Dover threw me for a loop! I thought there was going to be nothing there and then when I arrived there was so much to do! Unfortunately the only thing I ended up seeing was the state capitol (or legislative hall as they like to call it). It was such a cute place too! They allow you to sit on the house/senate floors while they are in session (the only capitol so far to allow that) and they are very open with how they do things. Everyone has free range to do basically what they want. They do have security at the entrance, but it’s more of a formality. When you walk in they give you a massive pamphlet of things to do in Dover and also the history of the state and the current legislative agenda/biographies and almost any information you want.
It was so cool to hear the history of Delaware! For instance I didn’t know that originally it was part of Pennsylvania given to Penn so that Penn could get to Philadelphia. The three counties of Delaware used to be in Pennsylvania until 1704 when it started forming its own General Assembly which would officially leave Pennsylvania in 1776 to become its own state before the continental congress met. In 1787 it was the first colony to formally ratify the US Constitution. It took them 5 days to vote on it and they voted unanimously to approve it. So cool! Delaware itself apparently was started by Swedes and Dutch (no wonder they were so friendly!). They had pictures of every governor and the tour guide knew the details of almost every governor. Their first 10 governors were called presidents since apparently Delaware didn’t want to use the term governor because it reminded them of the United Kingdom who would appoint governors.
The tour guide was very knowledgeable and also very friendly. She was able to answer any question you provided and would even go further and give you more detailed information on the topic than you had previously asked. It was such a nice experience! Probably one of the best tours I had received throughout the journey. The tour guide also mentioned there was the Johnson Victrola Museum which housed many of the older victrolas . I so wanted to go and see it, but I was behind in the time so I had to keep going unfortunately. Sounds like I’ll definitely need to visit Dover again!