This historic little community was long called “Cantwell's Bridge” for a toll bridge built in 1731 over the Appoquinimink River, a name that the town's twentieth-century benefactor, H. Rodney Sharp, always preferred. “Odessa” was applied in 1855 as appropriate to the town's prosperity in...
Unusual in Delaware for having been founded away from any navigable river, Middletown coalesced at an early crossroads, a tavern stop at the “middle” of the Delmarva Peninsula, halfway between landings on the Appoquinimink River on the east and the Bohemia River, Maryland, on the...
“Where the wheat fields break and billow, In the peaceful land of Kent,” goes the state song, “Our Delaware” (c. 1906). In this rural heart of the state, bounded by the Smyrna River on the north and the Mispillion on the south, small towns lie amidst big farm fields and roads intersect...
Originally called Duck Creek Crossroads, where two colonial highways intersected and grain could be shipped by water, the town became Smyrna in 1806. Its architecture is unusually rich, with good examples of colonial and nineteenth-century buildings side-by-side in picturesque groupings...
At first called Mifflin's Crossroads, Camden was established in 1783 and grew rapidly, as attested by the many fine brick houses of Georgian derivation just starting to turn Federal in style. There are so many of these dwellings, one can find motifs that repeat, including stucco scored...
This small community on the Murderkill River, originally settled in colonial days, is dense with old houses crowded up against each other and pressing close to the streets. Its nineteenth-century shipbuilding industry and twentieth-century canneries are a distant memory. Hardly...
“Clark's Corner” developed in the eighteenth century and became a railroad link in the 1850s. Renamed Harrington in 1862, the town was a key downstate junction, and, as late as 1960, the railroad remained the top employer. By that time, the automobile was fast supplanting trains, and...
The sinuous Mispillion River bisects Milford, Delaware's fourth-largest incorporated town, subdivided by Joseph Oliver out of his farm in 1787. By agreement, Reverend Sydenham Thorne—a founder of the Episcopal church in the United States—simultaneously built a dam and wharves at his...
Rich with colonial associations, Dover was established along the St. Jones River by William Penn in 1683, though not actually laid out until 1717, following Penn's original plan for the town. The second largest city in Delaware (32,100 population in the year 2000), it has served as state...
For the purposes of this book, Sussex County is divided in two by U.S. 113, which runs in a north-south direction. Historically, Sussex was quite southern in flavor, as befits its location, lying almost entirely below the latitude of Washington, D.C. It was rather isolated,...
First named in 1807, this town on the Broadkill River (pop. 1,657) grew quickly into a trading center with several shipyards and many grist and saw mills. The town prided itself on its Academy and on being the home of five governors (four of Delaware and one of Wyoming). Eighteen...
The village was established in 1791 when Sussex County moved its seat here from Lewes, seeking a more central location, albeit one “16 miles from anywhere,” as an early account had it, and landlocked. The town's grid plan was laid out around a central circle (The Circle, ES5) and...
Sometimes called the “The Nation's Summer Capital” for its many visitors from Washington, D.C., the town had just 1,495 residents in 2000, but its population regularly soars to 25,000 on summer weekends. It was founded as a Methodist camp-meeting resort in 1872 and grew steadily...
The state song “Our Delaware” (c. 1906) celebrates “Dear old Sussex … of the holly and the pine”—Coastal Plain flora abundant in the swampy woods of the western half of the county, culminating in the great Cypress Swamp between Gumboro and Selbyville. Huge bald cypresses...
Long noted for its canneries, Bridgeville (pop. 1,436) still has a factory that makes scrapple. A gray, rock-faced cement brick was popular here and elsewhere in Sussex County in the early twentieth century, the railroad allowing easy distribution of such products. Several houses of...
Largest incorporated town in Sussex County and the fifth-largest in Delaware, this community on the Nanticoke River once shipped fruit, oysters, and shad. Early photographs show the riverbanks lined with frame oyster houses (where shelling took place), boat yards, and canneries (for...
Old frame houses stand close to the twisting streets of Laurel (pop. 3,668), which radiate irregularly from the town center, elevated above Broad Creek. Land speculator Barkley Townsend, whose house still stands at 108 Oak Street, laid out Laurel Town at an Indian “wading place” in 1789...
Water defines the Florida peninsula and has an impact on nearly every aspect of its architectural legacy. The special form of carbonate limestone that undergirds nearly everything built on the peninsula was created starting around 65 million years ago by marine organisms whose remnants...
In terms of land mass, Georgia is the largest state east of the Mississippi River. It features a varied geography ranging from the coastal barrier islands and marshes (the so-called Golden Isles), to the Okefenokee Swamp (the largest, intact freshwater and blackwater wilderness swamp in North America...
Few cities in America enjoy so distinctive an urban identity as Savannah, with its squares and broad streets, its trees and bordering marshes, and its remarkable state of preservation. Yet it is also a place marked by paradox....
Until the 1850s, what is now considered downtown Savannah constituted the entire city. Although the growth of suburban neighborhoods since that time has attracted most of the city’s residents, the downtown area is remarkable for...
Savannah’s historic riverfront straddles a forty-foot bluff creating a unique ensemble of buildings, cobbled ramps, stone retaining walls, terraced lanes, and more than forty iron and wooden bridges. The row of...
This area is the oldest planned part of the city. The colonial town established by James Oglethorpe comprised six virtually identical wards, with Johnson Square in Derby Ward being slightly larger than the other...
Known as Upper New Ward when laid out in 1734, Anson Ward honors Lord George Anson, the Admiral of the Fleet in the English navy assigned to protect the Carolina and Georgia coasts in the 1720s and 1730s. The...
Since the founding of Savannah in 1733, Broughton Street has served as the principal commercial corridor of the downtown area, a remarkable fact given how frequently commercial districts migrate in cities. Of the...
In 1791 the newly formed municipal government began expanding Savannah’s colonial town plan by adding two new wards—Warren and Washington—to the east of the northernmost row of wards,...
The ten-acre garden created by the Georgia Trustees for “Incouraging and Improving Botany and Agriculture” was described by Francis Moore in 1735 as “cleared and brought into such Order that there is already a...
Washington Ward and its square honor George Washington, who came to Savannah in 1791 on his “Southern Tour.” During the nineteenth century, the ward had a working-class demographic with a large Irish population...
The patriotic theme in the naming of squares and wards continued in the three wards of 1799: Liberty, Columbia, and Greene. The personification of the United States as Columbia had gained currency with the newly...
