Ocean View, Delaware bypassed the area where Ocean View now lies because of the poor quality of its sandy, salty soil and the salt air that blew in from the Atlantic Ocean; they preferred to settle a few miles farther inland, where the land was higher and drier and the soil richer. Would-be settlers also faced a legal complication in obtaining land in what is now Ocean View, because Lord Baltimore claimed the area as part of his Maryland colony, while William Penn asserted that the area belonged to the Delaware Colony; settlers opted to look elsewhere for land to which they could
In the Penal Colony the Explorer prepares to leave by boat, he repels the efforts of the Soldier and Condemned to come aboard. Frank Zappa, in the liner notes of the Mothers of Invention album "We're Only in It for the Money", recommends reading the short story before listening to the track "The Chrome Plated Megaphone of Destiny." Ian Curtis of the band Joy Division was inspired by "In the Penal Colony" to write the song "Colony" from the album "Closer". The novel "The Shadow of the Torturer", by Gene Wolfe, follows the exploits of a member of a guild of torturers. At one