One of the great features about the program we use for our blog is that it lets us see what search terms people are using. Recently a lot of you have been searching for “the whipping post” so I thought I’d write about it.

There were three whipping posts: one in each county. The Kent County whipping post was located at the east side of the Old State House on the Dover Green, and was relocated to the Morris Correctional Facility in the 1930’s. The one in New Castle was located at the New Castle County Jail then moved to the New Castle County Workhouse. And the one in Sussex County was in Georgetown at the Jail. The last whipping occurred in 1952. Delaware was the last state to abolish the whipping post when it was removed from the Delaware Code in 1972.

Crimes punishable with whipping included breaking and entering, larceny, arson, and wife beating. The number of lashes ranged between 10 to 60 and depended on the era.

We have photographs, newspaper clippings, governor’s files, a general reference file and even a lesson plan regarding the whipping post. Robert Graham Caldwell wrote a book about Delaware’s whipping post called Red Hannah Delaware’s Whipping Post

Why not stop by and see for yourself.