Portal:Delaware/Selected biography
Joseph Robinette "Joe" Biden, Jr. (born 20 November 1942) is an American lawyer and politician from Wilmington, Delaware. He is a member of the Democratic Party and the incumbent Vice President of the United States.
Biden was born November 20, 1942 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, the son of Joseph R. Biden, Sr. and Catherine Eugenia Finnegan. He was the first of four siblings and was raised in his Irish American mother's Roman Catholic religion.The Biden family moved to Delaware when Biden was 10 years old, and he grew up in suburban New Castle County, Delaware, where his father was a car salesman. In 1961, Biden graduated from Archmere Academy in Claymont, Delaware and, in 1965, from the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware. He then attended Syracuse University College of Law, graduated in 1968, and was admitted to the Delaware Bar in 1969.
William Penn (October 14, 1644 – July 30, 1718) was founder and "Absolute Proprietor" of the Province of Pennsylvania, the English North American colony and the future U.S. state of Pennsylvania. He was known as an early champion of democracy and religious freedom and famous for his treaty with the Lenape Indians.
William Penn is one of the founding fathers of the United States and the only one among them to have single-handedly created a democratic constitution and ruled a huge territory a century before 1776. Well ahead of his time, Penn wrote and urged for a Union of all the English colonies in what was to become the United States of America. The democratic principles that he set forth in the Pennsylvania Frame(s) of Government served as an inspiration for the United States Constitution. As a pacifist Quaker, Penn considered the problems of war and peace deeply, and included a plan for a United States of Europe, "European Dyet, Parliament or Estates," in his voluminous writings.
Richard Bassett (April 2, 1745 – August 15, 1815) was an American lawyer and politician from Dover, in Kent County Delaware. He was a veteran of the American Revolution, a delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, and a member of the Federalist Party, who served in the Delaware General Assembly, as Governor of Delaware, and as U.S. Senator from Delaware.
Bassett was born April 2, 1745 at Bohemia Ferry in Cecil County, Maryland, son of Arnold and Judith Thompson Bassett. His father was a part time tavern owner and farmer, but deserted the family when Bassett was young. He married Ann Ennals in 1774 and they had three children, Richard Ennals, Ann (known as Nancy), and Mary. After his first wife’s death he married Betsy Garnett in 1796. They were active members of the Methodist Church, and gave the church much of their time and attention.
Fortunately, Bassett’s mother was the great granddaughter and an heiress of Augustine Herrman, the original owner of Bohemia Manor, a massive estate in Cecil County, and her family raised Bassett. Eventually this heritage provided him with inherited wealth and a plantation, Bohemia Manor, in Cecil County, and much other property in New Castle County, Delaware.
Caesar Rodney (October 7, 1728 – June 26, 1784), was an American lawyer and politician from St. Jones Neck, in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware, east of Dover. He was an officer of the Delaware militia during the French and Indian War and the American Revolution, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, and President of Delaware during most of the American Revolution.
Rodney was born October 7, 1728 at Byfield, his family's farm on St. Jones Neck, in Dover Hundred, Kent County, Delaware. Byfield is just north of John Dickinson's mansion, Poplar Hall. He was the son of Caesar and Mary Crawford Rodney, and grandson of William Rodney, who came to America in the 1680s and had been Speaker of the Colonial Assembly of the Lower Counties in 1704. Among the Rodney family ancestors were the prominent Adelmare family in Treviso, Italy. His mother was the daughter of the Rev. Thomas Crawford, the Anglican rector of Christ Church at Dover. Byfield was an 800 acre (3.2 km²) farm, worked by a small number of slaves. With the addition of other adjacent properties, the Rodney's were, by the standards of the day, wealthy members of the local gentry. Sufficient income was earned from the sale of wheat and barley to the Philadelphia and West Indies market to provide enough cash and leisure to allow members of the family to participate in the social and political life of Kent County.
Caesar Rodney was first educated at home, but later attended the Latin School in Philadelphia. Rodney's father died in 1745, when he was 17 years old, and the younger Rodney was placed under the guardianship of Nicholas Ridgely, Clerk of the Peace in Kent County. As the eldest son, he ran the family farm for 10 years before entering politics. His mother remarried and had two additional children, but she died in 1763. Subsequently, Caesar was the primary provider for his younger brothers and sisters, and was especially close to his brother, Thomas Rodney, and half sister, Sally Wilson, who kept house for him. He never married. According to tradition, he courted Mary (Polly) Vining, aunt of later U.S. Senator John M. Vining. However, she married the Rev. Charles Inglis, the rector of Christ Episcopal Church in Dover, where the family attended church.
George Read (September 18, 1733–September 21, 1798) was an American lawyer and politician from New Castle, in New Castle County, Delaware. He was a signer of the Declaration of Independence, a Continental Congressman from Delaware, a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787, President of Delaware, and a member of the Federalist Party, who served as U.S. Senator from Delaware and Chief Justice of Delaware.
Read was born in 1733 in Cecil County, Maryland, near North East, the son of John and Mary Howell Read. John Read was a wealthy English resident of Dublin, Ireland who came to Maryland as a young man and was one of the founders of Charlestown in Cecil County. When George Read was an infant the family moved to New Castle County, Delaware, settling near the village of Christiana. As he grew up, Read joined Thomas McKean at the Rev. Francis Alison's Academy at New London, Pennsylvania and then studied law in Philadelphia with John Moland. He was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1753 and a year later he returned home to establish a practice at New Castle.
Robert "Bob" Nesta Marley OM (February 6, 1945 – May 11, 1981) was a Jamaican singer, songwriter, guitarist, and activist. He is the most widely known performer of reggae music. A faithful Rastafari, Marley is regarded by many as a prophet of the religion.
Marley is best known for his reggae songs, which include the hits "I Shot the Sheriff", "No Woman, No Cry", "Three Little Birds", "Exodus", "Could You Be Loved", "Jammin'", "Redemption Song", and "One Love". His posthumous compilation album Legend (1984) is the best-selling reggae album ever, with sales of more than 12 million copies.
Marley was born in the small village of Nine Mile in Saint Ann Parish, Jamaica. His father, Norval Sinclair Marley, (born in 1895), was a Jamaican of English descent, with parents from Sussex. Norval was a Marine officer and captain, as well as a plantation overseer, when he married Cedella Booker, a black Jamaican then eighteen years old. Norval provided financial support for his wife and child, but seldom saw them, as he was often away on trips. Marley was ten years old when his father died of a heart attack in 1955 at age 60.
