Word Study
blue hen state
CIDE DICTIONARY
blue hen state,
The State of Delaware; -- a popular sobriquet. It is said, though the story lacks proof, to have taken its origin from the insistence of a Delaware Revolutionary captain, named Caldwell, that no cock could be truly game unless the mother was a blue hen, whence Blue Hen's Chickens came to be a nickname for the people of Delaware. [Webster 1913 Suppl.]
For further exploring for "blue hen state" in Webster Dictionary Online