Related web sites: NCHS, DHS, Courthouse City

New Castle, Delaware
Community History and Archaeology Program (nc-chap.org)

"A View of The Town of New Castle From The River Delaware, -- Taken the 4th July 1797 -- By Ives le Blanc" Courtesy G. & E. Hargraves



Recent NC CHAP Projects

Google tells me that the most searched for page on NC-CHAP.ORG website is the script for the 2016 performance at the Spirit of Christmas festival of Dickens Christmas Carol. Any historical connection of the play with New Castle, DE is tenuous at best. The parent directory lists other versions, the original longer script by Mike Ferrians and the complete Dickens text from 1843 with highlighting of the lines appearing in the play.


30 The Strand recently sold! This beautiful home, originally built in the 1660's during the Dutch era and rebuilt c1826, housed or hosted royal governors, presidents, 'an angel of mercy', judges and ship captains!

Through New Castle to Freedom -- A Memorial Walk along James Lindsey Smith's Path to Liberation


The Hermitage and the Hermitage Natural Area Once the site of a historic mansion, it now features walking trails, an elementary school outdoor classroom, a native grass and wildflower pollinator meadow and an interesting forest with many "keystone species" important in maintaining our environment.

Some personal perspectives on the History of Fort Casimir and New Amstel. Visits to Amsterdam, Banff (Canada), San Juan (PR), and Cincinati, Ohio provide original 1656 documents and food for thought on our founders vs slavery and outrageous quotes about our early emigrants: "lazy as worms and stupid to boot, artisans who did not know their jobs"

Lectures on New Castle History. PDFs of slides from a series of fourteen lecture in 2015. Hundreds of interesting text slides and >650 supporting images about people, events, war, famine, portraits, pirates, religion, food, architecture, industry, women's dresses ...
Updated 2018 lectures

Rediscovered 1759 Portrait of Slator Clay Jr. of New Castle by John Hesselius was auctioned November 11, 2015.


The Battery(s) in Battery Park -- their purpose: protection against French and Spanish pirates, privateers; French and British warships, probable current location, and funding (via lottery!)




Portraits of the rich and powerful in New Castle (1750-1850).
Portraits of more than 40 people who lived within four blocks of each other, including four signers of the Declaration of Independence (2 from DE, 1 each from NJ & PA), governors, judges, state and U. S. senators, an opium merchant/Consul-General/son of a Signer and a Bishop of Virginia.

Packet Alley
A children's book about New Castle (and history).

Resources: Online official records, laws, histories, census records, births, deaths, marriages, biographies, student theses and papers ...

Annotated Tax records for New Castle, 1776-1826 -- data on wealth, politics and religion! Tax records for the New Castle Constabulary, 1683. An easy to understand tax method.

The State of The Town in the 1890's: Promotional picture booklets produced by the N. C. Board of Trade (1mb) and the Commercial Club -- Ideal New Castle (4 mb).

The Alexander B. Cooper History of New Castle. Written in 1906-1908, this series of articles for the Sunday Star offers vignettes of early New Castle history, and glimpses of life there in the 1800's available nowhere else.

An amazing diagram compressing 247 years of ownership information into a single image.


Areas at risk of flooding in Historic New Castle. Comparison of an elevation map with the flooding that occurred during storms in 2012.


Fifty years ago: New Castle on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post

Lands of New Castle Common -- The Surveys of 1704 and 1894 -- What property did the deed include?  How does it compare to modern holdings of the Trustees?  Are any of the property marker trees still standing that formed the 'metes and bounds' of the survey? Where were the farms and the farmhouses?

Digitization of the Latrobe Survey

Frontispiece

Map

Elevations

Contour maps


Save Our Historic Ice Piers (SoHip)

Archaeology in the Dutch House Garden, summer 2011
-- 20 excavations, 2200 artifacts found
Report(pdf, 2mb)

Stereographs from c1878:
Glimpses of long gone buildings and people (and their styles)

Dikes in New Castle: who built them, when, and why?

The Blaney Survey of 1798 -- the first extant map of New Castle. Prepared to define the town's limits with newly created street names.

Women in Fort Casimir Translated from Kvinnor in Nya Sverige

Vital records from Immanuel Church, 1714-1985: baptisms, marriages, burials (2.7 mb)

Unearthing New Castle's past: UD anthropology students excavate artifacts at the Read House



Take a virtual tour of New Castle's Historic sites:
Interactive 360° Panoramas


New Castle Historic District -- Where it is, what it means and what it doesn't mean

Rea & Price map -- an extensive road system in New Castle County in 1849

What was historic in New Castle 100 years ago (according to the Colonial Dames).

What did New Castle's buildings and gardens look like in the Dutch period? Hints from views of New Amsterdam 1651-1660

History of the New Castle Library 1810 - 2010

FUN!! ?? History/Trivia Quiz (Twelve questions. We/others don't see your score!)

The Old Dutch Master who lived in Old New Castle

Oral history:   Agnes Hewlett Megginson, Hugh Ryan Jr., Althea Unthank Harmon, John Gambacorta, Frances Haut, John Ryan, Gladys Green Clark

Crane Hook Church 1667-1699: One of two Swedish Lutheran churches serving the entire Delaware valley

The Dike Uprising of 1675

1945 Aerial pictures from New Castle to Wilmington show land use 60 years ago.

NC-CHAP strategic plan

New Castle Quaker Meeting c1700

The Italian-American community in New Castle

New Castle downtown businesses of the past

Early postcards: Greetings from New Castle!,   Page 2, Deemer Beach

Origins of St. Peter's of New Castle

A Day in Old New Castle: programs from 1933 and 1940, and video of 1931 event!

New Castle Presbyterian Church history, graves, members since 1700

New Castle Methodist Church history, cemetery plan and members (1820)

Immanuel Church on the Green gravestone inscriptions

New Castle parcel map c1680

Where was Fort Casimir?

Historical American Buildings Survey High resolution images of New Castle in the 1930's from the Library of Congress

Photo gallery Early snapshots around town Page 2

Mother Goose came to New Castle (1965)

The Laird Yacht Basin -- Recollections of Irenee du Pont, Jr.

Views of New Castle from the water -- 1797 to 2005

in 1687

Hidden in Plain Sight -- Remains of the New Castle Gas Co.

Flags over Delaware in 1797
The le Blanc drawing of New Castle's Waterfront

The Cave -- a waterfront dive, figuratively, and maybe literally.

The Federal census 1800-1870 for New Castle



Archaeological Excavation At Avery's Rest, Rehoboth Beach, Delaware

POTS and PLATES ARCHAEOLOGY: A Ceramic Artifacts Identification Workshop
We joined Delaware archaeologists and our neighbors to learn more about ceramic and pottery artifacts from sites around town: How old items are, what they are, what they were used for, and how they were made.  Featured collections include from the Read House gardens, Ft. Casimir excavation and the Jarvis/Blair gardens.


Portraits -- Individual and Group.  In progress -- your contributions needed!

Resident's Recollections




Industry in New Castle:


Tasker Iron Works, Triton Cotton Mill, New Castle Manuf. Co,
Baldt & Brylgon Steel Mills, American Manganese, NVF
Wilmington Fibre, Amoco ....

Mysteries of the Dutch Tile House Pesentation: How to Research Historic Properties in New Castle (3mb pdf)

Williamsburg on the Delaware-- the renovation/reconstruction of New Castle proposed in 1947


Preservation Trades Network Workshop

Harbor Reconnaissance with Institute of Maritime History
Synopsis by Kurt Knoerl
Summary Report by David Howe (600 kb .pdf)
Full Report ( 5 mb .pdf file)


Contact:   james.l.meek[-at-symbol-] gmail.com; (302)-383-0994