Saint Georges: A Town Hurt Rather Than Helped by Water

 

Robinson House in Saint Georges

Saint Georges is not a stop on the Delaware Bayshore Byway. That’s partly because it’s about 4 miles inland from the Byway (west of Delaware City) and partly because, unlike other towns on and near the Byway, it never made its living from the water. Water is one of the major themes of the Delaware Bayshore Byway. But there’s a lot of interesting history here, so it’s worth a detour.

Today Saint Georges edges the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, but it was founded long before the canal was built, around 1740. It was a good location for a village for two reasons. First, it was at the head of St. Georges Creek (which later became part of the C&D Canal). A mill and dam were built here. Second, it was on Delaware’s main north-south road—what was then called a King’s Highway and what’s now Dupont Highway (DE 13). Saint Georges was a good place for travelers on the highway to stop. Today you can still see at least two buildings that served travelers in those days.

Robinson House at 213 Main Street, pictured above, was built in the 1750s. It was a store, inn and stagecoach stop through the 1830s. The Steamboat Hotel at 102 North Main Street, pictured below, was built in the 1760s. In those days, the King’s Highway ran though Saint Georges on Main Street, so both the Robinson House and Steamboat Hotel were in great locations to serve travelers.

Steamboat Hotel in Saint Georges

By the early 1800s Saint Georges was a true village of homes on small lots, and the town was incorporated in 1825. One of the most impressive houses built during this period was Nuthall-Sutton House, also known as Sutton House, at 10 Delaware Street. The front section of the house, on Delaware Street, was built in 1815.

Nuthall-Sutton House in Saint Georges

The front walk has a stepping stone commemorating the owner. (I have no idea who Kilgore is!)

Stepping stone in front of Nuthall-Sutton House

The section behind the front section of Nuthall-Sutton House was originally the much smaller Nuthall House, built in the 1790s. 

Side view of Nuthall-Sutton House, with the original Nuthall House on the right

The trim under the roof eaves on the left was added in the late 1800s to modernize the house with the latest Victorian style. Updating houses in the late 1800s with trim or additions in the latest fashions was popular in towns in this region, as I mention in my post on Leipsic.

The Nuthall-Sutton House stable, now a garage, can be seen from Broad Street.

Stable of the Nuthall-Sutton House in Saint Georges

Saint Georges was hurt more than helped when the C&D Canal opened in 1829. The canal split the town in two: North Saint Georges and South Saint Georges. Initially a wooden swing bridge was built across the canal to connect North and South Saint Georges. (The bridge was built on a pillar in the middle of the canal. It swung 90 degrees to let ships pass.) As the canal was widened, South Saint Georges land was gradually lost to the canal. Today South Saint Georges is largely gone, and many references to North Saint Georges call it simply “Saint Georges.”

What's left of South Saint Georges, as seen from the north side of the canal

Several interesting buildings from the mid to late 1800s remain in North Saint Georges. Because the historic district is basically two square blocks, I’m listing them in chronological order rather than the order you’d see them on a walking tour.

Saint Georges Presbyterian Church, on North Main Street at Church Street, was built in the mid-1840s. The front looks vaguely like a Greek temple, That's because the building's style is Greek Revival, which was popular at the time.

Saint Georges Presbyterian Church

The Methodist Episcopal Church at 109 Broad Street was built a few years later, in the early 1850s. Imagine the building without the steeple, which was added in the 1970s, and you can see that it looks even more like a Greek temple than the Presbyterian Church—its style is also Greek Revival.  

Saint Georges Methodist Episcopal Church

Gam’s Store, now Saint Georges Country Store, is at the corner of Delaware and North Main Streets. It was built around 1855.

Gam's Store in Saint Georges

At the back of the store is a wing on a stone foundation. This may have been the original mill house from the 1700s.

Rear of Gam's Store in Saint Georges

Across Main Street from the Presbyterian Church is Susan Sutton House at 117 North Main Street. It was built around 1860 in a style called Carpenter Gothic. Gothic houses have steeply pointed roofs and windows. Carpenter Gothic houses are made of wood, with decorative wood trim. Here even the roof is decorative, with the shingles a “fish scale” style.

Susan Sutton House in Saint Georges

Joseph S. Reynolds House at 108 North Main Street was built around 1863. It’s unusual for a Second Empire house to have wooden roof shingles rather than slate. Usually houses in this elaborate style were built by people who could afford slate roofs.

Joseph Reynolds House in Saint Georges

On Delaware Street at the edge of town is Ethel S. Roy House, built around 1868. What makes this fairly nondescript house special is that it was built by a former slave. Not many such houses survive today. 

Ethel S. Roy House in Saint Georges

At the corner of Delaware and Main Streets is the Odd Fellows Lodge. Built in 1875, it’s another Second Empire, this one with flower patterns in the roof shingles.

Odd Fellows Lodge in Saint Georges

Saint Georges has two interesting buildings from the early 20^th century. One is the post office at 201 Broad Street, built in 1925. According to the Saint Georges application to become a National Historic District, it was originally a school for African American children.

Saint Georges Post Office

Contrast this modest building with the school built for white children two years earlier, in 1923. Commodore MacDonough School, on Main Street on the northern outskirts of town, is a striking example of Classical Revival architecture.

Entrance to Commodore MacDonough School in Saint Georges

In 1958, the baby boom led to an addition to the school. The addition is in International Style, characterized by long horizontal lines. Here the windows create the long lines; they’re called ribbon windows. What’s especially striking is that these two very different styles were connected in a way that blends them together.

Commodore MacDonough School addition on left and original building on right

As Saint Georges evolved, so did the bridge crossing the C&D Canal. As the canal became larger and north-south road traffic increased, the bridge was repeatedly replaced. By the early 20^th century, the bridge crossing the canal was a mechanical lift bridge: one whose center section could be raised so ships could pass underneath.

By 1930, the Dupont Highway split as it entered Saint Georges, with northbound traffic going up Broad Street and southbound traffic going down Main Street.

As you can see from the 1930 aerial shot, Saint Georges never evolved beyond a small, mostly residential village. It was never a canal port--I guess because the canal wasn't wide enough to accommodate docks.

Tragedy struck Saint Georges on January 10, 1939, when a freighter struck the lift bridge, destroying it. In the photo below, you can see the towers bent beyond repair.

This was one of many ship-bridge accidents on the canal during the 1920s and 1930s. The Federal government therefore decided to replace the Saint Georges bridge with one so long and tall that ships couldn’t hit it. This meant relocating the new bridge and Dupont Highway a few hundred feet to the west, a short distance but enough to bypass Saint Georges altogether. The new bridge opened in 1941 and is still used today.

Saint Georges bridge over the C&D Canal

The new bridge was the death knell of the village. Incorporated towns and villages, no matter how small, need governments and the resources to fund them. In 1940 the town asked the state to repeal its charter. A short article in the August 9, 1940, Mt. Adams Sun explains:

“St. Georges, a prosperous town straddling the Delaware and Chesapeake canal a year ago, has asked the state to repeal its charter.

“A runaway freighter ruined the community’s tourist trade and cut the town itself in two last January when it wrecked a bridge over the waterway. The DuPont highway, which ran over the structure, was detoured far from St. Georges.

“The federal government has announced that it will build another bridge, but local residents see little hope, as the new structure will be a skyway and will not touch the community.

“Actually, a town no longer exists, so we do not propose to continue the expense of running one,’ an alderman commented.”

(The newspaper running this story was published in Washington State and, no, I have no idea why it ran this article!)

I was struck that today Saint Georges has turned its back to the canal. Virtually no houses, shops, or restaurants face the canal to enjoy the view. I couldn’t even find a path that lets walkers and bikers on the Mike Castle trail access the center of town. (There’s a path to a parking lot on the other side of the bridge, but you’d have to walk up to Commodore MacDonough School then back to get into town.)

Mike Castle trail passing Saint Georges

Outside Saint Georges are a few more interesting buildings. Less than half a mile north of Commodore MacDonough School is Linden Hill.

Linden Hill north of Saint Georges

It was built around 1835-1836 for Anthony Higgins, a son of the owner of Fairview near Delaware City. It was one of the most prosperous plantations in this area. Its style is Classical Revival, a transition from the Federal style popular in the early 1800s to the Greek Revival style that would soon sweep the country.

About a mile west of Saint Georges, on the north side of Kirkwood St. Georges Road, is the Saint Georges Cemetery Caretaker’s House.

Saint Georges Cemetary Caretaker's House

It was built around 1871 in Gothic Revival style. Notice the tall, narrow windows and the wood trim under the peak of the roof.

About a third of a mile further west on Kirkwood St. Georges Road, on the south side, is a building known as McCoy House, Au Claire School or the Gingerbread House.

McCoy House west of Saint Georges

It was built in the 1890s by John McCoy, who studied in Germany and made a fortune by inventing a patent medicine. He retired here and focused on horse breeding and racing—he even built a public race track next to the house.

McCoy House is certainly one of the most unusual houses in Delaware. It doesn’t follow any architectural style of that time. Some think McCoy was influenced by architecture he saw in Germany and call it Germanic; others see influences of the new Arts & Crafts movement; others simply call it gingerbread.

John McCoy didn’t enjoy his house or the racetrack long. Shortly after it was finished, he left his wife and children and moved to Pennsylvania, where he continued to practice medicine into the 1920s. I would love to know the rest of his story!