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Nicholas Van Dyke (September 25, 1738 – February 19, 1789) was an AmericanFounding Father, lawyer, and politician fromNew Castle inNew Castle County, Delaware. He served in theDelaware General Assembly, in theContinental Congress, where he signed theArticles of Confederation, and aspresident of Delaware.

Van Dyke was born atBerwick, his family's home inSt. George's Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, near the present location ofDelaware City. He was the son of Nicholas and Rachael Alee Van Dyke, whose father, Andrew Van Dyke, had moved there fromLong Island in New York in 1704. Young Nicholas was educated at home, thenread law inPhiladelphia where he was admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar in 1765.

Van Dyke returned to New Castle where he lived with his family and began a law practice. He married twice, first in 1766 to Elizabeth Nixon who died in 1770, two weeks after the birth of their sonNicholas. After her death he married Charlotte Stanley. They made their home in New Castle and had several more children. They were members ofImmanuel Episcopal Church.

Van Dyke entered political life in 1774 as a member of the Boston Relief Committee in Delaware. He then was a member of the Delaware Constitutional Convention of 1776 and served in the State Council for two years beginning with the 1776–77 session. That same year he was appointed judge of Delaware's Admiralty Court, and on February 22, 1777, he was elected to the Continental Congress to replace John Evans who had declined to serve. He remained in Congress through 1781 and signed the Articles of Confederation for Delaware. For five sessions, from 1778–79 until he became president of Delaware in 1783, he served in the State House and was the speaker in the 1780–81 session.

A few months afterJohn Dickinson resigned as president of Delaware in 1782, theDelaware General Assembly held a special vote to choose a successor to the conservative PresidentJohn Cook. The conservative faction tried to electJohn McKinly, who had been the first president, but thePatriot faction won by electing Van Dyke. He took office February 1, 1783, and served until October 27, 1786.

It was during his tenure as president of Delaware that theAmerican Revolution officially ended with the signing of theTreaty of Paris in September 1783. In an attempt to solve one problem resulting from the war, Van Dyke proposed and carried out a plan to pay Delaware's portion of the war debt. Another difficult unresolved war problem was the fate ofLoyalistCheney Clow. Arrested in 1778, tried for and acquitted oftreason in 1782, he was then charged with the murder of a member of the posse sent to capture him in 1778. Though there was no evidence that Clow actually killed the man, in May 1783 a jury convicted him and sentenced him to death. Unable politically to pardon Clow, but aware that many responsible people, includingCaesar Rodney's brother,Thomas Rodney, believed the man innocent, Van Dyke postponed the execution indefinitely.

Van Dyke returned to the State Senate for single session tenures in 1786–87 and briefly until his death in the 1788–89 session, when he was the speaker.

Van Dyke died atBerwick and was buried there. Later his remains were removed to theImmanuel Episcopal Church Cemetery at New Castle.

His son, alsoNicholas, later represented Delaware in theU.S. House andU.S. Senate. His daughter, Nancy Ann, married Kensey Johns at a 1784 wedding in the Amstel House in New Castle that was attended by GeneralGeorge Washington. Their son,Kensey Johns Jr., would later serve in the U.S. House.

Much of the property surrounding Van Dyke's original homeBerwick was taken in 1829 for theChesapeake & Delaware Canal, but the house remained through theAmerican Civil War. All the remaining lands and home are believed to have been taken when the canal was expanded in 1929. His New Castle home, now known as theAmstel House, still stands on Fourth Street in New Castle and is open to the public.

No known portrait of Nicholas Van Dyke exists.

Elections were held October 1 and members of the General Assembly took office on October 20 or the following weekday. State Legislative Councilmen had a three-year term and State Assemblymen had a one-year term. The whole General Assembly chose the Continental Congressmen for a one-year term and it chose the State President for a three-year term.

• Conrad, Henry C. (1908).History of the State of Delaware. Lancaster, Pennsylvania: Wickersham Company.
• Martin, Roger A. (1984).A History of Delaware Through its Governors. Wilmington, Delaware: McClafferty Press.
• Martin, Roger A. (1995).Memoirs of the Senate. Newark, Delaware: Roger A. Martin.
• Munroe, John A. (2004).The Philadelawareans. Newark, Delaware: University of Delaware Press.ISBN 0-87413-872-8.
• Munroe, John A. (1954).Federalist Delaware 1775–1815. New Brunswick, New Jersey: Rutgers University.
• Scharf, John Thomas (1888).History of Delaware 1609–1888. 2 vols. Philadelphia: L. J. Richards & Co.ISBN 0-87413-493-5.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
• Racino, John W. (1980).Biographical Directory of American and Revolutionary Governors 1607–1789. Westport, CT: Meckler Books.ISBN 0-930466-00-4.
• Wilson, Emerson. (1969).Forgotten Heroes of Delaware. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Deltos Publishing Company.

• Biographical Directory of the United States Congress
• Delaware's Governors
• Nicholas Van Dyke atFind a Grave
• The Political Graveyard
• Delaware Historical Society;website
• University of Delaware;Library website
• Amstel House

• 1738 births
• 1789 deaths
• American people of Dutch descent
• 18th-century American Episcopalians
• People from New Castle, Delaware
• People of Delaware in the American Revolution
• Delaware lawyers
• Delaware Federalists
• Members of the Delaware House of Representatives
• Delaware state senators
• Governors of Delaware
• Continental Congressmen from Delaware
• Signatories of the Articles of Confederation
• Independent state governors of the United States
• Delaware independents
• People from colonial Delaware
• Founding Fathers of the United States

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