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A Walking Tour of Middletown, Delaware
Middletown, Delaware, located about 24 miles south of Wilmington, is an early crossroads town, one of the old Delaware towns not existing on a navigable waterway. It was originally a tavern stop about half-way on the old cart road that extends across the peninsula between Appoquinimink Creek in Odessa and Bohemia Landing on the eastern branch of the Bohemia River in Maryland; thus the name, “Middletown.”
Oxen pulled carts loaded with produce and materials between the ports of Cantwell’s Bridge (Odessa) and Bohemia Landing. This was the shortest route from the Atlantic Ocean to the Chesapeake Bay before the construction of the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal.
In 1675, Adam Peterson took on warrants for the land which later became the town of Middletown, the first survey being made in 1678. Later, his widow married David Witherspoon, a native of Londonderry, Ireland, and they settled upon the King’s Highway at the crossroads, first known as Mrs. Blackston’s Corner.
Middletown was incorporated on February 12, 1861. The first town council decided the town should be one mile square, commencing at the corner of the crossroads and extending one-half mile in each direction. Thus it was known as the “Diamond Town of the Diamond State.” As the town has grown, its boundaries have extended in each direction.
Due to its rapid growth in the second half of the nineteenth century as a railroad town and market center, Middletown has one of the best collections of Victorian architecture in Delaware. Large, distinctive Victorian houses are found along North and South Broad Streets and on Cass Street, three blocks west of North Broad Street. Although displaying the Italianate and Second Empire traits of Victorian buildings, the buildings of Middletown are restrained by Delaware architectural conservatism, rooted in long-term dedication to the earlier classically inspired colonial styles.
Our walking tour will begin at the crossroads known to travelers on the Delmarva Peninsula for over 300 years...
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