New Castle Secrets
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| Amstel House garden at 2 East 4th Street |
In my first two blog posts on New Castle (here and here), I covered much of what visitors see when they visit. In this post, I’m sharing what I’m calling secret New Castle—not exactly secrets, but sights, legends, and bits of history that visitors often miss.
New Castle began with the construction of Fort Casimir in 1651. The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in the New Castle area, building Fort Casimir in 1651—mostly to annoy the Swedes, who had just built Fort Christina upriver at what’s now Wilmington. Fort Casimir is long gone, but you can see the site and a wayfinding sign in the park at the river end of Chestnut Street. Towns often crop up next to forts, because forts provide jobs and protection. That’s what happened in New Castle. One of New Castle’s legends is that the town was laid out by Peter Stuyvesant, Director-General of the Dutch colonies.
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| Fort Casimir marker at the corner of E 2nd Street and Chestnut Street |
William Penn may have spent his first night on American soil in New Castle. We know that William Penn first set foot on American soil in New Castle. There’s a legend that he may have spent his first night in the house at 206 Delaware Street.
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| 206 Delaware Street, soon to be the Mercury Cafe & Tea Room and where William Penn may have spent his first night on American soil |
William Penn created a trust that still benefits New Castle citizens today. Penn set aside 1000 acres of “common” land (roughly where New Castle airport is today) for all New Castle residents to use for things such as pasturing livestock and cutting firewood. He appointed trustees to manage the land. The Trustees of the New Castle Common still exist today.
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| Sign between East 2nd Street and Market Street |
Over the centuries the Trustees have sold much of the original Common land and invested elsewhere. They have used the income from their investments in a variety of ways to benefit New Castle residents. A few examples include college scholarships and construction of the New Castle Library, Goodwill Fire Company building, and the riverfront path in Battery Park. While the Trustees of the New Castle Common is a private organization, its trustees are elected by New Castle residents…and, yes, that’s confusing! The trustees continue to be paid as Penn stipulated, with one ear of corn every year.
Caesar Rodney may have changed horses in New Castle during his famous ride. Caesar Rodney is famous for riding from Dover to Philadelphia to break a tie between Delaware’s other two representatives to the Continental Congress on the vote for independence. Without Rodney’s vote, the Continental Congress's vote for independence may have failed.
There are
legends that Rodney made this ride through a thunderstorm. There’s also a
legend that the building at 114-118 East 3rd Street was a stable at
the time, and Rodney changed horses there.
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| 114-118 East 3rd Street, where Caesar Rodney may have changed horses during his famous ride |
New Castle has one of America’s first takeout windows. It’s at the Rising Sun Tavern at 118 Harmony Street.
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| Rising Sun Tavern at 118 Harmony Street |
The Rising Sun Tavern was built in 1773 (we now know the date on its sign is wrong). I’ve heard two stories about why the tavern has a take-out window. It may have served customers who were either too dirty or (my favorite) too drunk to be served inside. Whichever reason is true, it says a lot about life in New Castle in the 1700s!
Those contraptions you see on many second-floor windows are called busybodies.
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| Two houses along the Strand wsith busybodies attached to second floor windowframes |
Benjamin Franklin saw busybodies when he visited France. He was intrigued by them and introduced them in the United States. They’re mirrors. If you’re on the second floor and someone knocks at the front door, a busybody lets you see who it is and decide whether to answer the door!
Those granite structures in the Delaware River are called ice piers.
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| Ice piers in the Delaware Driver |
The ice piers were built over several decades by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, starting in the late 1700s. Their purpose was to keep the busy New Castle piers navigable in wintertime. I’ve heard different stories on how they were supposed to work. One theory is that the ice piers would somehow divert ice away from New Castle piers. Another is that the ice piers would keep the river from freezing by keeping water moving around them (the same way a waterfall doesn’t freeze).
The ice piers are basically wooden boxes filled with stones and topped with granite blocks. The wood is now collapsing, and therefore so are some of the granite blocks. The ice piers are still the property of the Federal government, and there are no plans to restore them.
New Castle was once a lot hillier than it is today. In 1804 the city hired architect Benjamin Latrobe to survey the city and develop a city plan. Latrobe recommended leveling the streets to improve drainage. This left some buildings like the Dutch House below street level, while others, such as the Court House, above street level.
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| The Dutch House door now sits below street level |
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| The Court House now sits above street level |
At the corner of Delaware and Market Streets, you can see some grooves in the top of the Court House plaza’s retaining wall.
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| Grooves at the edge of the Court House's retaining wall |
Shad fishing was once a big business here, and there are tales that shad fishermen used to gather here to gossip…and sharpen their knives on the stone.
The mysterious Tile House once brought a touch of medieval Amsterdam to New Castle. The Tile House, once at 54 The Strand, is a long-demolished building that continues to fascinate local historians.
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| A drawing of the "Old Tyle House" from Delaware Archives |
We know that generations of people loved this building with its steep “stepped” front gable. But what fascinates historians is how little we really know about it. We don’t know when it was built—some think the date of 1687 in the “irons” is inaccurate. We’re also not sure why it was called the Tile House. The walls were built of small yellow bricks that may have looked like tiles to local residents, or the building may have had a tile roof. And we don’t know why it was demolished in 1884. It had been vacant for many years and was very dilapidated. But there are reports that dynamite was required to demolish it, suggesting that it was not deteriorated beyond repair. We do know that people mourned its loss, and that got them interested in saving other historic buildings in New Castle.
One of America’s great Gothic Revival mansions is just outside the historic district. Lesley Manor, also known as Lesley-Travers Mansion, Allen Lesley House, and Fox Lodge at Lesley Major, is at 123 West 7th Street. The photo below is from Delaware Today .
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| Lesley Manor from Delaware Today |
Lesley Manor was built in 1855 for Allen Lesley, a Philadelphia surgeon who had roots in this region. Unfortunately the house is surrounded by trees, walls, and other houses, so it’s hard to see Lesley Manor from the street. I found the best glimpse at the intersection of West 7th Street and Deemer Place.
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| Lesley Manor as seen from the corner of West 7th Street and Deemer Place |
Try to get your glimpse of Lesley Manor in winter or early spring, when leaves are off the trees. Please stay off private property.
Work to save New Castle’s historic buildings began in the 1920s and 1930s. In my blog post on New Castle’s essential sights I noted that New Castle was a major East Coast transportation hub in the 1700s and early 1800s. Roads were so poor that people traveled by water as much as possible, so anyone traveling from, say, Philadelphia to Baltimore would take a boat down the Delaware River to New Castle, go overland to the now-vanished town of Frenchtown on the Elk River in Maryland, then continue by boat on the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore. When steam locomotives were invented, the road became one of America’s first railroads.
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| Poster for the New Castle Frenchtown Railroad |
But in just a
few years the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal opened a few miles
downriver from New Castle. Travelers and cargo could now make the whole trip by
water. And soon a railroad line was built directly from Philadelphia to
Wilmington and Baltimore, making it possible to make the whole trip by rail.
New Castle was suddenly no longer a major transportation hub. To make matters
worse, the county seat moved from New Castle to Wilmington in the 1880s. New
Castle stagnated for decades. There was still some industry here, but no one
had the resources to either restore New Castle’s historic buildings or replace
them with modern ones.
Things began to change in 1920, when Philip and Lydia Laird—related by marriage to the Duponts—bought the Read House and began restoring it.
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| Plaque across the Strand from Read House |
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| Mary Wilson Thompson |
While all these restorations were well-intended and did much to save New Castle’s historic buildings, the people guiding these restorations didn’t know as much about historic architecture as we know today. They were also influenced by the Colonial Revival movement, which valued charm over historical accuracy. So some of the alterations made during this time are not historically accurate. For example, a screened porch added to Jefferson House by Philip Laird would never have been part of the original building.
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| Screened porch of Jefferson House at 5 The Strand, added in the 20th century |
But the preservation work done in the 1930s is now so old that it’s of historic interest in its own right.
New Castle has three historic gardens that are open to the public and free to visit. The Amstel House garden is a Colonial Revival garden installed in the 1930s when the Amstel House was restored.
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| Amstel House garden at 2 East 4th Street |
The Amstel House garden was designed by Charles Gillette, a highly regarded landscape architect. The garden is open daily, dawn to dusk. Click here for a self-guided tour.
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| Dutch House garden at 32 East 3rd Street |
The Dutch House garden was designed by Robert Wheelwright, a Philadelphia landscape architect, in 1939 when the Dutch House was being restored. Wheelwright’s design was updated in 1952 by Victorine Homsey, a Wilmington architect. The garden is open daily, dawn to dusk. Click here for a self-guided tour.
The Read House garden at 42 The Strand was installed in 1846 by William Couper, the second owner of the Read House.
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| Read House garden at 42 The Strand |
While the Read House garden’s plants have of course changed over the years, the gardens show the kind of garden that well-to-do people installed in the mid-1800s. You can visit the gardens whenever the Read House is open.
In the 1930s and 1940s, a proposal was created to turn New Castle into another Colonial Williamsburg. The proposal included demolishing 50 buildings built after the early 1800s to create a colonial atmosphere. Fortunately, funds were never found for the project and by the 1950s it died, saving many of the historic buildings we treasure today, including the former Opera House at 310 Delaware Street. You can read more about the project here .
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| New Castle Opera House at 310 Delaware Street |
In the early 20th century, New Castle was an important ferry terminal. The New Castle-Pennsville Ferry took cars and passengers across the Delaware River from 1925 until the Delaware Memorial Bridge opened in 1951. The original ferry terminal was at the end of Delaware Street, but when traffic on Delaware Street got bad, another terminal was built at the end of Chestnut Street, near the site of Fort Casimir. (And this is why the stretch of Route 9 along New Castle is called Ferry Cutoff.)
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| New Castle-Pennsville Ferry Terminal at the end of Chestnut Street |
Deemer’s Beach amusement park was once just south of New Castle. It was on the site of what’s now an industrial park. But there’s still a large beach gives a hint of what the park once was.
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| Deemer's Beach at high tide, now littered with driftwood from 2021's Hurricane Ida |
You can reach the remains of Deemer’s Beach from New Castle by walking the two-mile riverfront path along Battery Park. It’s one of the prettiest walks along the Delaware Bayshore Byway. Today it’s hard to believe that this was once an industrial area. It was converted into a park in the mid-20th century.
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| Battery Park riverfront path near Dobbinsville |
Or you can park in a gravel lot on River Road (DE 9 – the Delaware Bayshore Byway). As you drive south from New Castle, the lot is on your left, just past the River Bend housing development on your right.
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| Entrance to Deemer's Beach parking off River Road |
Be prepared to climb over some rip rap (large rocks) to get from the walking path to the beach. A lot of driftwood and trash washes up on New Castle’s beaches from upstream, especially after storms. So wear shoes or sandals when you visit New Castle’s beaches, and don’t go wading or swimming. Volunteers do clean the beaches a couple of times a year.
New Castle has some delightful alleys that make you feel like you’ve gone back in time. The prettiest one runs between 24 and 26 The Strand to New Castle Presbyterian Church on East 2nd Street.
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| Alley between 24 and 26 The Strand |
Packet’s Alley (spelled in some sources as Packet Alley or Packets Alley) is between 23 and 25 The Strand. It runs down to the river, where there were once wharfs. The building at 25 The Strand was once Boulden’s Store, and a “ghost sign” on the side describes some of the products sold in the store, including Ivory Soap.
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| Packet's Alley between 23 and 25 The Strand |
M&T Bank has a free historical exhibit. New Castle has five museums open to the public:
- Court House Museum at 211 Delaware Street: Get tickets at the Court House
- Read House at 42 The Strand: Get tickets at the Read House entrance on left side
- Amstel House Museum at 2 East 4th Street: Get tickets at the Visitors Center at the Arsenal, 30 Market Street
- Dutch House Museum at 32 East 3rd Street: Get tickets at the Visitors Center at the Arsenal, 30 Market Street
- Old Library Museum at 40 East 3rd Street: Currently closed because of the pandemic but free when it’s open
But there’s another free exhibit in M&T Bank, 210 Delaware Street.
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| Former Gilpin House at 210 Delaware Street, now M&T Bank |
This building was once Gilpin House, a tavern and hotel built in the early 1700s or maybe even earlier. The large bricked-in arch was once a tunnel used by horses and carriages to get to stables in the rear. Today, if you visit the bank during business hours, you can see the well that once served the building and some historic photos.
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| Historic well inside M&T Bank at 210 Delaware Street |
Pay no attention to the numbers on some of New Castle’s buildings.
They’re from long-vanished tours, and the numbers don’t match those on the paper map distributed at the Visitors Center at the Arsenal.
This is a wonderful and informative article. Thank you!
ReplyDeleteThank you, Steven!
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