Delmarva Back Roads

Matthew Lowber House  How small is Magnolia? The town website says it all: “If your street address is not Walnut Street, Main Street, Thorn Street or Jado Terrace, you are not a town resident.” Magnolia is on land once owned by the Duke of York, who loved magnolia trees, hence the town’s name. I’d read that magnolia trees are planted throughout town, but we noticed only one. According to legend, the town was located a mile from the St. Jones River to escape mosquitoes. It was not formally incorporated until 1885, making it one of the newer towns on the Delaware Bayshore Byway . The local citizens who founded it laid it out in a circle as a sign of brotherhood. Magnolia has three particularly interesting historic sites. One is Matthew Lowber House  pictured above. It’s a Quaker farmhouse that was built around 1774 at the intersection of Main and Walnut Streets. In the early 1980s it was moved to its current location, just north of the firehouse on the east side of North Ma...

Augustine Beach looking south In the 1800s, travel was difficult and expensive. For ordinary people in Philadelphia and Wilmington looking for a summertime getaway, their best option was to take a boat down the Delaware River to a riverside or bayside beach resort (see, for example, my blog posts on Collins Beach  and Woodland Beach ). Many of these resorts had boardwalks, dance halls, and other amusements. Some had hotels.   Augustine Beach, just south of Port Penn , was one of these beach resorts. The Augustine Beach Hotel was built around 1814, which makes it one of the oldest resorts on the river. A hundred bath houses were added in 1867, and the resort was most popular between 1870 and 1920. Vacationers reached it by taking a steamer from Philadelphia or Wilmington.  Augustine Beach Hotel, now Augustine Inn Seafood & Chop House The beach, across the street from the hotel, is very clean and pleasant. Augustine Beach looking north  The view is sadly marre...

  Leipsic waterfront Leipsic is one of our favorite stops on the Delaware Bayshore Byway. If you’re one of the many people who makes a periodic pilgrimage to the legendary Sambo’s crabhouse, take the time to walk around this charming, friendly fishing village.  Fishermen unloading a morning catch Leipsic was a large, important port in the mid-1800s, shipping marsh hay, grain, and produce to Wilmington, Philadelphia, and New York and oysters to oyster shipping centers in Port Norris and Bivalve, New Jersey. Today it’s quieter but still an active fishing and crabbing village. Stacks of crab traps on the Leipsic waterfront Leipsic has several interesting historic buildings that recall its glory days in the 1800s. At the southwest corner of Front and Denny Streets is Sipple House, built between 1880 and 1890 in a mix of Italianate and Second Empire styles. This is the most elaborate Victorian house in Leipsic, built during its final economic boom and a testament to how prosperous ...

  One of the views from the Woodlands Beach Wildlife Area wetlands trail About three miles inland from the shoreline village of Woodland Beach is Tony Florio Woodland Beach Wildlife Area. It has several spots of interest to visitors. The first is the Aquatic Resources Education Center . If you’re traveling south on DE Route 9, turn right on Lighthouse Road, then turn left into the entrance to the Center. Unfortunately, the Center was closed when we visited because of the pandemic. We’re looking forward to seeing its aquariums and educational displays someday. While we were in the Center's parking lot a small plane (cropduster?) repeatedly flew very close to the ground just north of us. Shades of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest!  A second point of interest in Woodland Beach Wildlife Area is a short trail between the Aquatic Resources Education Center and Route 9 that has a number of wayfinding signs on the history of the area, including Collins Beach  and the village ...

 One of our favorite stops so far on the Delaware Bayshore Byway has been the little town of Woodland Beach, east of Smyrna.   In the late 1800s and early 1900s, Woodland Beach was an elaborate resort. A wayfinding sign in Woodland Beach Wildlife Area explains that guests reached the resort by train or the double-paddled steamship Thomas Clyde, which ran from Philadelphia—a three-hour trip. At its peak, the resort included a hotel, 50 cottages, a dance pavilion with orchestra, a bowling alley, and facilities for swimming, boating, fishing, and hunting. Woodland Beach resort, with the hotel on the left and the steamboat Thomas Clyde in front, from a wayfinding sign at Woodland Beach Wildlife Management Area There were amusement park rides, too, including a merry-go-round and something called a razzle dazzle. The razzle dazzle was a large ring suspended by wires from a central pole. Patrons sat on the ring, and staff pushed the ring to rotate it around the pole and also push...