Delmarva Back Roads

The main section and right wing of Parson Thorne Mansion in North Milford Milford is the largest town along the Delaware Bayshore Byway, so big that it has not one but three historic districts: North Milford, South Milford, and the shipyards. We explored the shipyard district when we wandered Milford’s Mispillion Riverwalk . We recently returned to explore North Milford Historic District. I quickly realized that, with about 100 historic buildings, North Milford Historic District has far too many interesting buildings to cover in a single blog post. So we focused on just two blocks of NW Front Street, between North Walnut Street and North Church Street. North Milford developed before South Milford, and this was once Milford’s main business district. But a fire in 1891 destroyed many buildings here, so quite a few buildings here are from the late 1800s or early 1900s. Central-New Windsor Hotel at 24 NW Front Street was built in 1892, replacing a hotel built in 1808 that burned in...

Noah Wiltbank Megee House Milton’s story is similar to those of many other towns along the Delaware Bayshore Byway. It was built along a river as a port and eventually a shipbuilding center. What makes Milton different is that its shipbuilding industry persisted into the early 1900s, when steel finally replaced wood as preferred ship construction material. Businesses building wooden ships would of course employ many skilled carpenters, and there’s a legend that the carpenters spent their off time building elaborate Victorian buildings. Whether this legend is true or not, today  Milton has an extraordinary collection of Victorian buildings that make Milton a delight for fans of Victorian architecture. There is so much to see that I’m covering earlier and later buildings in separate blog posts. What is Victorian architecture anyway? Technically it would be any architectural styles popular during the reign of Queen Victoria, from 1837 to 1901. But I think most Americans think of ...