DELAWARE STREET NAMES
In numerous early Indentures for property fronting on present Delaware
Street between present Second Street and the Strand, Delaware Street
ss called "the Thwart Street". "the highway to the house of James
Crawford" (1675). "street from the river to the market". "the market
street", "street to market" and "the street to the Court House"
(earliest date for this not yet determined). Indentures for
properties west of present Second Street call Delaware Street "the
street opposite the market". "the street opposite the green", "the
merchant street", "the high street". "the market street". "the High
Street alias Wood Street" and finally "Wood Street". The eastern end
is not referred to as Wood Street until much later. Minutes of the
commission appointed 1797 to survey the streets show that present
Second Street between Delaware and Harmony was also called Wood
Street so that Wood Street ran from Harmony to Delaware and there
turned west until It became "the highway leading into the woods" or
the "main highway" or the "King's Road." at some point beyond Fourth
Street, and also the "street that goes to Maryland."
During the whole of the eighteenth century and most of the
nineteenth century, the buildings on Delaware Street west of Second
Street were either dwellings or inns. An exception was the William
B. Janvier property, #208, which was built as a large dwelling with
store, replacing an earlier small brick dwelling during the first
quarter of the nineteenth century; and except also that the "large
brick house" (Hotel Louise) for some years between 1694 and 1723 had
a merchant's store In or attached to it. All of the original
buildings on this part of Delaware Street, of which there s record,
were built of brick. The temporary frame offices or stores on the
Booth house and Hotel Louise properties were late nineteenth century.
The original houses on the north side of Third Street the Hotel Louise
faced Third (Minquas) running back to Fourth. Drawings in early indentures
and a court case in 1682 prove this. Also they were of wood, log or frame,
until a brick house on the southwest corner of Third and Delaware is
mentioned In an denture about 1735. (There may be earlier mention not yet
