Name: Along Delaware's Old Post Road
Brand: Ken Baumgardt
SKU: 9781467122733
Price: 17.49 USD
Availability: InStock

Along Delaware's Old Post Road

9781467122733

$24.99 $17.49 Save 30%

Along Delaware's Old Post Road: From Claymont to Iron Hill snakes through the Colonial towns of Claymont, Wilmington, Newport, Stanton, Christiana, and the Pencader Hundred portion of northern Delaware. This 13-mile route has different names, from Philadelphia Pike to Maryland Avenue to Old Baltimore Pike, but it is along this road that the State of Delaware has its earliest roots. The photographs of the people and places are mostly misty memories as the route grew from a narrow dirt road to a modern four-lane thoroughfare. From Cooch's Bridge at one end, where the only battle on Delaware soil was fought, to Archmere Academy at the northern end, the corridor has a largely forgotten place in history. Travelers now trace the same route once traversed by George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon as they rode into history.

Along the Kirkwood Highway

9781467121569

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The Kirkwood Highway is an almost six-mile portion of State Route 2 in New Castle County, Delaware. Built as a bypass of Marshallton after the opening of Delaware Park at Stanton in 1937, it was meant to provide Wilmington-area horse-racing fans a straighter and faster route to the track. It is named after a distinguished officer of the American Revolution, Robert Kirkwood Jr., who was born at his family's farm along Polly Drummond Hill Road in Newark in 1756. Since it opened to automobile traffic, the highway has undergone numerous renovations and the scenery along its route has changed dramatically. Today, it is the fifth-busiest roadway in the state and is lined by shopping centers, national retailers, fast-food and chain restaurants, gas stations, subdivisions, and historic sites. Through vintage photographs, Along the Kirkwood Highway takes a nostalgic look back at the travel corridor, its cross streets, and familiar sites along its path.

Delaware Lighthouses and Range Lights

9780738544199

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Delaware does not usually come to mind as one of America's great maritime states. Yet it has a long history of "firsts," innovations, and improvements in lighthouse construction and technology dating from the beginning of lighthouse history in the United States. One of the original six lighthouses built before the founding of this country was in Delaware. In the following years, major offshore lighthouses and an extensive system of range lights were established. At the height of its lighthouse history, Delaware had 27 manned light stations that warned mariners of the shoals and colliding currents at the mouth of the Delaware Bay and guided ships safely from the Atlantic Ocean to the inland ports of Wilmington and Philadelphia. Most of Delaware's lighthouses are gone now, preserved only in faded photographs and yellowed documents such as those collected here. The lights that remain struggle daily to survive the punishing hands of vandals and Mother Nature.

Fort Delaware

9780738585901

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Located on Pea Patch Island, Fort Delaware was erected to defend local ports from enemy attack but never received or fired a shot in anger. The first earthen-work version, constructed during the War of 1812, was followed by a second 1820s plan incorporating a masonry star design with a network of drainage ditches. Engineering issues and a low-lying site doomed the structure; in 1831, it was irreparably damaged by fire. A new plan created a more substantial fortification still standing to this day. Fort Delaware evolved into a well-established community that transformed from protector to notorious Civil War prison camp. Most widely known as a prison, it subsequently served in lesser roles through three more conflicts. Images of America: Fort Delaware unifies an amazing pictorial record of Fort Delaware's historical timeline. The story is not only of active duty but its rescue from abandonment and subsequent successful preservation work.

Fort DuPont

9780738588070

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Once a place of war, then a place of health, and finally, preservation, Fort DuPont has had a long and interesting history.

Fort DuPont is named in honor of Rear Admiral Samuel Francis Du Pont and located on the Reeden Point tract, land initially granted to Henry Ward in 1675. The first fortification built was the Ten Gun Battery during the Civil War, a heavily armed earthwork fortification dedicated to protecting the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal--as Sgt. Bishop Crumrine wrote in 1864, "These guns command the channel and could blow to atoms any vessel rash enough to attempt to pass.'? In the decades to follow, the battery at Delaware City was gradually modernized into a formidable military post that remained active through World War II. Declared surplus in post-war peacetime, the site reopened in 1948 as the Governor Bacon Health Center, and by 1996, over 300 acres were reestablished as Fort DuPont State Park.

Fort Miles

9780738541952

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Fort Miles is in Cape Henlopen State Park near historic Lewes and the site of Delaware's first Dutch settlement. Named for Gen. Nelson Appleton Miles, this powerful seacoast fortification was built during World War II to defend the vital industries of the Delaware Valley. Included in this volume are rare vintage photographs of the fort's heavy artillery, hundreds of 3,000-pound sea mines, and radar systems that searched the nearby ocean for the enemy surface fleet. Its powerful 12- and 16-inch guns could reach out between 15 and 25 miles to attack an adversary. Today, the fort is being reborn as one of the best World War II museums in the country; it is housed in a real World War II bunker and includes the barracks complex and fire control towers.

Photographs from the Newark Historical Society

9781467107167

$23.99 $16.79 Save 30%

Newark was founded primarily as a farming community of Scots-Irish, English, and Welsh immigrants in the early 1700s near the intersection of two Native American trails. Since that time, Newark has transformed into a bustling college town that still maintains a small-town feel. The 1767 arrival of the academy founded by Francis Alison inspired the town's growth, and the small academy eventually grew into the University of Delaware. The arrival of industries, particularly along White Clay Creek, also helped encourage Newark's growth into the third-largest city in the state. By the early 20th century, Main Street emerged as the retail center of town. Many of the images included here depict some of the early businesses that served Newark residents and document the shift from horse-drawn carriages to automobiles as well as the expansion of the University of Delaware.