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Cooch House (Delaware Postcard Collection, University of Delaware Library, Newark, Del) -
(Photograph by Matthew Aungst) -
(Photograph by Matthew Aungst)
In 1746, miller Thomas Cooch bought the property with its early iron furnace, only the third in British America. The nearby road bridge (1922) stands on the site of the colonial one that saw the only Revolutionary War battle fought in Delaware, the Battle of Cooch's Bridge. Lord Cornwallis was headquartered in the Cooch House following the September 1777 skirmish. Cooch, a leading patriot who was then eighty years old, had fled to Pennsylvania before the armies arrived. A monument (1901, 1932) and four Civil War cannons (1863) commemorate the fight—according to legend, the first conflict in which the Stars and Stripes flew. The brick house was originally two stories high, but was later raised one story and stuccoed. A porch of four fluted Doric columns overlooks the creek. The slender columns of the small, gabled side porch are said to have come from the old colonial front porch and were, according to tradition, originally ship masts. Owner Edward W. Cooch, later lieutenant governor, had Wilmington architect Edward Canby May install Colonial Revival stairs inside (1919–1920), although in a different location from the original ones. Several outbuildings survive, including some of board-and-batten construction. Edward Cooch's son still occupies this oasis of green just south of I-95 and has placed the land in a conservation easement.