Frank R. Zebley papers

Frank R. Zebley was a Delaware native, author, and Speaker in the Delaware House of Representatives in 1938.

He was born in January, 1883 in Wilmington, Delaware, to Lewis Atwood (d. circa 1897) and Katherine Price Zebley (b. 1850). His father was employed at one time as a car builder and manager with the Pullman Palace Car Co. in Wilmington, and worked variously as a carpenter and general laborer for other local companies as well. Frank graduated from Wilmington High School in 1898, after which he found employment as a machinist in the Delaware Machine Works. Sometime between 1906 and 1912 he acquired a degree in mechanical engineering from the International Correspondence Schools in Scranton, PA, and by 1912, the Wilmington City Directory lists Frank Zebley as a contractor and builder.

Frank Zebley was also an active supporter of the Republican party, and generally opposed to New Deal liberalism. He had been a member of the Young Men's Republican Club, and in the 1930s had embarked upon a political career, winning a seat as Speaker in the Delaware House of Representatives in 1938. According to a note in his scrapbook, however, Zebley felt betrayed by his party's leaders (for reasons not divulged), and in 1940 he retired in disgust.

During the 1930s he spent a great deal of his leisure time traveling extensively around Delaware, and wrote several books based on these experiences: Along the Brandywine (1940), and The Churches of Delaware (1947). He died in 1960.

Index (soundex) to the population schedules of the 12th census of the United States, 1900, Delaware. Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Service, 1986?The Wilmington City Directory. Wilmington, DE: s.n.Zebley, Frank R. Along the Brandywine. Wilmington, DE: William M. Cann, 1940.Zebley, Frank R. Churches of Delaware: a history, in brief, of the nearly 900 churches in Delaware as located by the author. Wilmington, DE: s.n., 1947.Historical and biographical information derived from the collection.