St. Jones Neck facts for kids

St. Jones Neck is a special area in the middle-eastern part of Kent County, Delaware, United States. It has a long and interesting past, going back thousands of years before Europeans arrived. This area was first called Jones Neck.

It's bordered by the St. Jones River on the west, Little Creek (which is near Dover Air Force Base) on the north, and Delaware Bay on the east. The land here has gentle, low hills that are not far above sea level. You'll also find many fresh and saltwater areas. Streams often start in marshy lands, and there are marshlands along the bay where the tides come in. St. Jones Neck also has small forests, especially near the freshwater marshes and smaller streams. Today, most of the land in St. Jones Neck is used for farming.

Ancient Times: Prehistory of St. Jones Neck

People have lived in the St. Jones Neck area for about 8,000 years! Scientists have found clear signs of human activity from a time called the Late Archaic Period, which was between 4000 and 2000 BC. During this time, archaeologists found sixteen different places where people lived or visited.

Important Ancient Sites

Five of these ancient sites (K-873, K-891, K-913, K-914, and K-920) are so important that they are listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Five other sites (K-875, K-876, K-880, K-915, and K-916) from later periods are also on this list. Experts believe these were mostly short-term camps where people stayed for a little while. However, digging deeper might show us even more about these early people.

Life in the Woodland Period

After a quiet period, human activity picked up again during the Middle Woodland Period (700 BC – 1000 AD). This was when native people started making pottery. At three sites (K-913, K-915, and K-891), archaeologists found some of the oldest pottery from this time.

Interestingly, at one site (K-875), they found items that came from as far away as what is now Ohio! This shows that people traded goods over long distances. For a long time, people used the land only at certain times of the year. But during the Late Woodland Period (after 1000 AD), there's proof that people started staying in one place for longer periods during certain seasons. Site K-891, for example, seems to have been a major seasonal home base, likely connected to a more permanent village somewhere else. Site K-914 is the only ancient native site where scientists found signs of contact with Europeans. It's right next to one of the first places where Europeans met native people in this region.

Colonial History: European Settlement

The Kent County area, including St. Jones Neck, didn't really come under European control until James, the Duke of York, took over Delaware in the 1670s. Under his rule, people started getting official permission to own land in St. Jones Neck.

Early Land Owners

One important land grant went to Daniel Jones. His daughter married William Rodney, who was the grandfather of a famous Delaware leader named Caesar Rodney. Today, only old foundations and artifacts are left of their family home, the Byfield estate. Even though these early landowners and their families cleared and farmed the land, over time, these farms became places where tenants (people who rented the land) lived and worked. This happened as the richer landowners moved to live in towns and cities.

John Dickinson's Influence

In the late 1700s, a very important statesman from Delaware and Pennsylvania, named John Dickinson, bought almost all the land along the St. Jones River in the neck area. Dickinson spent time at his father's house, which was built around 1740, right there on the neck. He organized his huge land holdings, which were thousands of acres at their largest, into many tenant farms.

Much of this land stayed with Dickinson's family members well into the 1900s. In other parts of St. Jones Neck, the larger land areas were slowly divided into smaller pieces in the 1800s. But in the 1900s, with bigger farming operations, some of these smaller pieces were put back together again to create larger farms.