Each family was presumed to have an average of 10 members, including servants. On 25 October 1682, William Penn directed that Delaware be divided into townships occupied by 100 families.
16): The use of hundreds originates from the time when Delaware and Maryland were colonial holdings of Great Britain. In Delaware Genealogical Research Guide fourth edition, (p. Following are selected references relating to hundreds: Supreme Court Opinions and in LexisNexis Academic Universe. Following this, Delaware redrew its boundaries based on population. Supreme Court ruling in a Delaware case disallowed state election districts based solely on geography. The first use of the term Hundred in official records relating to the Delaware colony dates to 1687, when reference is made to "a list of taxables of north side of Duck Creek Hundred." (from the New Castle County court records, Returns of the Constables, as cited in Scharf, p. Penn directed that from this point onward, settlements be divided into sections of 100 families. For Delaware, the origin is cited as a letter written in 1682 by William Penn, the newly-appointed Lord Proprietor of the province of Pennsylvania and the counties on the Delaware. Hundreds were used as a sub-county division in England and were introduced in some of the British colonies. The use of hundreds in America dates back to colonial days. The remaining use of hundreds today is in property tax assessments (tax parcel numbers are assigned by hundreds).
Prior to the 1960s, hundreds were used as voting districts and as units for reporting taxes. The most recent changes to hundreds were in the 1870s when the last two were established: Gumboro in 1873 and Blackbird in 1875. Delaware is the only state which currently uses this division. (Derived from UD Library: ) "Hundreds" is a geographic division, smaller than counties and roughly equivalent to the division "townships" in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.