Delaware Children’s Theater
NC-207: Originally Installed in 2014. Plans for this colonial revival-style structure were drawn by Philadelphia architect Minerva Parker Nichols, one of the first female architects in the United States. Construction of the building, which features electric components as well as the Palladian windows and gambrel roof associated with Nichols’ work, began in 1892. After its […]
Newark Passenger Railroad Station
NC-206: Originally Installed in 2014. Designed by architect and engineer S.T. Fuller, the Newark Passenger Railroad Station was built in 1877 at a cost of over $9,000.00 by the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad (P.W. & B.) to replace an earlier frame building. An article published in the Railroad Gazette on April 26, 1878, offered […]
Public School #111C (Village of Christiana)
NC-205: Originally Installed in 2014. Formal education for African American children in Christiana began in the 1880s with the construction of a one-room schoolhouse. Many African American schools in existence at this time were marked by dilapidated facilities, a lack of running water, insufficient lighting, and poor heating sources. In an effort to remedy these […]
William Montgomery House
NC-204: Originally Installed in 2014. A stone on the facade inscribed with the initials “I.M” and a date of “1789” suggests that construction of this dwelling occurred during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, a period of early industrialization in Delaware. Evidence of a stone house on this property does not appear until tax […]
Poplar Hall
NCC-203: James Boulden the Elder and his family moved to Delaware from Maryland in the mid-18th century, amassing wealth and expanding their land ownership in Pencader Hundred as the century progressed. The two-story brick mansion house was built during this time period and is a strong representation of Gregorian architecture. A service wing erected between […]
Blackbird School (District No. 69)
NC-202: Originally Installed in 2014. The passage of the Public School Law of 1829 brought free public education to Delaware and divided the state into many small districts overseen by county superintendents. Blackbird District No. 69 was first noted in the record of an Annual Meeting on October 3, 1835. The first schoolhouse was […]
Blue Rock Community Club
NC-201: Originally installed on 6/5/2014. Established in 1917 as part of the esteemed General Federation of Women’s Clubs, The Blue Rock Community Club (BRCC) provided an important social and service-oriented outlet for women. Beginning with just 11 founding members, the Club became an anchor within Brandywine Hundred. Prior to the clubhouse construction in […]
Mother Union American Methodist Episcopal Church
NC-200: Originally Installed in 2014. Established in 1813 by free African American Peter Spencer, the Union Church of Africans was the first independent African American religious denomination in the United States. After leaving Ashbury Methodist Episcopal Church to start Elon Methodist Church in 1805, Spencer broke with the Methodist Episcopal denomination completely in 1812 due […]
The “Annie Oakleys”: First Armed Female Prison Guards in the United States
Completed in 1901, the New Castle County Workhouse at Greenbank was the first penal institution in the United States to employ armed female guards. Nicknamed “Annie Oakleys” for their excellent shooting ability with the machine guns and rifles they carried, the women were first introduced to the Workhouse in 1943 as a solution to the […]
Hockessin Friends Meetinghouse
NC-198: Originally Installed in 2013. The Hockessin Friends Meeting has operated with an active membership and regular services, known as Meetings for Worship since its founding. The Meeting is part of the larger Philadelphia Yearly Meeting faith community. The expansion of the Religious Society of Friends in the Mill Creek Hundred during the 1730s […]
