula, just north of the Delaware-Maryland state line. False Cape does not exist as an official Delaware place-name, although it does lend its name to several local businesses; contrarily, Cape Henlopen is occasionally still referred to as the true cape. The southern shore of Indian River Inlet - a migrating and shoaling inlet until the Army Corps intervened 100 years ago - was never mentioned in any records as such since the place-name did not exist during the seventeenth century, but was occasionally confused as the False Cape on some maps. The Ebling-Sotzmann map of 1797 (Figure 7) locates False Cape at Indian River Inlet as does its predecessor, the Dennis Griffith Map of the State of Maryland of 1795 (Figure 8). Certain maps even locate the False Cape as far north as Rehoboth.

Below is a count of how many times these current Delaware place-names were confused for each other on maps in a span of two hundred years covering from the early seventeenth through the early nineteenth centuries. The dates listed signify how Cape Henlopen migrated geographically - i.e., cartographically - through time.

CAPE HENLOPEN:

Cape Cornelius: 1650s (Nicholas J.Visscher); 1732 (John Senex)

Cape Hinlopen: 1708 (Herman Moll); 1753 (Joshua Fry & Peter Jefferson); 1755 (Lewis Evans); 1778 (Antonio Zatta)

Cape James: 1651 (John Ferrar); 1755 (Lewis Evans); 1776 (John Bennet & Robert Sayer); 1776 (Joshua Fisher);1781 (Robert Alexander); 1786 (John Churchman, Jr.)

Cape James or Cape Hinlopen: 1780 (John Hinton); 1794 (Captain N. Holland)

REHOBOTH:

False Cape: 1776 (John Bennet & Robert Sayer); 1781 (Robert Alexander)

INDIAN RIVER INLET:

False Cape: 1795 (Dennis Griffith)

FENWICK ISLAND:

Cape False: 1784 (Jean Lattrè)

Cape Hinlopen: 1732 (John Senex); 1776 (Joshua Fisher)

False Cape: 1753 (Joshua Fry & Peter Jefferson); 1780 (John Hinton)

Fenwick's Island: 1755 (Lewis Evans); 1776 (John Bennet & Robert Sayer); 1781 (Robert Alexander); 1794 (Captain N. Holland)

Fenwick's I., Cape Henlopens: 1786 (John Churchman, Jr.)

The data presents the startling conclusion that it might not have been Fenwick Island's association with the place-name Cape Hinlopen, but rather the true Cape Henlopen's disassociation with that name that caused such confusion between the Penn and Calvert families. This led to Lord Baltimore's error in identifying Fenwick Island as his Cape Henlopen, in reality authorizing hundreds of square-miles of fertile fields, miles of Atlantic coast and the bountiful harvests of menhaden, crabs and clams gathered in Rehoboth and Indian River Bays each year transferred to William Penn and eventually the State of Delaware. The simple survey of historic maps of the Delmarva Peninsula shows that multiple names were simultaneously in use for the single geographic feature that is today's Cape Henlopen. This confusion did not last merely two decades, but rather spread itself out over the course of two centuries.

Rehoboth's association as the False Cape may be due to two reasons. First, given Rehoboth's close location to Henlopen, the mapmaker may not have realized that he was writing "False Cape" at the location of Rehoboth. However, this theory does not hold well when considering that John Bennet & Robert Sayer located their "False Cape" well south of Cape Henlopen and in the adjacent waters of the Atlantic off Rehoboth (Figure 9); Lewis Evans (Figure 10) also notes the False Cape in the vicinity of Rehoboth as does Robert Alexander in his 1781 Map of the Delmarva Peninsula (Figure 11). Curiously, Bennet & Sayer and Evans all locate the False Cape near Rehoboth, near a slight depression in the Delaware coast. The second possible reason for False Cape to be located near Rehoboth is that 300 years ago, Cape Henlopen was not the sand-spit complex that distinguishes it today; rather, it resembled a rolled, bare knuckle falling off into Delaware's Atlantic shore. Were Bennet & Sayer and Evans prompted by this 'bare knuckle' effect to place the False Cape near Rehoboth? 'A rolled, bare knuckle falling off into Delaware's Atlantic shore' accurately reflects the linguistic meaning of Henlopen in the Swedish as both 'the entrance to a harbor' and, more accurately, the cape that 'runs into itself.' This bare knuckle also reflects the Dutch meaning of a 'vanishing' or 'runaway' cape. Without aerial mapping capabilities, locating the exact demarcation between Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean at Cape Henlopen proved extremely difficult; and, as we have seen, furnished many differing opinions as to the actual location or the cape.

Captain N. Holland's A New Chart of the Coast of North America (Figure 12) presents the most interesting and editorialized information about the evolving nature of Cape Henlopen's position. Not only does Holland identify Cape Henlopen as 'Cape James or Cape Hinlopen' but also adds the editorial note that it is "the False Cape of the Delaware Pilots." John Hinton also identifies Cape Henlopen as 'Cape James or Hinlopen' (Figure 4). Holland also identifies the Delaware-Maryland border as Fenwick's Island. Yet then, just to the south of Fenwick Island, he clearly represents what he calls False Cape, and again, adds the editorial "of the charts." Obviously there were hard feelings not only between the Penns and Calverts, but among the mariners who needed accurate place-names to be able to set courses when sailing from Europe, the Caribbean or even Philadelphia.

One would think that local mariners and locals in general would have standardized place-names within their region. This is clearly not the case in the Joshua Fisher map of 1776 (Figure 13). Fisher, a Sussex County native from White Spring, outside of Lewes, described the current Cape Henlopen as Cape James and Fenwick Island as Cape Hinlopen. Ironically, Fisher's map is touted as the first reliable and accurate chart of Delaware Bay and River.

The map that shows the most confusion concerning place-names on the Delaware coast is John Churchman, Jr.'s The Peninsula Between Delaware & Chesopeak Bays (Figure 14). On it, he describes the true Cape Henlopen as Cape James. At Fenwick Island, his notes include that it is 'Fenwick's I., Cape Henlopens.' Clearly the confusion had reached a climax, despite the efforts of the Penn and Calvert families to rectify the situation with the aid of two well-respected, English surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon.

The result of this entire dispute between the Penn and Calvert families resulted with the survey of the entire boundary between Pennsylvania - including Delaware - and Maryland by Mason and Dixon (Figure 18). Mason and Dixon's work on the Pennsylvania-Delaware-Maryland boundary began in Pennsylvania establishing the common boundary between Pennsylvania and Maryland that was to be drawn westward from the circular boundary radiating from New Castle fifteen miles south of the city of Philadelphia and extending as far west as the charters of the respective colonies allotted. Using the 1732 resolution as their guide, Mason and Dixon started from Fenwick's Island, mapped as Cape Henlopen, in November of 1763 and surveyed the entire extent of the Maryland-Pennsylvania border over the course of the next five years.

Mason and Dixon hardly settled the boundary question for good. As recently as 1974, the States of Maryland and Delaware, in conjunction with the National Geodetic Survey completely resurveyed the entire extent of their shared boundaries, starting from Fenwick Island moving west to the established midpoint of the Delmarva Peninsula and then turning northward and reestablishing the boundary as a tangent to the circle with its twelve-mile radius at New Castle. This time, however, they had the help of computers and satellite imagery. Remarkably, almost nothing was changed.

All the historical circumstances that came together to form ultimately the state of Delaware - the failed colony of Swanendael, the wording of the Calvert charter of Maryland, the naming and misnaming of Cape Henlopen, its misrepresentation due to a misunderstanding of Swedish grammar. Clearly, the Cape Henlopen dispute presents us with several startling realizations. First, maps are not always correct in their representation, and, as in the example of Lord Baltimore, official maps are not necessarily either. Second, the power that they reflect must come from true authority - conjecture of ownership does not count - meaning perceived relationships may not entirely be true. Cape Henlopen has proven this. Its ambiguous mapping proved that one needs to be entirely sure of all the facts and aware of all the ramifications of throwing blind faith upon a map. In his haste, Lord Baltimore squandered nealy 2,000 square miles away. Cape Henlopen, often historically overlooked, was the site and the basis for the establishment of Delaware as an independent state. In accepting his own knowledge of the Delaware coast, Lord Baltimore had written forever in history in the form of John Senex's 1732 map, his greatest mistake. As Whitfield wrote, "the charting of a strait or the crossing of a mountain range [or the mapping of a cape] cannot be isolated from its consequences."

©2002-2005 The Lewes Historical Society