Nanticoke Chapter, NSDAR

Chapter History

On May 21, 1932, a group of ladies met at the home of Elba Wright Wheatley in the town of Hurlock in Dorchester County, Maryland, to organize a chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. They adopted the name Nanticoke for the chapter, naming it after the river that flowed from Sussex County, Delaware, to the Chesapeake Bay which had the same name as one of the tribes of the Native Americans who inhabited the area. The name appealed to the members in that many of their ancestors had made their homes along the shores of the Nanticoke River.  Today, we honor the name of the Native Americans.  

Chapter meetings are rarely held in members’ homes, now.  Instead members  usually meet for lunch at a restaurant or a church hall.  Programs are designed to enhance our members’ knowledge of history as well as other topics of interest to women. We have traveled to the Nanticoke Indian Museum in Millsboro, Delaware, to the Mason-Dixon Line marker between Delmar and Mardela, Maryland, to the home of an American Revolutionary War soldier, to the Nabb Research Center at Salisbury University, and to a member’s historical home outside Annapolis, Maryland. We have had speakers talk about everything from postcards to medicinal plants, from American Revolutionary War weapons to women’s health issues.