Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XVI.djvu/672

 64:8 WILMINGTON buildings are uniformly of brick, made of ex- cellent clay underlying and surrounding the city. The public buildings are the city hall, the county almshouse, the custom house and post office, the Wilmington institute and pub- lic library, and the opera house. There are several handsome church edifices, including the Central and West Presbyterian and Grace (Methodist) churches, and the church of the Sacred Heart (German Catholic). The old Swedes church, a stone edifice erected in 1698, is still in a fair state of preservation. The city is supplied with excellent water from the Brandywine. The streets are lighted with gas and traversed by horse cars. In a distance of 4 m. terminating within the limits of the city the Brandywine falls 120 ft., affording great water power. On its banks are extensive flouring mills, celebrated powder mills, and numerous and large cotton, bleaching and dye- ing, paper, and other mills. But the city is especially noted for the extent and variety of its manufactures by steam power, including carriages, morocco, cars, cotton goods, iron castings, iron steamships, plate, bar, and sheet iron, engines and boilers, a great variety of other articles of iron and steel, phosphates and sulphuric acid, wooden vessels, boots and shoes, leather, &c., and vulcanized fibre, the result of a chemical process for utilizing paper for various purposes in which leather, wood, and iron have heretofore been employed. Wil- mington was the first place in the country where iron ship building was carried on, and it is still a leading seat of that industry. In the manu- facture of passenger cars Wilmington ranks first in the country, while it is among the first in its annual production of morocco and car- riages. The total amount of capital invested in manufactures in 1873 was $12,725,000 ; value of annual products, $21,150,000; number of hands employed, 7,000 to 8,000. The statistics of the principal branches were as follows : BRANCHES. Capiul. Valtuof product*. Powder and chemicals 11.400,000 .f 1 >00,IMH) Paper 1,100,000 1.200,000 Cotton goods 1,000,000 1 100000 Railroad cars 800,000 2,000,000 Iron ship building 750,000 1,800,000 Machine work 1,800,000 2.200,000 Morocco 750,000 1,750,000 Carriages. BOQyOM 1.400,000 Flour, corn meal, Ac 400,000 1,200,000 Leather, other than morocco
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800,000 Iron 750,000 1,800,000 Foundery work and oar wheels Tobacco, snuff, spices, parlor matches Sash, blinds, &c 4*10.000 475,000 150,000 2,000,000 700,000 250,000 Bricks 150000 200,000 Roots and shoes 100,00*) 1'jO.OOO Fertilizers. . ., 250.000 500,000 Wilmington lies directly in the great thor- oughfare of travel and traffic between the north and south, of which the Philadelphia, Wilmington, and Baltimore railroad forms so important a part. Railroad facilities are also afforded by the Delaware, the Wilmington and Reading, and the Wilmington and Western lines. Steamers run to Philadelphia and New York. The Christiana admits vessels drawing 18 ft. and the Brandywine those drawing 7 ft. to the head of tide. There is considerable trade by sailing vessels between the city and ports on the Atlantic coast and in the West Indies. There are four national banks and one state bank, with an aggregate capital of $1,250,000; two savings banks, deposits $750,000 ; three fire insurance companies ; and 23 building and loan associations, which have greatly aided the growth of the city. The total assessed value of real estate in 1873 was $23,000,000, and the estimated value of personal property $18,500,- 000. The city has a police force, and a fire department provided with seven steam engines and improved apparatus. There are five char- itable institutions. The city contains 17 pub- lic schools, including a high school, with nearly 6,000 pupils, and 16 private schools and acade- mies. The Delaware historical society, the me- chanics' institute, and the Wilmington institute have libraries, the last containing 11,500 vol- umes. Five daily and eight weekly newspa- pers are published. There are 45 churches, viz. : 5 Baptist, 8 Episcopal, 2 Friends', 1 Lu- theran, 15 Methodist (7 African), 7 Presby- terian, 5 Roman Catholic, 1 Swedenborgian, and 1 Unitarian. Wilmington was founded in 1732, when the site was partially laid out and the first house was erected. It was incorpo- rated as a borongh in 1740, and as a city in 1832. On Christiana creek, about half a mile from the original town, but within the present city limits, is a small rocky promontory upon which the first Swedish colony in America landed in April, 1688, and around which was planted the first permanent European settle- ment in the valley of the Delaware. WILMINGTON, the principal seaport and lar- gest city of North Carolina, county seat of New Hanover co., on the E. bank of the N. E. branch of Cape Fear river, -at its junction with the estuary of that river, 20 m. from the sea and 110 m. 8. S. E. of Raleigh; lat. 34 11' N., Ion. 78 10' W. ; pop. in 1850, 7,264 ; in 1860, 9,552; in 1870, 13,446, of whom 7,920 were colored; in 1876, locally estimated at from 17,000 to 18,000. It has a court house, city hall, and theatre. Street cars run through the principal streets to the railroad depots and to Oakdale cemetery. The Sound, a place of summer residence, is 7 m. distant. The city is the terminus of three railroads, viz. : the Wilmington and Weldon, the Wilmington, Co- lumbia, and Augusta, and the Carolina Cen- tral. The last runs through the S. portion of the state to its W. border ; the others connect with other lines running N. and S. Wilming- ton has an extensive commerce both coastwise and foreign ; the latter has largely increased within the last three years. There are regular lines of steamers to Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. Vessels drawing 16 ft. can load at the wharves ; when the improvements