March 26, 2024 • 27 mins
Although it's the second-smallest state in the US, don't let Delaware's diminutive geography fool you. This state has a tremendous economy, and loads of ridiculous history in its past. In this week's special two-part series, the guys dive into the history of a strange conflict that bedeviled the state from its early days all the way into the 20th century -- a contentious, tiny piece of land that almost led to open combat: this is the story of the Delaware Wedge.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
The boys are back in town. We're here in Atlanta,
hanging with our super producer, mister Max Williams, and we
are pursuing a couple of things today. A funny thing
happened when two thirds of us were in New York.
We got a chance to hang out with someone who
(00:50):
may show up on the show in the future, our
good friends Slash Mentor the founder of Mental Floss, mister
Mangesh had a cature and we had a awesome time
hanging out at a Russian mob restaurant.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
One of those like old New York places in the
Theater district that you'll pass by a million times and
pay it no mind. With the Big Red Awning established
nineteen eighty six, Mango hiped us to the fact that
it was owned at one point, maybe even still by
the famous Russian ballet dancer Barishnikov.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, yes, and have those vibes. And I guess we've
introduced two people before we got to ourselves. You're Noel Brown.
I am Ben Boland. That's what they called me in
the States, and speaking of states, when we were hanging
out with Mangesh, going somewhere with this guy, so I
was thinking the same thing, dude. Yeah, Mangesh is one
of the few people we know who is actually from Delaware,
(01:46):
and I think most of us just think of Delaware
with the waynes World joke. Oh I'm in Delaware, right.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We've talked about it a lot on stuff they don't
want you to know, because it is sort of like
a weird tax haven loophole for corp operations. A lot
of corporations are incorporated there because of I forget the
deeds exactly, but it's something to do with banking laws
there that allow a little more leeway with certain aspects
(02:11):
of being incorporated. Yeah, there are We have talked about this.
You're right, I forgot on stuff they don't want you
to know. In Delaware.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
You'll notice that a lot of the financial and banking
laws are really favorable. And so it's home right now.
It's home to more than sixty percent of our fortune
five hundred companies like Google or Alphabet excuse me, Amazon,
CBS Health, et cetera. And just actually this year there
(02:44):
were another two hundred and fifty thousand businesses that registered
in this pretty small state. One thing Mangesh told us
that was surprising is that there is a somewhat somewhat
of a divide geographically and the southern part of it.
When he was growing up there was still pretty agricultural.
(03:06):
It was like the South, And I think that's baffling
to a lot of us who are from different states.
But it turns out, just like Garth and Wayne, there
are a lot of things we don't know about Delaware, like, no,
it's it's called the first state. I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's also like the chemical capital of the United States,
the chemical which doesn't seem like the best of accolades.
I would argue, you know, maybe calls into question the
quality of the water or something.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I'm sure they do their best, but also what would
have I guest to say, he said, you know, what's
there to do in Delaware? Go to New York or
Philly or Philly said yeah, he did say that, and
I believe yeah, he had a a is Alma Mater
was home to such a Hollywood luminaries as Judge Reinhold.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You may remember from the Beverly Hills Cop movies. He's
the straight guy. There was one other name, and there
are a couple there were a couple like notable celebrities
from his high school, and it's it's a very special
place in the US. It's also weird to hear Mangesh
talk that way Elizabeth from leaving Las Vegas. Yeah, and
(04:21):
and then of course our pal Mango, only only one
that matters dust right exactly. It also turns out what
we were talking about, Judge Riinhold is not in fact
a judge. When I was when I was a kid,
I swear to God, I thought it was his actual
title and that he was a judge who also did movies.
And I thought, how does he find the time? No,
(04:44):
that's just his first name. It's a reasonable thing to think. Yeah,
I forgot, Yeah he was.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
He always kind of played the the two square guy.
Even in like fast times at Ridgemont High he was
like the slowest of the fast timers. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
And with a big shout out to our research associate
for this episode, mister Max Williams, we are going to
explore Delaware because a lot of fellow Americans in the
crowd don't know much about Delaware. So I have, in
the spirit of education and learning together, I have changed
my title in our little recording platform to well Aware
(05:23):
of Delaware. It's aspirational.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I believe this also counts as are trying to get
one over on Old Sufian Stevens doing every state episode
for Delaware.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yes, yes, because clearly recording one episode about each state
is the exact same amount of work as doing an
entire album state.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, but you got You gotta appreciate the flex though
with Old Sufian, because he made a big to do
about it. I think it was a pretty good publicity stunt.
He ultimately ended up making two.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
It has been so fuch not on a decade.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I believe Illinois is probably about ten years old at
this point in Michigan even older.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And those are both great albums. Yeah, I believe Illinois
has been made into a Broadway musical. Takes a minute
for that to happen. I mean, it's basically already a classic.
You got your back to the future of the musical
and you're Illinois music.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So what you're saying is our episode about how Indiana
try to change Pie is set to be a motional
length picture.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, well, it's turnarounds. It's in talks. It's in talks.
There we go and we believe in you. Swoof John
can't wait for the Delaware album as well as the
Georgia album. Please put us in one of the songs.
So here's the thing. Delaware is very small in comparison
(06:43):
to other US states. It's ninety six miles long, thirty
nine miles wide. It has three counties. That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
We've got your Newcastle, your Kent, and your Sussex, which
all sound suspiciously British.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Oh I like that you say British. You know, it
reminds me of the sick Tom Martins. So this place has,
according to US News, a GDP of eighty eight billion
dollars year billion billion with a B like then yeah, okay,
(07:17):
and I guess we tease it a little bit. But
that in large part is coming from the chemical industry,
chemical manufacturing. Delaware's economy relies largely on that chemical manufacturer.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
We've got companies like DuPont, for example, that are headquartered there.
At the very least, they're manufacturing headquarters, basis of operations
are there, and it is in fact often referred to
as the chemical capital.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I'm sorry I got it wrong earlier as said of
the country, it is of the world. Yeah. Yeah. One
of the world's top manufacturing companies plays a big role
in Delaware's history as well, and we have talked about
DuPont in very trans parent and honest terms on stuff
they don't want you to know. Tune into those episodes
(08:06):
while they are still allowed to be out in the world.
This is a different conversation. We're not going to take
a bunch of potshots at Delaware, but we are going
to do a couple of a golf jokes courtesy of Max. So,
(08:26):
what's that old state joke? What did Delaware? When?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Comes after that?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's one of those things for remembering the states on
what did Is that like a humonic I remember what
did Delaware? Boys? What did Delaware? I ask you now,
as a personal friend, what did Delaware? She wore her
new jersey? Boys, she wore her new jersey? I tell
you as a personal friend, she wore her new jersey?
How is this okay? It's like a nursery rhyme. Yeah
(08:53):
did Delaware? So? Uh, here's here's the thing you may
have tuned in. Ridiculous historians and saw that the title
of this episode is the Delaware Wedge. And if you
are a fan of golfing, you might think, oh, Delaware wedge.
It's one of the cool clubs, right. A wedge is
(09:16):
one of the most prevalent clubs that golfers use, and
they'll carry different wedges, just like Hawkeye has different arrows.
That's right. You know he's got you got your bomb arrows,
you got your grappling hook arrows, you got your I
don't know one of the his or fancy do all
kinds of weird stuff. But yeah, no, a wedge. You know,
(09:37):
I'm not a golfer.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I've never actually played outside of a mini golf situation.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's a lot of fun. We love it. We've done
it together. I uh did grow up in Augusta.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Georgia, which is considered one of the golfing you know
mecha of the world because of the Master's Golf tournament.
I have set foot on the Augusta National a few times.
I just couldn't care less about watching golfing. Person do, however,
quite enjoy golf video games, especially if there's a silly
spin on it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
There's this game called like what is it called golf theft? Auto?
Is that thing? Is that real? No? I made that up.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
There's a game that's sort of like a classic throwback
e looking game where you're a little dude who has
been sent to hell and in order to get out
of hell, you have to golf your way through all
of these weird obstacle courses and ultimately play golf against
the devil himself.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
But it's really.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Cute and fun game. It's called Cursed to Golf, I
believe is the name of it. I like how realistic
and grounded it sounds.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I tell you it's a who and that is most
of the things I've learned about various golf clubs, and
you know, spin and whatnot comes from golf games. But
a wedge is something you might use to, say, get
out of a sand trap. It's typically for a short game.
So it's like, just before you get into the putting territory,
you're gonna rock a wedge because it gives you various
(11:00):
art kind of lengths that you can sort of predict
and control. So there's you know, various powers of wedges, right,
powers of wedges.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, that sounds like a math thing that it does.
Sound like a math rock album, you know, it's new
metal or something like that. However, record Scratch Max. We
are not talking about golf. We we just shyamalan ourselves
and everybody listening. We're not even talking about the economic development,
development and environment of Delaware. That's totally different story. We
(11:30):
should get to it in the future because it's fascinating.
But what we are talking about is this Delaware Wedge,
a strange little piece of land that for a long
time went back and forth. It was claimed as the
territory of one state, it was governed, administered, administrated by another.
It created it was created by a conflict that didn't
(11:54):
involve Delaware at all. It's just a very strange way
to do a Delaware episode.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, to jump in here real quick. I was actually
talking to my aunt Jennifer.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
She lived in Pennsylvania Philadelphia for a number of years,
and I was just like talking to her one day
via text and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm writing
a brief right now about Pennsylvania being just like super extra.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, shout out William Penn. So we also need to
since this is a geography episode, folks, picture picture our
exploration today like a map. And as we continue deeper
into the territory of this episode, there's a little sign
that says warning, here be math. We're going to get
(12:38):
into geometry, geometrical math, and it'll help illuminate how the
Delaware Wedge came to be. And it starts with a
disagreement between Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That is correct, The Delaware Wedge was, in fact a
land dispute between mary and Pennsylvania. According to Kat Eshner,
writing for Smithsonian, Colonial Maryland Pennsylvania had it harder than
most when it comes to being neighbors. They both had legitimate,
at least in their opinions, its claims to a large
(13:15):
area of land, and there was of course a serious
conflict of interest there a competing interest in that land
that led to something called the Cresaps War, the Cresaps War,
I believe Cresaps might be right, also known as the
Congjocular War, which is a great word. I love jocular,
(13:36):
just that it means kind of like good natured, right,
get and funny, yeah, and so conjocular. It must be
referring to a place which was an eight year conflict
over the city of Philadelphia and its surrounding lands.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I'm sorry I said that. Like Matt Barry, it just
felt right. So one of the biggest causes of dispute
Ben was, as is often the case, poorly on borders. Oh,
badly rendered maps. Check out also not to constantly be
plugging the other show, but check out also the excellent
(14:11):
in my opinion episode we did for stuff they don't
want you to know on Tara Nullius, h and Y
and things like line of actual control. I couldn't agree more.
You couldn't agree more to stop promoing that show or
then it was an absolute banger of an episode. Oh,
you should get ye to that feed post haste, post
haste forthwith Yeah. The problem with these borders is that
(14:38):
to some degree they're aspirational, and people try to gaslight
each other, or governments try to gaslight each other on
who actually controls what. And Pennsylvania's charter is no different
because its boundaries are if you looked at them from
the modern perspective, you would say, this is real weird?
(15:01):
Is this actual geography? Or you trying to cast the spell?
Like they said, the southern border should be a circle,
drawing a twelve mile distance from Newcastle northward and westward
onto the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude,
then by a straight line westward to the limit of
(15:21):
longitude above mention Like what, I'm sorry, excuse me a
bit here.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I so, I think you all both know about this project.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I've been but I've been recently getting Elder Scrolls to
Daggerfall running on my new computer. And you know, it's
a nineteen ninety six game. It's a very different, let's
to say, than what like Uld Troll's five scaum is.
But all the spells read exactly like that, and they
make no sense for Daggerfall, let alone for a map.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah. Yeah, this is a really weird thing going on here, right,
And I'm sure it is the result of negotiation by committee, right,
which we see in Hollywood blockbusters and stuff. But with
these instructions, which were probably well intentioned, the surveyor of
(16:14):
the colony made a big whoopsie. The fortieth parallel that
they're talking about there is north of Philadelphia, and if
they've followed that, this would have put the famous city
of Philadelphia into Maryland instead of in Pennsylvania. Can you
imagine how angry the roots would be about this?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I don't think they would have taken two particularly kindly.
So the two colonies start bickering about where the border
actually is, and in seventeen twenty four, the Crown that's
why I'm saying these words like this, this is all
very British. The British Crown told the parties to you
know what, working out amongst yourself, y'all figure it out.
(16:58):
We got other stuff to do, We've got bigger fish
to fry. But of course they continued bickering and did
not find a solution. So despite the Crown's gentle suggestion
that Maryland and Delaware worked things out between themselves, this
did not transpire. Pennsylvania created Lancaster County, which is pronounced
(17:22):
Lancaster and not Lancashire. I believe despite the britishness of
the whole affair, and that clearly aggressively extended well beyond
the southern border as had been claimed by Maryland. We
get a lot of these details from Dan Lewis, who
is a trivia expert. How do you become a trivia
(17:45):
are we were kind of trivia experts, aren't we?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah? We're trivial trivia EXPERTI aren't We're not like you know,
we're not seriously trivial, we're not credentialed. We have not
gone to the University of trivia program right or at
the University of Pennsylvania's trivia program. Great program they have there.
It's a great school. And so our friends in Maryland
(18:15):
are not going to take this. They're not going to
take this as anything other than an active aggression, and
they've got to fire some shots back. So they put
down their crab long enough to get a guy named
Thomas put down their crab. Maryland loves crab. I love
that as an expression.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I don't know if you know, there's been my partner,
my girlfriend I call the crab. Yes I thought, I
thought you did. Yeah, day of the Crab. It's in
my phone that way. But so I love this idea of.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Butt lay down your crab, put down your crabs. So yes,
So I'm just throwing out a huge stereotype of Maryland.
But honestly, if you get a chance to travel to Maryland,
especially by the coast, you gotta try the crab. It
is amazing. They've got their own kind of style of though.
They have like a like a soft shell crab situation
(19:05):
that's almost got like some stuffing kind of in it
where they inside the crab. Yeah, yeah, And so they
put down their crab long enough long enough to contact
a guy named Thomas Cresap. Now he's like a real
estate version of a special agent. He is a land
agent for one of the big blue blood families of Maryland,
(19:28):
the Calvert family. And they say, hey, Tom, we need
you to build a settlement in a strategic location by
the Susquehanna River. And so he does build this settlement
and he starts doing business with the Pennsylvania Dutch community.
And then he says in he taxes they pay go
to the government of Maryland. So he built a trading post.
(19:51):
And what they were trying to do is say, is
like establish a precedent for the fact that the money
moves to Maryland and the local cation of this trading
post will create our borders through practice. Matt Maxidman, do
you have any sense of what it would have felt
like to do business at a trading post? To me?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
In my mind, I picture it as like like one
of a vendor in a role playing game where you're
going to like trade all your goods and the crap
that you've picked up in your travels and exchange it
for coin or other stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
It kind of is because you're you're going to have
the fur trade at this point in time, there's a
lot of bartering for goods and Max I'll throw to
you on this too. Like the advantage of a trading post,
both in the awesome game Civilization, which everyone should play,
and in real life is that it helps It helps
(20:43):
extend your borders, but it also helps supply rural communities
with manufacture goods that would otherwise be unavailable. So you
trade in furs and you get things like machine tools,
machine exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yep, right, yeah, I mean, in like modern comparison.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I was talking to my friend Nicole Garcia, she's she's Navajo,
and she talks about how the trading posts are still
very common on Native reservations.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, she talked about that, and like you know, it's
often where a lot of Native artists tell their stuff.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
It's very complex.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I would not pretend like She's told me a lot
of positives and negatives about it, especially in this modern
day and times.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I'm not going to pretend like I fully understand it
at all.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
But yeah, I mean, I think especially in these early
points of time, it's like, oh no, our plow broke
and the one piece we can get we have to
go to this trading post. And it's not like there's
like I mean, I guess there was British currency at
this point in time, but we're talking, you know, the colonies.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So yeah, exactly like the modern trading post is descended
from these trading posts of old, but they're different endeavors,
make no mistake. And the trading posts that we're talking
about are these they're kind of like planting a flag.
To be honest with you, this is for the vecologists
in the crowd, and they play this crucial economic role.
(22:04):
So if we go to the National Park Service, we
learned that in seventeen thirty six, our buddy Tom gets
in trouble. Pennsylvanian authorities accuse him of murder and his
house is set on fire. He gets arrested, and the
government of Maryland runs and tells the king and they say,
(22:26):
King George, things are getting nasty. We need you to
intervene as the monarch, as the ruler of the colonies
in name at least, and you need to settle this
boundary dispute. The colonies didn't officially declare war on each other,
but they kept beefing. They were still beefed up around
the border.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Also, I'm pretty sure this is the King George who
died on the toilet.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, ty hey, teaser for an upcoming episode.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
We've done that one already.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
No, I just mean for an upcoming extension of bizarre
and ridiculous royal deaths.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
We hear in that line next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
So, on May twenty fifth of seventeen thirty eight, the
two colonies did get together in peace and love and
harmony and sign a treaty agreeing to a permanent border. Also,
a condition of that treaty was to not quote, permit
or suffer any tumults, riots. I love a good tumult, riots,
(23:25):
or other outrageous disorders to be committed on the borders
of their respective provinces. Guys, can we unpack this real quick?
I think tumbult is also maybe a pronunciation. What is
an outrageous dis Is that like a disturbance in the kitchen?
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Like, what are we talking about here? Yeah? So a
tumult is like a fracas, a brujaha, perhaps a skirmish,
even like a microbattle kind of. This idea was basically
like when the kids fight downstairs and the dad goes
to the top of the stairs and just yells, hey,
(24:00):
calm down down there. Don't make me come down there.
Don't make me come down there. So they settle on
this border that's about fifteen miles south of Philadelphia. And
we're getting this from David Anderson writing for the Baltimore Sun.
And the court made this agreement binding in seventeen fifty
and said, look, the border is going to be positioned
(24:23):
at thirty nine degrees and forty minutes south, so just
a hair under forty the forty degrees that they had
talked about earlier. So seventeen years later, a couple of
other surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, they've been hired
by the Pens, like William Penn's family and the Colverts,
(24:47):
and they made what we call the Mason Dixon line.
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
When I was reading this research brief and doing a
little extra reading on the side as well, I guess
I didn't realize how something we always hear about as
like being this you know, very specific thing has actually
got a lot of weird kind of history in and
of itself, Like there were multiple versions of the Mason
(25:13):
Dixon line and it means different things different people.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Kind of. Yeah, yeah, it started to become pretty crazy.
Let's spend some time on the Mason Dixon line. That's
the best crab cakes north of the Mason Dixon Line.
Let's start comparing stuff to Mason Dixon. We are the
best ridiculous history show south of the Mason Dixon. That's right.
(25:37):
I like the implication that's somewhere in Maine there's another
ridiculous history show right right, which absolutely waxes us. So
these were these were the Mason and Dixon's of of
the Mason Dixon line.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
This is these are these are these new characters have
entered the chat. I've never really thought about who these
individuals were.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And we we think this is an interesting aside. You
may be asking yourself ridiculous historians. Uh, guys, cool story. Sorry,
why are you not talking about Delaware? Isn't this a
two part episode on Delaware? We're getting to that. This
is set up. Hold the phone, hold the wedge. There's
something else on the horn which will make sense later.
(26:13):
I'll go on my wedge. We give We gave ourselves
a weggie with this one, didn't we really did? We
wedged ourselves into a corner. There we go. That is
our way of saying, folks. This is part one of
a two part episode. Going into this, we were all
thinking how interesting could this be? It turns out it's
very interesting. So this is going to be our week.
(26:36):
Thank you so much to our super producer mister Max Williams.
Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Indeed, thanks Chris Frasciotis here in spirit Eves Jeff Goats
roaming the wide world of podcasts and dumb.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Also shout out to A. J.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Bahamas Jacobs, who recently described Saint Louis as the Bahamas
of the Midwest, which he was hanging out. We were
trying to catch up with him in New York, but
a last he was vacationing, sunning him self under the arc.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yes, as ever, a great barbecue there in that part
of the for sure, you check it out. Surprisingly good
jazz if I'm being honest. Thanks of course to Gabeluesya,
Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizzer, and Noel didn't think I'd
say this, but you know, thanks to the state of Maryland,
because this whole conversation has got me. You know, I
got a craving for crabs.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Now, oh yeah yeah, and I think I said a
thing about like, don't they have like some kind of
special crabs.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It's a crab cake. It's a crab care.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They basically invented the crab cake as well, the Maryland
Maryland crab cake. And we'll see you next time, folks.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
(00:27):
Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for tuning in.
The boys are back in town. We're here in Atlanta,
hanging with our super producer, mister Max Williams, and we
are pursuing a couple of things today. A funny thing
happened when two thirds of us were in New York.
We got a chance to hang out with someone who
(00:50):
may show up on the show in the future, our
good friends Slash Mentor the founder of Mental Floss, mister
Mangesh had a cature and we had a awesome time
hanging out at a Russian mob restaurant.
Speaker 2 (01:05):
One of those like old New York places in the
Theater district that you'll pass by a million times and
pay it no mind. With the Big Red Awning established
nineteen eighty six, Mango hiped us to the fact that
it was owned at one point, maybe even still by
the famous Russian ballet dancer Barishnikov.
Speaker 1 (01:22):
Yes, yes, and have those vibes. And I guess we've
introduced two people before we got to ourselves. You're Noel Brown.
I am Ben Boland. That's what they called me in
the States, and speaking of states, when we were hanging
out with Mangesh, going somewhere with this guy, so I
was thinking the same thing, dude. Yeah, Mangesh is one
of the few people we know who is actually from Delaware,
(01:46):
and I think most of us just think of Delaware
with the waynes World joke. Oh I'm in Delaware, right.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
We've talked about it a lot on stuff they don't
want you to know, because it is sort of like
a weird tax haven loophole for corp operations. A lot
of corporations are incorporated there because of I forget the
deeds exactly, but it's something to do with banking laws
there that allow a little more leeway with certain aspects
(02:11):
of being incorporated. Yeah, there are We have talked about this.
You're right, I forgot on stuff they don't want you
to know. In Delaware.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
You'll notice that a lot of the financial and banking
laws are really favorable. And so it's home right now.
It's home to more than sixty percent of our fortune
five hundred companies like Google or Alphabet excuse me, Amazon,
CBS Health, et cetera. And just actually this year there
(02:44):
were another two hundred and fifty thousand businesses that registered
in this pretty small state. One thing Mangesh told us
that was surprising is that there is a somewhat somewhat
of a divide geographically and the southern part of it.
When he was growing up there was still pretty agricultural.
(03:06):
It was like the South, And I think that's baffling
to a lot of us who are from different states.
But it turns out, just like Garth and Wayne, there
are a lot of things we don't know about Delaware, like, no,
it's it's called the first state. I did not know that.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
It's also like the chemical capital of the United States,
the chemical which doesn't seem like the best of accolades.
I would argue, you know, maybe calls into question the
quality of the water or something.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (03:39):
I'm sure they do their best, but also what would
have I guest to say, he said, you know, what's
there to do in Delaware? Go to New York or
Philly or Philly said yeah, he did say that, and
I believe yeah, he had a a is Alma Mater
was home to such a Hollywood luminaries as Judge Reinhold.
Speaker 1 (03:58):
You may remember from the Beverly Hills Cop movies. He's
the straight guy. There was one other name, and there
are a couple there were a couple like notable celebrities
from his high school, and it's it's a very special
place in the US. It's also weird to hear Mangesh
talk that way Elizabeth from leaving Las Vegas. Yeah, and
(04:21):
and then of course our pal Mango, only only one
that matters dust right exactly. It also turns out what
we were talking about, Judge Riinhold is not in fact
a judge. When I was when I was a kid,
I swear to God, I thought it was his actual
title and that he was a judge who also did movies.
And I thought, how does he find the time? No,
(04:44):
that's just his first name. It's a reasonable thing to think. Yeah,
I forgot, Yeah he was.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
He always kind of played the the two square guy.
Even in like fast times at Ridgemont High he was
like the slowest of the fast timers. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1 (05:00):
And with a big shout out to our research associate
for this episode, mister Max Williams, we are going to
explore Delaware because a lot of fellow Americans in the
crowd don't know much about Delaware. So I have, in
the spirit of education and learning together, I have changed
my title in our little recording platform to well Aware
(05:23):
of Delaware. It's aspirational.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
I believe this also counts as are trying to get
one over on Old Sufian Stevens doing every state episode
for Delaware.
Speaker 1 (05:35):
Yes, yes, because clearly recording one episode about each state
is the exact same amount of work as doing an
entire album state.
Speaker 2 (05:44):
Yeah, but you got You gotta appreciate the flex though
with Old Sufian, because he made a big to do
about it. I think it was a pretty good publicity stunt.
He ultimately ended up making two.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
It has been so fuch not on a decade.
Speaker 2 (05:56):
I believe Illinois is probably about ten years old at
this point in Michigan even older.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
And those are both great albums. Yeah, I believe Illinois
has been made into a Broadway musical. Takes a minute
for that to happen. I mean, it's basically already a classic.
You got your back to the future of the musical
and you're Illinois music.
Speaker 3 (06:16):
So what you're saying is our episode about how Indiana
try to change Pie is set to be a motional
length picture.
Speaker 1 (06:22):
Yeah, well, it's turnarounds. It's in talks. It's in talks.
There we go and we believe in you. Swoof John
can't wait for the Delaware album as well as the
Georgia album. Please put us in one of the songs.
So here's the thing. Delaware is very small in comparison
(06:43):
to other US states. It's ninety six miles long, thirty
nine miles wide. It has three counties. That's right.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
We've got your Newcastle, your Kent, and your Sussex, which
all sound suspiciously British.
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Oh I like that you say British. You know, it
reminds me of the sick Tom Martins. So this place has,
according to US News, a GDP of eighty eight billion
dollars year billion billion with a B like then yeah, okay,
(07:17):
and I guess we tease it a little bit. But
that in large part is coming from the chemical industry,
chemical manufacturing. Delaware's economy relies largely on that chemical manufacturer.
Speaker 2 (07:34):
We've got companies like DuPont, for example, that are headquartered there.
At the very least, they're manufacturing headquarters, basis of operations
are there, and it is in fact often referred to
as the chemical capital.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
I'm sorry I got it wrong earlier as said of
the country, it is of the world. Yeah. Yeah. One
of the world's top manufacturing companies plays a big role
in Delaware's history as well, and we have talked about
DuPont in very trans parent and honest terms on stuff
they don't want you to know. Tune into those episodes
(08:06):
while they are still allowed to be out in the world.
This is a different conversation. We're not going to take
a bunch of potshots at Delaware, but we are going
to do a couple of a golf jokes courtesy of Max. So,
(08:26):
what's that old state joke? What did Delaware? When?
Speaker 4 (08:29):
Comes after that?
Speaker 1 (08:30):
It's one of those things for remembering the states on
what did Is that like a humonic I remember what
did Delaware? Boys? What did Delaware? I ask you now,
as a personal friend, what did Delaware? She wore her
new jersey? Boys, she wore her new jersey? I tell
you as a personal friend, she wore her new jersey?
How is this okay? It's like a nursery rhyme. Yeah
(08:53):
did Delaware? So? Uh, here's here's the thing you may
have tuned in. Ridiculous historians and saw that the title
of this episode is the Delaware Wedge. And if you
are a fan of golfing, you might think, oh, Delaware wedge.
It's one of the cool clubs, right. A wedge is
(09:16):
one of the most prevalent clubs that golfers use, and
they'll carry different wedges, just like Hawkeye has different arrows.
That's right. You know he's got you got your bomb arrows,
you got your grappling hook arrows, you got your I
don't know one of the his or fancy do all
kinds of weird stuff. But yeah, no, a wedge. You know,
(09:37):
I'm not a golfer.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
I've never actually played outside of a mini golf situation.
Speaker 1 (09:43):
It's a lot of fun. We love it. We've done
it together. I uh did grow up in Augusta.
Speaker 2 (09:48):
Georgia, which is considered one of the golfing you know
mecha of the world because of the Master's Golf tournament.
I have set foot on the Augusta National a few times.
I just couldn't care less about watching golfing. Person do, however,
quite enjoy golf video games, especially if there's a silly
spin on it.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
There's this game called like what is it called golf theft? Auto?
Is that thing? Is that real? No? I made that up.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
There's a game that's sort of like a classic throwback
e looking game where you're a little dude who has
been sent to hell and in order to get out
of hell, you have to golf your way through all
of these weird obstacle courses and ultimately play golf against
the devil himself.
Speaker 4 (10:31):
But it's really.
Speaker 1 (10:31):
Cute and fun game. It's called Cursed to Golf, I
believe is the name of it. I like how realistic
and grounded it sounds.
Speaker 2 (10:39):
I tell you it's a who and that is most
of the things I've learned about various golf clubs, and
you know, spin and whatnot comes from golf games. But
a wedge is something you might use to, say, get
out of a sand trap. It's typically for a short game.
So it's like, just before you get into the putting territory,
you're gonna rock a wedge because it gives you various
(11:00):
art kind of lengths that you can sort of predict
and control. So there's you know, various powers of wedges, right,
powers of wedges.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Yeah, that sounds like a math thing that it does.
Sound like a math rock album, you know, it's new
metal or something like that. However, record Scratch Max. We
are not talking about golf. We we just shyamalan ourselves
and everybody listening. We're not even talking about the economic development,
development and environment of Delaware. That's totally different story. We
(11:30):
should get to it in the future because it's fascinating.
But what we are talking about is this Delaware Wedge,
a strange little piece of land that for a long
time went back and forth. It was claimed as the
territory of one state, it was governed, administered, administrated by another.
It created it was created by a conflict that didn't
(11:54):
involve Delaware at all. It's just a very strange way
to do a Delaware episode.
Speaker 4 (12:01):
Yeah, to jump in here real quick. I was actually
talking to my aunt Jennifer.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
She lived in Pennsylvania Philadelphia for a number of years,
and I was just like talking to her one day
via text and I was like, oh, yeah, I'm writing
a brief right now about Pennsylvania being just like super extra.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Yeah, shout out William Penn. So we also need to
since this is a geography episode, folks, picture picture our
exploration today like a map. And as we continue deeper
into the territory of this episode, there's a little sign
that says warning, here be math. We're going to get
(12:38):
into geometry, geometrical math, and it'll help illuminate how the
Delaware Wedge came to be. And it starts with a
disagreement between Maryland and Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
That is correct, The Delaware Wedge was, in fact a
land dispute between mary and Pennsylvania. According to Kat Eshner,
writing for Smithsonian, Colonial Maryland Pennsylvania had it harder than
most when it comes to being neighbors. They both had legitimate,
at least in their opinions, its claims to a large
(13:15):
area of land, and there was of course a serious
conflict of interest there a competing interest in that land
that led to something called the Cresaps War, the Cresaps War,
I believe Cresaps might be right, also known as the
Congjocular War, which is a great word. I love jocular,
(13:36):
just that it means kind of like good natured, right,
get and funny, yeah, and so conjocular. It must be
referring to a place which was an eight year conflict
over the city of Philadelphia and its surrounding lands.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
I'm sorry I said that. Like Matt Barry, it just
felt right. So one of the biggest causes of dispute
Ben was, as is often the case, poorly on borders. Oh,
badly rendered maps. Check out also not to constantly be
plugging the other show, but check out also the excellent
(14:11):
in my opinion episode we did for stuff they don't
want you to know on Tara Nullius, h and Y
and things like line of actual control. I couldn't agree more.
You couldn't agree more to stop promoing that show or
then it was an absolute banger of an episode. Oh,
you should get ye to that feed post haste, post
haste forthwith Yeah. The problem with these borders is that
(14:38):
to some degree they're aspirational, and people try to gaslight
each other, or governments try to gaslight each other on
who actually controls what. And Pennsylvania's charter is no different
because its boundaries are if you looked at them from
the modern perspective, you would say, this is real weird?
(15:01):
Is this actual geography? Or you trying to cast the spell?
Like they said, the southern border should be a circle,
drawing a twelve mile distance from Newcastle northward and westward
onto the beginning of the fortieth degree of northern latitude,
then by a straight line westward to the limit of
(15:21):
longitude above mention Like what, I'm sorry, excuse me a
bit here.
Speaker 4 (15:29):
I so, I think you all both know about this project.
Speaker 3 (15:31):
I've been but I've been recently getting Elder Scrolls to
Daggerfall running on my new computer. And you know, it's
a nineteen ninety six game. It's a very different, let's
to say, than what like Uld Troll's five scaum is.
But all the spells read exactly like that, and they
make no sense for Daggerfall, let alone for a map.
Speaker 1 (15:53):
Yeah. Yeah, this is a really weird thing going on here, right,
And I'm sure it is the result of negotiation by committee, right,
which we see in Hollywood blockbusters and stuff. But with
these instructions, which were probably well intentioned, the surveyor of
(16:14):
the colony made a big whoopsie. The fortieth parallel that
they're talking about there is north of Philadelphia, and if
they've followed that, this would have put the famous city
of Philadelphia into Maryland instead of in Pennsylvania. Can you
imagine how angry the roots would be about this?
Speaker 2 (16:35):
I don't think they would have taken two particularly kindly.
So the two colonies start bickering about where the border
actually is, and in seventeen twenty four, the Crown that's
why I'm saying these words like this, this is all
very British. The British Crown told the parties to you
know what, working out amongst yourself, y'all figure it out.
(16:58):
We got other stuff to do, We've got bigger fish
to fry. But of course they continued bickering and did
not find a solution. So despite the Crown's gentle suggestion
that Maryland and Delaware worked things out between themselves, this
did not transpire. Pennsylvania created Lancaster County, which is pronounced
(17:22):
Lancaster and not Lancashire. I believe despite the britishness of
the whole affair, and that clearly aggressively extended well beyond
the southern border as had been claimed by Maryland. We
get a lot of these details from Dan Lewis, who
is a trivia expert. How do you become a trivia
(17:45):
are we were kind of trivia experts, aren't we?
Speaker 1 (17:48):
Yeah? We're trivial trivia EXPERTI aren't We're not like you know,
we're not seriously trivial, we're not credentialed. We have not
gone to the University of trivia program right or at
the University of Pennsylvania's trivia program. Great program they have there.
It's a great school. And so our friends in Maryland
(18:15):
are not going to take this. They're not going to
take this as anything other than an active aggression, and
they've got to fire some shots back. So they put
down their crab long enough to get a guy named
Thomas put down their crab. Maryland loves crab. I love
that as an expression.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
I don't know if you know, there's been my partner,
my girlfriend I call the crab. Yes I thought, I
thought you did. Yeah, day of the Crab. It's in
my phone that way. But so I love this idea of.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
Butt lay down your crab, put down your crabs. So yes,
So I'm just throwing out a huge stereotype of Maryland.
But honestly, if you get a chance to travel to Maryland,
especially by the coast, you gotta try the crab. It
is amazing. They've got their own kind of style of though.
They have like a like a soft shell crab situation
(19:05):
that's almost got like some stuffing kind of in it
where they inside the crab. Yeah, yeah, And so they
put down their crab long enough long enough to contact
a guy named Thomas Cresap. Now he's like a real
estate version of a special agent. He is a land
agent for one of the big blue blood families of Maryland,
(19:28):
the Calvert family. And they say, hey, Tom, we need
you to build a settlement in a strategic location by
the Susquehanna River. And so he does build this settlement
and he starts doing business with the Pennsylvania Dutch community.
And then he says in he taxes they pay go
to the government of Maryland. So he built a trading post.
(19:51):
And what they were trying to do is say, is
like establish a precedent for the fact that the money
moves to Maryland and the local cation of this trading
post will create our borders through practice. Matt Maxidman, do
you have any sense of what it would have felt
like to do business at a trading post? To me?
Speaker 2 (20:10):
In my mind, I picture it as like like one
of a vendor in a role playing game where you're
going to like trade all your goods and the crap
that you've picked up in your travels and exchange it
for coin or other stuff.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
It kind of is because you're you're going to have
the fur trade at this point in time, there's a
lot of bartering for goods and Max I'll throw to
you on this too. Like the advantage of a trading post,
both in the awesome game Civilization, which everyone should play,
and in real life is that it helps It helps
(20:43):
extend your borders, but it also helps supply rural communities
with manufacture goods that would otherwise be unavailable. So you
trade in furs and you get things like machine tools,
machine exactly.
Speaker 4 (20:58):
Yep, right, yeah, I mean, in like modern comparison.
Speaker 3 (21:02):
I was talking to my friend Nicole Garcia, she's she's Navajo,
and she talks about how the trading posts are still
very common on Native reservations.
Speaker 1 (21:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (21:10):
Yeah, she talked about that, and like you know, it's
often where a lot of Native artists tell their stuff.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
It's very complex.
Speaker 3 (21:18):
I would not pretend like She's told me a lot
of positives and negatives about it, especially in this modern
day and times.
Speaker 4 (21:24):
I'm not going to pretend like I fully understand it
at all.
Speaker 3 (21:26):
But yeah, I mean, I think especially in these early
points of time, it's like, oh no, our plow broke
and the one piece we can get we have to
go to this trading post. And it's not like there's
like I mean, I guess there was British currency at
this point in time, but we're talking, you know, the colonies.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
So yeah, exactly like the modern trading post is descended
from these trading posts of old, but they're different endeavors,
make no mistake. And the trading posts that we're talking
about are these they're kind of like planting a flag.
To be honest with you, this is for the vecologists
in the crowd, and they play this crucial economic role.
(22:04):
So if we go to the National Park Service, we
learned that in seventeen thirty six, our buddy Tom gets
in trouble. Pennsylvanian authorities accuse him of murder and his
house is set on fire. He gets arrested, and the
government of Maryland runs and tells the king and they say,
(22:26):
King George, things are getting nasty. We need you to
intervene as the monarch, as the ruler of the colonies
in name at least, and you need to settle this
boundary dispute. The colonies didn't officially declare war on each other,
but they kept beefing. They were still beefed up around
the border.
Speaker 4 (22:45):
Also, I'm pretty sure this is the King George who
died on the toilet.
Speaker 2 (22:48):
Yeah, ty hey, teaser for an upcoming episode.
Speaker 4 (22:52):
We've done that one already.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
No, I just mean for an upcoming extension of bizarre
and ridiculous royal deaths.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
We hear in that line next couple of weeks.
Speaker 2 (23:01):
So, on May twenty fifth of seventeen thirty eight, the
two colonies did get together in peace and love and
harmony and sign a treaty agreeing to a permanent border. Also,
a condition of that treaty was to not quote, permit
or suffer any tumults, riots. I love a good tumult, riots,
(23:25):
or other outrageous disorders to be committed on the borders
of their respective provinces. Guys, can we unpack this real quick?
I think tumbult is also maybe a pronunciation. What is
an outrageous dis Is that like a disturbance in the kitchen?
Speaker 1 (23:40):
Like, what are we talking about here? Yeah? So a
tumult is like a fracas, a brujaha, perhaps a skirmish,
even like a microbattle kind of. This idea was basically
like when the kids fight downstairs and the dad goes
to the top of the stairs and just yells, hey,
(24:00):
calm down down there. Don't make me come down there.
Don't make me come down there. So they settle on
this border that's about fifteen miles south of Philadelphia. And
we're getting this from David Anderson writing for the Baltimore Sun.
And the court made this agreement binding in seventeen fifty
and said, look, the border is going to be positioned
(24:23):
at thirty nine degrees and forty minutes south, so just
a hair under forty the forty degrees that they had
talked about earlier. So seventeen years later, a couple of
other surveyors, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon, they've been hired
by the Pens, like William Penn's family and the Colverts,
(24:47):
and they made what we call the Mason Dixon line.
You know, it's funny.
Speaker 2 (24:53):
When I was reading this research brief and doing a
little extra reading on the side as well, I guess
I didn't realize how something we always hear about as
like being this you know, very specific thing has actually
got a lot of weird kind of history in and
of itself, Like there were multiple versions of the Mason
(25:13):
Dixon line and it means different things different people.
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Kind of. Yeah, yeah, it started to become pretty crazy.
Let's spend some time on the Mason Dixon line. That's
the best crab cakes north of the Mason Dixon Line.
Let's start comparing stuff to Mason Dixon. We are the
best ridiculous history show south of the Mason Dixon. That's right.
(25:37):
I like the implication that's somewhere in Maine there's another
ridiculous history show right right, which absolutely waxes us. So
these were these were the Mason and Dixon's of of
the Mason Dixon line.
Speaker 2 (25:47):
This is these are these are these new characters have
entered the chat. I've never really thought about who these
individuals were.
Speaker 1 (25:53):
And we we think this is an interesting aside. You
may be asking yourself ridiculous historians. Uh, guys, cool story. Sorry,
why are you not talking about Delaware? Isn't this a
two part episode on Delaware? We're getting to that. This
is set up. Hold the phone, hold the wedge. There's
something else on the horn which will make sense later.
(26:13):
I'll go on my wedge. We give We gave ourselves
a weggie with this one, didn't we really did? We
wedged ourselves into a corner. There we go. That is
our way of saying, folks. This is part one of
a two part episode. Going into this, we were all
thinking how interesting could this be? It turns out it's
very interesting. So this is going to be our week.
(26:36):
Thank you so much to our super producer mister Max Williams.
Thanks to Alex Williams who composed this slap and bop.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
Indeed, thanks Chris Frasciotis here in spirit Eves Jeff Goats
roaming the wide world of podcasts and dumb.
Speaker 1 (26:48):
Also shout out to A. J.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Bahamas Jacobs, who recently described Saint Louis as the Bahamas
of the Midwest, which he was hanging out. We were
trying to catch up with him in New York, but
a last he was vacationing, sunning him self under the arc.
Speaker 1 (27:01):
Yes, as ever, a great barbecue there in that part
of the for sure, you check it out. Surprisingly good
jazz if I'm being honest. Thanks of course to Gabeluesya,
Jonathan Strickland aka the Quizzer, and Noel didn't think I'd
say this, but you know, thanks to the state of Maryland,
because this whole conversation has got me. You know, I
got a craving for crabs.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
Now, oh yeah yeah, and I think I said a
thing about like, don't they have like some kind of
special crabs.
Speaker 1 (27:28):
It's a crab cake. It's a crab care.
Speaker 2 (27:31):
They basically invented the crab cake as well, the Maryland
Maryland crab cake. And we'll see you next time, folks.
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