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AREA HISTORY 5
New Castle County
Peter Stuyvesant founded New Castle in 1651. Because of its strategic location, ownership of the settlement was constantly changing. The flags of the Netherlands, Sweden, and Great Britain have all flown over New Castle. In 1664, King Charles II granted the Duke of York this land. One of the first acts by the Duke was to order removal of all Dutch from the settlement; the name was then changed from New Amstel to New Castle. In 1672, the town of New Castle was incorporated and English law was observed. However, in 1673, the Dutch attacked the territory, reclaiming it.
In 1681, a 12 mile arc was drawn to specifically delineate the northern border of New Castle County, as it currently exists. In 1685, King James II finally established the western border; this was set as a line from Old Cape Henlopen (presently Fenwick) west to the middle of the peninsula and north up to the middle of the peninsula.
Visit: www.nccde.org
Middletown
Middletown was originally a tavern stop about half-way on the old cart road that extends across the peninsula between Appoquinimink Creek in Odessa and Bohemia Landing on the eastern branch of the Bohemia River in Maryland; thus the name, “Middletown.” Oxen pulled carts loaded with produce and materials between the two ports. This was the shortest route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chesapeake Bay before the construction of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
In 1675, Adam Peterson took on warrants for the land, which later became the town of Middletown. After his death his widow married David Witherspoon and they settled upon the crossroads of King’s Highway, known as Mrs. Blackston’s Corner.
Port Penn
Dutch and English settlers arrived in the Port Penn area as early as the 1640s, but it was David Stewart’s vision
of a new city on the Delaware River in the 1750s that resulted in the town’s formal settlement. Stewart saw promise in Port Penn’s location as an excellent harbor. He envisioned the town as a rival to Philadelphia.
Port Penn grew steadily through the early 1800s. The average Port Penners were farm hands, blacksmiths, carpenters, cannery workers, or laborers. They led simple lives and practiced a variety of seasonal activities set in the marshes bordering the town and in the Delaware River beyond. Most Port Penners derived their subsistence from the migratory waterfowl in the fall, shad, and herring runs in the spring, sturgeon fishing in the summer, and muskrat trapping in the winter. Agriculture in the region was prosperous and local farms became leading producers for urban markets. Farmers employed ditchers to build dikes and canals to convert marshland into land for farming and grazing livestock. Wagons loaded with produce lined the streets of Port Penn, delivering their cargo to waiting ships. Port Penn developed into a self-sufficient community oriented toward the water.
Townsend
Townsend, Delaware, known for its broad streets and comfortable homes, is the youngest of the three towns of the Middletown-Odessa-Townsend area. Indeed, before the 1850s the site was merely a cluster of cabins. It was named Charley Town after one of its more important residents.
Samuel Townsend began buying land in the area and
by 1851 Levi W. Lattomus had established a store. Soon the railroad came through and a depot was constructed. When it came time to name the growing village, Samuel Townsend succeeded in having it named after himself, although his opponents favored Lancaster, which is said to have been the name for this tract.
Visit: www.townsend.delaware.gov
New Castle County Courthouse
Middletown was incorporated in 1861. The first town council decided the town should be one square mile, commencing at the corner of the crossroads and extending one-half mile in each direction. Thus it was known as the “Diamond Town of the Diamond State.”
Visit: www.middletownde.org
Odessa
First settled by the Dutch in the 17th-century, Odessa was originally called Appoquinimink, after the creek on which it lies. The first industry in the town was a tannery built in 1767 by William Corbit. A blacksmith shop was opened in 1817 to serve the approximately 30 houses
in the town, and various agricultural, manufacturing, and cannery industries followed. By 1825, the town had grown into a major river port, shipping grain, and farm produce from the surrounding area to ports along the Delaware River.
In 1855, with the completion of the railroad into nearby Middletown, the grain-shipping trade collapsed and
the bustling community began to decline. The citizens voted to change the town’s name to Odessa, after the great Russian grain port, in an attempt to revive their river shipping trade. But Odessa slipped slowly into disrepair and decay. In 1938, H. Rodney Sharp purchased and restored the Corbit-Sharp House, now owned and maintained by the Historic Foundation of Odessa. His efforts sparked an interest in the architectural treasures of Odessa, and marked the beginning of its rebirth as a piece of Delaware history.
Visit: www.odessa.delaware.gov
2019
AREA HISTORY
Historic Middletown
Seth Gaines