CHAPTER 373
APPROPRIATION - STATE PARK COMMISSION FOR PROTECTION OF HISTORIC FORT DELAWARE
AN ACT TO APPROPRIATE CERTAIN MONEYS TO THE STATE PARK COMMISSION FOR THE PROTECTION OF HISTORIC FORT DELAWARE FROM VANDALS AND FOR MAKING PEA PATCH ISLAND A STATE PARK.
WHEREAS, historic Fort Delaware on Pea Patch Island in the Delaware River has become the prey of vandals and has been entirely neglected since its return to the State of Delaware by the United States of America; and
WHEREAS, the Fort because of its long history, because of the many volumes written about it, and because it is the only building in Delaware about which so many records exist in libraries and archives throughout the United States; and
WHEREAS, continued negligence may within the next few years render it an irreparable ruin; and
WHEREAS, the Fort and Island should be so maintained that it may eventually be made a shrine to the many members of the Union garrison from many states in the Union and to the many Confederate prisoners of war from every state in the South who died there during the War between the States; and
WHEREAS, in the interim, Pea Patch Island should be a State Park open to the public; NOW, THEREFORE,
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the State of Delaware in General Assembly met:
Section 1. That the officers of the Fort Delaware Society be named as an advisory board to the State Park Commission to make such recommendations for the care and maintenance of the island as they see fit.
Section 2. That the sum of Five Thousand Dollars ($5,000.00) is hereby appropriated to the State Park Commission for each of the next two fiscal years from any moneys in the Treasury of the State of Delaware not otherwise appropriated for the purpose of maintaining a caretaker on the Pea Patch Island to prevent further vandalism and to prepare for making the Island or that portion of it surrounding and including the Fort a State Park.
Approved June 21, 1951.