Leipsic
RG# 6110 A settlement, known initially as Fast Landing, was formed at the first fast landing in the Leipsic River in the late eighteenth century. It became a shipping center with lumber, grain, oysters, and many agricultural products shipped from its wharves. By 1814, due to its highly successful muskrat pelt industry, it had […]
Laurel
RG# 7130 Before Mason and Dixon’s survey established the boundary between Delaware and Maryland, the location on the Broad Creek which would become Laurel was claimed by Maryland. In 1789, Barkley Townsend laid out 32 lots at Broad Creek Wading Place, an Indian settlement which had been abandoned, selling them to tradesmen. Ten years […]
Kenton
RG# 6090 At the intersection of the road from Dover to the upper eastern shore of Maryland with the road leading from Smyrna to the lower eastern shore, a village formed in the late eighteenth century when a man named Phillip Lewis began to lay out town lots. By 1806, the village, which had been […]
Houston
RG# 6080 Houston, a town of less than a half square mile, was named for John W. Houston, a lawyer and politician from Georgetown who was Delaware’s Secretary of State from 1841-1844. 1900 – 1949 The Town was first incorporated in 1913 as “The Commissioners of Houston.” Its corporate boundary was originally a […]
Henlopen Acres
RG# 7120 W.S. Corkran, an architect and engineer, purchased three tracts of land in Lewes and Rehoboth Hundred and in 1930 deeded the land to a corporation called Henlopen Acres, Inc., whose purpose was to develop a resort residential community and of which he remained a principal. The elliptically-shaped development was bounded by the […]
Georgetown
RG# 7100 Once the dispute was settled which determined the boundary lines for Sussex County, the citizens of the newly-defined county would soon petition for the county seat to be moved to a more central location. In January 1791, An ACT for removing the Seat of Justice from Lewes to a more central part […]
Dover
RG# 6100 In 1683, William Penn first introduced the idea of a town to be called Dover as the court town for Kent County. However, it was not until 1717 that a plot was laid out for streets, squares, and lots. By 1722, a courthouse was built on the square (now known as The […]
Arden
RG# 5000 1900 – 1949 The Village of Arden was founded in 1900 as a single tax community based on the economic philosophy of , as well as the Arts and Crafts movement of and the Garden City movement of . The communal land, such as the woods and greens, is owned by the […]
Greenwood
RG# 7110 In 1858, the north-south track of the Delaware Railroad between Harrington and Bridgeville was laid out through the lands of Simeon Pennewell. There was a village a few miles to the east, but Pennewell saw the opportunity that the railroad presented and laid out streets and town lots centered on the railroad […]
Frankford
RG# 7090 In 1808, when a country store was opened at the headwaters of Vines Branch, a tributary of the Indian River Bay, it spurred further development in the area and in 1848, a post office was established at this location which was called Frankford Village. By the time that it became a station […]
