Tuesday, April 08, 2008
Joshua Hopkins Marvil, Governor of Delaware
Joshua Hopkins Marvil, Governor of Delaware died today (April 8th) at his home in Laurel in 1895. He had been in poor health before running for governor and he only served three months of his Governorship before dieing. He was the 56th Governor of Delaware (if we count from 1638 when Peter Minuit was Governor). William Tharp Watson, Speaker of the State Senate, succeeded him and finished his term of office. Governor Marvil was the first Republican Delaware Governor to be elected in 32 years due to the dislike Delawareans had for the actions of the Republican Party during the civil war. He is buried at Laurel Hill cemetery (End of 9th street) in Laurel Delaware.
Joshua H. Marvel claim to fame was not being Governor of Delaware, his fame was in the Peach and Berry Basket making business. He had the largest basket making business in the area. Like today one business in an area will attract additional like businesses to the same area as the trained labor force is available and the technology is known. It was the same for the Marvil Basket Company, several other basket companies started up in Laurel and W L Sirman’s Basket Company and Levin Hastings Basket company started up in Delmar. J. H. Marvel had 16 patents in his name for basket designs. He was also the publisher of Laurel’s first newspaper, the ‘’Gazette’’, which he started in 1889.
I don’t know of any commercial wooden basket making companies left in our area. When I was a child, in the 1950's, my father worked a candy vending route and one of his customers was a basket making company. At times, when not in school, I was allowed to ride with him. The basket company was one of my favorite companies to go to as the smell of fresh sawed and cut wood, the bright colors of the drying strips of wood, and the movement of machinery has always attracted me. The basket company cut the wood into strips, dried the wood, dyed the wood (purple, red, and yellow seems to me to be the main colors), dried it again and than stapled the strips into a 5/8 or bushel basket, they also made berry baskets.
# posted by Howard @ 8:51 AM 
