John Mc Kinly - President of Delaware

President of Delaware

On February 12, 1777 the General Assembly elected him to be Delaware's first Chief Magistrate or President and he served until he was replaced on September 22, 1777. As President, he was immediately faced with an insurrection by Loyalists, particularly in Sussex County. There was also an immediate need to recruit new soldiers for the Delaware regiment in the Continental Army, as the enlistments of the original regiment had expired. However, events completely overtook him after the major British victory at the Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777. The evening after the battle the 71st Regiment, Frazer's Highlanders, were sent the 10 miles to Wilmington to meet up with the British fleet on the Delaware River and establish a hospital for the wounded. In the course of doing so they found and captured the state treasury, including most of the state papers. They also found President McKinly at home in his bed, and they took him into captivity as well. He was kept as a prisoner of war on the Roebuck, and later on the Solebay, in the Delaware River.

John Scharf in his History of Delaware describes the situation:

"General Howe remained in camp on the Brandywine, and on the evening after the battle sent a detachment of troops to Wilmington to seize President John McKinly and secure such plunder as might fall in their way. They took the President from his bed at dead of night, and seizing a sloop that lay in the stream, loaded it with valuables stolen from the people, a large quantity of public and private money, many of the public and private records and all the papers and certificates of the loan and treasury offices. With these rich prizes the marauders returned to camp, but on the 12th and 13th the town of Wilmington was occupied in force by the British, while the men-of-war Roebuck and Liverpool laid opposite the town. Many of the British wounded had been brought into Wilmington, and the people at least knew that they were safe from bombardment so long as any of their houses were turned into British hospitals."

In an August 20, 1778 letter to Henry Laurens, the President of the Continental Congress, McKinly wrote:

"Several circumstance concurred to render my staying at Wilmington necessary to the public whilst the enemy were moving toward Philadelphia, and being more solicitous to perform my duty, than for my own personal safety, I was unexpectedly made a prisoner in my own house there on the night succeeding the 12th day of September last, by the 71st British Regiment, said to contain at that time of 900 men, who were detached to take possession of that place for the accommodation of such of their Army as were wounded the day preceding, at the Battle of Brandywine. I sustained at this time some heavy losses of private property."

When the British left Philadelphia in June 1778, McKinly was transferred to Flatbush, New York. He was finally paroled in August 1778, having been exchanged for William Franklin, Loyalist Governor of New Jersey, and Benjamin Franklin's son.