Delmarva Back Roads

  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.   Fort Casimir marker at the corner of E 2nd Street and Ch...

  New Castle's City Administration Building, built as a bank in 1917 New Castle’s historic district is a National Historic Landmark for two reasons. First, as I shared in my first blog post on New Castle , it played important roles in Delaware and American history. Second, it has a remarkably diverse collection of historical architecture spanning over 300 years.   In my first post on New Castle, I shared a walking tour of some of New Castle’s most important buildings—what I called the essentials for any first-time visitor. In this post I’m doing a deeper dive into some of my favorite New Castle buildings in each architectural style. I’m sharing the buildings in order from oldest to newest style, rather than in the order of a walking tour, so you can see how New Castle architecture evolved. I’m starting with some buildings built before the Revolutionary War. Those buildings are in a style called Georgian, named after King George. One of my favorite Georgian houses in New Ca...