Blackbird Creek is a 16.9-mile-long (27.2 km) river in northern Delaware in the United States.
It rises in southern New Castle County, in several streams southwest of Blackbird, in the Blackbird State Forest. It flows northeast, in a highly meandering course, flowing into the north end of Delaware Bay approximately 0.25 miles (0.40 km) south of the mouth of the Appoquinimink River and approximately 2 miles (3.2 km) north of Taylors Bridge.
The watershed of the river is largely forested and rural. Near its mouth, it is surrounded by extensive salt marshes, with extensive populations of saltmarsh cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora) and common reed. The lower river upstream from Delaware State Highway 9 is protected as part of the Delaware National Estuarine Research Reserve, along with portions of the lower Appoquinimink.
The damming of this creek was the subject of the 1829 Supreme Court case that gave rise to the theory of the Dormant Commerce Clause.
Famous quotes containing the words blackbird and/or creek:
“Where the blackbird sings the latest,
Where the hawthorn blooms the sweetest,
Where the nestlings chirp and flee,
That’s the way for Billy and me.”
—James Hogg Hoffmann (1770–1835)
“It might be seen by what tenure men held the earth. The smallest stream is mediterranean sea, a smaller ocean creek within the land, where men may steer by their farm bounds and cottage lights. For my own part, but for the geographers, I should hardly have known how large a portion of our globe is water, my life has chiefly passed within so deep a cove. Yet I have sometimes ventured as far as to the mouth of my Snug Harbor.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)