W3R-related Parks and Museums in Delaware   

More Information on Many W3R-related Sites 

There are two ways to use this information:
1) You may refer to the map to find the name of an item and look it up below.
2) You may Look the item up below and find its location on the map from the item's map cell letter (EW rows stacked from N to S) and sequence number within that cell (A5, etc):

[*** THE MAP IS NOT YET DONE ***]
Draw NS lines at 0.1* EW intervals on a Street Atlas map of DE from 75.3*W to 75.8*W
Add EW lines at 0.1* NS intervals from 39.5*N to 39.9*N
Copy into Powerpoint and add 75% transparent letters A to T over them (upper left to lower right)

-- Christiana DE [N 39-39.915; W 075-39.547]
To get here follow signs from I-95 near the Christiana Mall into town. This town has several buildings dating to the Revolution, but no museum or interpretive signs. Down Main St. to the left 0.1 miles is the Christina River (with one less "a" than the name of the town), where many tons of goods were taken off boats for overland shipment to Elkton MD and boat transportation from there to Baltimore and other ports. In Sept 1781 half of the U.S. Continentals and all the U.S. artillery in General Washington's army was shipped by boat from Trenton NJ to Christiana DE.

-- Cooch's Bridge [N 39-38.450; W 075-44.159]

-- The Delaware Historical Society often has exhibits related to the American Revolution, and it is located in has a collection of colonial buildings called Willingtown Square.

-- DuPont Gunpowder Works [see Hagley Museum]

-- Greenbank Mill Flour Grist Mill

-- Hagley Library contains the archived records of many local industries dating back to the American Revolution.

-- Hagley Museum is a museum of post-colonial industry in the area, including the gunpowder mills that were the foundation of the DuPont Company. Elutheriam Mills -- the first du Pont home in the U.S. -- has gardens designed in the old French style. Take Pennsylvania Ave north from Wilmington, then Rt 100 a short way to Rt 141 and east (right) 0.3 miles.

-- The Hale-Byrnes House is the home in which on 1777 September 06 General Washington had a meeting with his general staff to detemine how to respond to the British army's move from the Elkton (MD) and Newark (DE) area north-west to Kennet Square PA. One of the attendees was Gen. Lafayette, and this was his 20th birthday. The house is directly on the W3R route and has a W3R plaque indicating it was there during the 1781 march.

-- Kalmar Nykel is a reconstructed historic ship from 1600s

-- New Castle was founded in 1600s. The center of town is an historical district with cobbled streets lined with colonial and federal period homes, including the colonial capitol of Delaware.
..... Immanuel Episcopal is surrounded by a churchyard whose wall bears a plaque listing dozens of Revolutionary War patriots, some of which were Huguenots -- French Protestants who were persecuted in the 1600s. Many fled to other nations in Europe and America.
..... The George Read II House, is operated by the Delaware Historical Society. It was built after the Revolution by the son of George Reed (Signer of the Declaration of Independence).

-- Old Swedes Church wall has a plaque noting dozens of Revolutionary War graves, including Dr. Capelle, who came here with Lauzun's Legion in 1782.

-- Pencader Area Heritage Museum [N 39-38.408; W 075-43.834]   has excellent and interesting portraits, descriptions, maps, and artifacts or replicas of people, events and items from the American Revolution. It is open 10:00 AM to 4:00PM on the 1st and 3rd Saturdays.
Directions: Rt 7 turns east (left) at the center of Christiana. The road that continues straight (south) is called Old Baltimore Pike. After 3.9 miles you might take a side-trip left for 0.2 miles on Sunset Lake Road

-- The Robinson House was the home of Colonel Thomas Robinson, who served in a Pennsylvania Continental Regiment and was wounded at the Battle of the Brandywine on 1777 September 11. Visitors to the house during the Revolution included George Washington, Lighthorse Harry Lee, "Mad" Anthony Wayne (who married Robinson's sister), and Lafayette. The house is directly on the W3R route and has a W3R plaque indicating it was there during the 1781 march.

-- The Van Dyke House in New Castle was the site where Dorcas Van Dyke and Nicholas DuPont were married in 1824. General Lafayette attended the marriage during his tour of the United States forty years after the end of the American Revolution. The house is not on the W3R route, but it has a W3R plaque to commemorate the U.S-French alliance and the consequent exchange of people, commerce, and culture during the early years of the United States.

-- Winterthur Museum has an "Elegant Entertaining Tour" which presents their world-renouned collection of early American home furnishings, with dozens of rooms taken from colonial and federal era homes. It is out Pennsylvania Ave (Rt 52), five miles north from I-95.

Flour Mills along the Brandywine River 

Quaker miller Joseph Tatnall has been called Delaware's first great industrialist. As early as 1774 his mills along the Brandywine River in Wilmington had a thriving trade with merchants in the West Indies. After the Battle of the Brandywine (on September 11, 1777) he became the chief supplier of flour for the Continental Army. Tatnall's support of the Continental forces led to his lifelong friendship with Generals George Washington, Lafayette, and Anthony Wayne.

In mid-1781 Generals Washington and Rochambeau led the allied armies of the United States and France in an unusually rapid march from White Plains, New York, to Yorktown, Virginia, so as to trap a British army under General Cornwallis.

American and French supply officers went south several days before the main divisions of troops in order to advertize for and to buy stores of food for the troops along the line of march. On August 24, 1781, French guineas (seven of them) first appeared James Lea's account book in Brandywine Village to pay for corn meal supplied by a William Brown. The entry adds, "44 bushels left. I am to sell to French Army. The cash to be paid to Samuel Baker in Second Street."

Several families of millers from the surrounding area -- the Marshalls, the Tatnalls and the Leas -- became very prosperous from supplying the armies with flour. After the Revolution they built beautiful stone houses on Market Street in the area now known as Brandywine Village. Dr. James Thatcher, a prominent local physician, wrote that Brandywine Village had "eight very large and valuable stone mills where an immense quantity of wheat is ground and bolted [bagged]. The wheat is brought in vessels to the very door, and the flour taken off in return."

Brandywine Village was one of the most important eigteenth-century milling centers in the Mid-Atlantic colonies. Today there remains a block of Brandywine blue rock and many elegant 18th-century houses made of brick and stone. For walking tour information contact Greater Brandywine Village at (302)-571-9050.

-- Old Swedes Church was built in the 1600s. Many Revolutionary War patriots are buried here, including Dr. Jean Eugene Phillipe Capelle, a surgeon who came with Rochambeau's troops and -- like about sixty others of Lauzun's Legion -- remained in Delaware instead of returning to France. From I-95 going either north or south, go east 1.0 miles on Martin Luther King Blvd. From the lower end of Market St. go east (left) 0.5 miles on Martin Luther King Blvd. Then go left (north) 0.25 miles on Church St.

-- Blocking the British Invasion in 1777: Follow the route of the Continental Army in August 1777 as it marched from Pennsylvania south along Philadelphia Pike, Market St, and Maryland Ave and fortified the banks of the Red Clay Creek (west of Newport Gap Pike). This blocked the shortest path to Philadelphia from the British invasion force's landing site in Elkton MD. Visit the Hale-Byrnes House off Rts 4 and 7 in Stanton (1.1 m south of where Rts 4 and 7 meet in Stanton, 0.2 m north of where Rts 4 and 7 separate going south). Here Washington and his senior staff considered alternate plans for responding to possible movements of the invading army.

-- General Washington established the first multi-state regiment of 1,000 soldiers (including 300 troops from the Delaware militia) and sent it west from Christiana on Old Baltimore Pike to harass a 9,000-man advancing British column in the Battle of Cooch's Bridge on 1777 Sept 3. The monument to that battle (surrounded by four cannon) is on Old Baltimore Pike 0.4 miles west of Rt 72 and 0.5 m east of Rt 896. You can park on a solid shoulder a hundred yards west of the monument, but traffic makes it hard to walk safely to the monument. The Cooch home is private property.

-- When the British marched north from Newark up Paper Mill Road (Rt 72) and Limestone Road (Rt 7) and Kaolin Road to Kennett Square PA Washington moved his army north up Rt 100 to Chadds Ford. The main armies finally clashed at the Battle of the Brandywine on Sept 11. Visit the Brandywine Battlefield in Pennsylvania. Soon after that British took over the ports of Wilmington and Christiana without a fight.

-- The Chesapeake Bay Water Trail  National Historic Trail is part of the Chesapeake Bay Gateways Network, which includes 150 parks, wildlife refuges, museums, sailing ships, historic communities, trails and more.
www.baygateways.net/

Lodging in the Northern Delaware 

Lodging near Wilmington from the Greater Wilmington Convention and Visitors Bureau

Wilmington: The Starwood Sheraton Suites often offers weekend tour packages in conjunction with local historical sites.

Christiana: The Christiana Hilton often offers weekend tour packages in conjunction with local historical sites. /td>

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