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About Ocean View, DE

Until the late 17th century, European settlers bypassed the area where Ocean View now lies because of the poor quality of its sandy, salty soil and the salt air that blew in from the Atlantic Ocean; they preferred to settle a few miles farther inland, where the land was higher and drier and the soil richer. Would-be settlers also faced a legal complication in obtaining land in what is now Ocean View, because Lord Baltimore claimed the area as part of his Maryland colony, while William Penn asserted that the area belonged to the Delaware Colony; settlers opted to look elsewhere for land to which they could receive clear title from an undisputed authority. Ocean View traces it origins to 1688, when Lord Baltimore gave a 500-acre (200-hectare) tract of land in what is now Ocean View to its first settler, Matthew Scarborough. Scarborough named his land "Middlesex," and the land became known as Middlesex Plantation. Although the dispute over control of the land eventually was decided in favor of Penn and the land became part of Delaware, Delaware authorities confirmed Scarborough's title to the land as granted by Lord Baltimore.