Hundreds are subdivisions of land and population, made for purposes of judicial
administration and taxation. The division dates back to the
Anglo-Saxon period in England, and was brought to the American continent by William Penn
during colonial times. This system still survives today as semi-official
subdivisions in the state of
Delaware.
Under Anglo-Saxon law and society, the land and their people were
divided into parcels of various sizes, administrated and taxed by people
of corresponding stature. These divisions were
codified during the reign of King Edgar, around
the year 975 C.E., in the Law of the Hundred. The smallest
subdivision was the individual "freeholder" family -- a single married man,
and his dependents. Ten of these families were then combined into a
tithing, presided over by a tithingman, and ten tithings
made up a hundred. Thus a hundred is essentially a hundred freeholder
families. In England, these hundreds were grouped into a shire, overseen
by a shire reeve (sheriff), and the shire reeves were finally
overseen by the King. Hundred courts met once a month to deal with
judicial matters on the local level, and each hundred was led by an eolder (elder),
a single man responsible for the administration and military organization of
the hundred. (Aside: analogous to the English Hundred was the
Wapentake -- a subdivision of land used in the North of
England, specifically in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire, and
Nottinghamshire. See wapentake for the details.)
When William Penn established his colony of Penn's Woods
in October of 1682, he adapted this division of counties and
hundreds, at least in the lower portion of his colony on the Delmarva
peninsula. Originally, there were nine hundreds spread throughout
Delaware, though there was more than one county. The original
hundreds were:
Appoquinimink, Brandywine, Christiana, Duck Creek,
Mispillion, Motherkill, New Castle, St. Georges, and St. Jones. Over time,
as the colony grew in population, more hundreds were added and land within existing hundreds was split and shifted from one to another.
The Hundreds are still recognized in the State of Delaware, though these
subdivisions are mostly traditional now, and all governmental matters within
the state are conducted on the municipal, county, and state level. I
believe they are mainly used now as property tax and public school district
boundaries. (Note for our British friends: public schools here are
the government-run schools, not the private ones.) Hundreds
also existed in the state of Maryland as election units until 1800, but the first national census led to
the creation of "Election Districts" which superseded them.
Similar divisions apparently existed in Virginia, West
Virginia, and perhaps the Carolinas, but only a few exist
in name today.
The Hundreds of the State of Delaware are as follows (by county, north to
south):
New Castle County:
Kent County:
- Duck Creek
- Kenton
- Little Creek
- West Dover
- East Dover
- North Murderkill
- South Murderkill
- Milford
- Mispillion
Sussex County:
Sources:
The Delaware Genealogical Society (http://delgensoc.org/delhund.html)
Delaware: Small Wonder, State of Delaware and Harry Abrams Inc., New York (1984)
http://www.rootsweb.com/~mdcaroli/Hundreds.html
http://www.rootsweb.com/~vapittsy/
http://cchistory.org/elecdist.html
http://www.regia.org/law.htm
http://www.uta.edu/english/tim/courses/4301f98/oct12.html
Thanks to Gorgonzola for noting the existence of hundreds
outside of Delaware.